Postglacial Foraging in the Forests of Europe

Author(s): Marek Zvelebil

Source: Scientific American , Vol. 254, No. 5 (May 1986), pp. 104-115
Published by: Scientific American, a division of Nature America, Inc.
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/24975957

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 Postglacial Foraging
in the Forests of Europe
Hunting-and-gathering is often thought of as little more than the
prelude to agriculture. A reevaluation suggests it was a parallel
development that was as productive as early farming in some areas

by Marek Zvelebil

}\ out 10,000 years ago the ice that

had covered much of Europe
tivity of the postglacial foragers have
come into sharper focus. It has become
shall employ a broad geographic defi­
nition of the forest zone rather than the
and Asia for many millenniums clear that in favorable environments strict ecological one. For my purpos­
began to melt rapidly. As the ice re­ hunting-and-gathering was capable of es the forest zone covers most of Eu­
treated, new environments came into supporting populations much denser rope north of a latitude of 40 degrees.
being in northern Eurasia. Steppe and than was previously thought. In some (The 40th degree of latitude extends
tundra, which had been common dur­ areas foragers lived relatively seden­ through central Spain, southern Italy,
ing the Pleistocene ice age, were colo­ tary lives in permanent settlements the Aegean peninsula and northern
nized by forests made up of coniferous where a developed culture and the ele­ Turkey before reaching the Caspian
and deciduous trees. In the newly for­ ments of social differentiation were Sea.) One of the most significant fea­
ested regions a new way of life arose. present. Such communities did not tures of the region so defined is that
During the Ice Age the inhabitants readily adopt farming. It has become during the post-Pleistocene many of its
of northern Eurasia had lived largely clear that in parts of northern Europe resources were concentrated near bod­
on big game, which they hunted across the advent of agriculture was long de­ ies of water: rivers, lakes and seas.
the frozen steppe. The forest that re­ layed and that the hunting-and-gather­ Another important facet of the ecol­
placed the steppe was a complex eco­ ing bands took up farming only when ogy of the forest zone was the fact that
system containing a much richer mix­ crises resulting from climatic changes the quantity of available resources
ture of edible plants and animals, and forced them to do so. The stubborn fluctuated dramatically with time. The
the postglacial hunting-and-gathering persistence of foraging long after it fluctuations were of several types. One
bands exploited the new abundance "should" have disappeared is one of type was long-term and came from the
fully, gathering plant foods, waterfowl the qualities that is contributing to a ecological structure of the Eurasian
and small game in addition to big­ fundamental reassessment of postgla­ forest itself. The food chain there was
game species. cial hunting-and-gathering. I think that dominated by species such as reindeer,
The postglacial foraging way of life when the reassessment is complete, hare and game birds, which feed on
lasted until it was replaced by agricul­ foraging in the postglacial forests will plants and in turn provide food for
ture, a transformation that took place be considered a development parallel predators such as bears and lynx.
in northern Europe about 5,000 years with agriculture and one that, for a Many of these lower species were op­
ago. Traditionally the five-millennium time at least, was equally viable as a portunistic (in the zoological sense).
period between the retreat of the gla­ means of subsistence. Because they breed quickly and have
ciers and the introduction of farming large litters, their populations tend to

T
has been considered a humble inter­ he Eurasian forest zone, to which increase rapidly if more food becomes
lude. It was thought that hunting-and­ the new conclusions apply, is by available. If the prey species increase,
gathering was a crude mode of subsist­ no means ecologically uniform. In the so do the predators. Often the end re­
ence, capable of supporting only small north the forests consist mainly of sult is a "crash" in the population of
groups that had to be constantly on coniferous species. In more temperate prey. The presence of many opportun­
the move to eke out a living from the latitudes deciduous species prevail, or istic lower species undoubtedly led to
forest. In the traditional view hunt­ a mixture of deciduous and coniferous unpredictable and extreme variations
ing-and-gathering offered little compe­ species. The distribution of these com­ in the food resources available to hunt­
tition to farming as a mode of life. ponents has changed considerably dur­ ing-and-gathering groups.
Therefore, it was thought, agriculture ing the climatic fluctuations of the past The second type of fluctuation,
spread rapidly from the Near East 10,000 years. At the time of the flower­ which is more predictable and has a
to the forested regions of Europe, ing of postglacial hunting-and-gather­ shorter term, is the variation that ac­
brought by colonizing farmers or ing societies the forest zone extended companies the cycle of the seasons.
adopted by foraging bands who were farther north than it does today. Some Forests in the northern Temperate
quick to see its potential for improving areas that are now grassland or semi­ Zone are highly seasonal places. The
their dreary circumstances. desert were then covered by forest­ type and quantity of food available
Recently that view has begun to steppe and woodland. varies sharply from season to season.
change as the complexity and produc- To take account of such variation I Much of the variation is due to the

104
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fact that some of the most significant
sources of food are migratory, includ­
ing many species of waterfowl and
such anadromous fishes as salmon,
which return every year from the
ocean to breed in the streams where
they were born. The pattern of mi­
gration implies that some species are
available only for brief periods of the
year, which tend to be in the spring and
the fall. At other times of the year,
particularly the coldest part of winter,
food can be very scarce.
How did the postglacial inhabitants
of Europe cope with such variability?
One possible answer to the question
might have been agriculture. Agricul­
ture, however, was not initially an op­
tion for the inhabitants of the forest
zone. The reason is that agriculture, as
developed in the Near East, relies on
both farming and animal husbandry.
Those practices in turn depend on the
presence of a combination of species
that can be domesticated: plants to be
cultivated and animals to be herded. In
the Near East cereals provided the ba­
sis of farming and sheep and goats did
the same for husbandry. The northern
forest zone lacked such a propitious
combination. Some species could be
domesticated, but they tended to occur
in isolation and not as part of the range
of species that was needed to make ag­
riculture possible.

Y
et agriculture is only one strategy
for increasing the yield of resour­
ces and overcoming the inherent insta­
bility of the environment. Other strate­
gies are possible, and what they share
with agriculture is an increased invest­
ment of labor power in obtaining food.
For example, the increased invest­
ment, which is called intensification,
might begin with the accumulation of
much knowledge of the life cycle of
a particular species. Based on that
knowledge special methods might be
developed for capturing the prey. In
this way a food species might be man­
aged so that yields are increased with­
out full domestication.

SLATE OBJECT witb tbe bead of an elk

comes from a site near tbe village of Nis­
kala in nortbern Finland. Tbe beautifully
striated object waS carved in tbe third mil­
lennium B.C. by a member of a late Stone
Age bunting.and.gatbering band. Some ar·
cbaeologists believe tbe artifact was a knife,
but tbe autbor bolds tbat its function was
mainly social: possessing it was a means of
increasing one's social status. Late in tbe
postglacial period sucb status objects ap­
peared widely in the forests of Europe,
wbicb may indicate a beigbtening of social
competition witbin tbe foraging groups Iiv·
ing tbere. Tbe elk·beaded object is in tbe col­
lection of tbe National Museum in Helsinki.

105

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 The archaeological record suggests
that such specialization was the strate­
gy of intensification adopted by many
postglacial groups. The organisms
they specialized on were generally
aquatic because the trend toward spe­
cialization took place in the context of
an overall shift from the resources of
the land to those of the water. Early in
the postglacial period the main sources
of food at most sites were ungulates,
such as deer or wild cattle, and other
large game. Later in postglacial times
there was a tendency toward the es­
tablishment of specialized sites where
a significant fraction of the diet was
made up of one or a few species. Gen­
erally those species were aquatic: fish,
shellfish, migratory waterfowl or such
marine mammals as the seal. The shift
to aquatic resources did not take place
simultaneously throughout the Eur­
asian forests. In the southern Urals its
beginnings can be detect(:d among re­
mains dating from between 7000 and
5000 B.C.; in the Danube gorges of
Yugoslavia the corresponding date is
about 5500 B.C.; in peninsular Scandi­
EURASIAN FOREST ZONE, where complex foraging cultures arose, includes several navia, 4000 B.C., and in the eastern Bal­
components. Much of northern Europe and Asia is covered by coniferous forests, deciduous tic region, 3000 B.C.
forests or forests made up of a mixture of the two types (color). The northern part of that
The Pitted Ware culture of southern
zone is covered by forests made up solely of conifers (hatched area). The extent of conifer­
Sweden provides a good example of a
ous forest and the extent of the overall forest zone have both fluctuated considerably in
specialized economy. The Pitted Ware
the past 10,000 years. Partly for that reason the author has chosen to employ a broad defini­
tion of the forest zone that includes most of Europe north of the 40th degree of latitude. groups, which flourished along the
Swedish coasts during the third millen­
nium B.C., lived mainly on the ringed
seal. Several significant cultural adap­
tations improved the efficiency with
which these groups hunted seals and
used the seal catch. Pitted Ware hunt­
ers had a highly developed harpoon
technology, which made a kill likely
if the seal was within range. After the
hunt seal oil and blubber were stored
in large clay jars that may have been
designed specifically for that purpose.
Even the location of the Pitted Ware
communities reflected the specializa­
tion on seals. Ringed seals are hunted
in the spring on the coastal ice where
they bear their young, and the settle­
ments were built near coves and other
natural coastal features that provide
easy access to the seal lairs.
The Pitted Ware culture exemplifies
several essential features of the spe­
cialist strategy. Maximizing the catch
during the brief period the prey is
available often implies developing
specialized tools, such as the harpoon
technology of the Pitted Ware hunters.
Specialized tools generally take longer
to make and repair than general-pur­
pose tools, but that work cannot be
DISTRIBUTION OF RESOURCES in the forest zone is uneven: animals and plants that
done during the prime hunting season.
provide food are concentrated near bodies of water. In northern and western Europe the
Hence for specialists the budgeting of
richest areas are near the Atlantic Ocean (color). Within that region the most productive
time becomes crucial: blocks of time
areas are found along certain coastlines (dark color). In eastern Europe resources are concen­
trated in the basins of the Volga, the Dnieper and the Dniester as well as in the valleys of for tool maintenance must be found in
the Po and the Danube (gray). The rich resources available in these areas provided the ba­ the slack periods before and after the
sis for complex foraging cultures, which became specialized for exploiting aquatic species. "harvest." Moreover, if the catch from

106
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 with it tools intended for ever narrow­
er tasks, the strategy of diversification
required tools that could be applied
with equal efficiency to many tasks.
Such a technology was soon devel­
oped, and its most important compo­
nent was a type of small stone blade
called a microlith. Microliths, which
are found at almost all postglacial
sites, are generally between one and
r- two centimeters long. Their shape var­
r r ies from trapezoidal to triangular to
lunate (half-moon-shaped). Microliths
�: were made by breaking up a larger
blade, which was often of flint. After
I,,;: i,i
being broken from the larger blade, the
sliver of stone was worked into the de­
sired shape. Once shaped, the stone
was often embedded in a handle of
wood, antler or bone. The great virtues
of the microlithic technology were the
ease with which it could be repaired
and its versatility. A blade could eas­
ily be removed from its handle and
sharpened or replaced by a new blade.
In this way a hunting party might re­
equip itself in the midst of a hunt on
sighting an unexpected quarry.
Indeed, the capacity for retooling
during the hunt may well have been at
the heart of the advantages of the mi­
crolithic technology. Microlithic tech­
nology was probably employed in situ­
JAN FEB MAR APR MAY JUN JUL AUG SEP OCT NOV DEC
ations where hunters set out in search
BUDGETING OF TIME among hunter-gatherers is quite different in the Eurasian forest of food without having a specific type
zone than it is in the Tropics. In each panel the area of the gray bars corresponds to time of prey in mind. If game was sighted,
spent preparing tools and the area within the colored line corresponds to time spent forag­ the small stone blades could in a very
ing. In a hypothetical tropical environment (upper panel) the amount of food available does short time be reshaped for capturing
not fluctuate much, and so tool preparation can be spread through the year. In a hypotheti­
that prey. Thus microlithic technolo­
cal forest environment (lower panel) the amount of food fluctuates greatly with the seasons.
gy, which required a relatively small
Tool preparation must be concentrated in slack periods so that during the periods of peak
availability the maximum amount of time can be spent foraging. Such a pattern encourages
investment of labor, was well suited to
the development of specialized tools to increase the yield of prey during the peak period. situations where the type and quantity
of game are unpredictable. In contrast,
the specialized technology, which re­
a brief period is to provide a large frac­ Eurasian Upper Paleolithic groups re­ quired a considerable investment of
tion of the diet for an extended peri­ lied on a few species of big game, such labor time, was much better suited to
od, storage is crucial. The Pitted Ware as reindeer, wild horses and woolly situations where resources recur in a
culture was only one of many postgla­ mammoths. Early in the postglacial predictable pattern.
cial foraging groups that had reliable period that narrow range was great­ Although the specialized tools and
methods for storing food. ly augmented. The Maglemosian cul­ the multipurpose ones operated on
ture, named for the Danish peat bog different principles, it should not be

S
pecialized technology, particularly in which the original cultural remains thought they were contradictory. In­
when combined with methods for were found, offers a good example of deed, it appears they complemented
storing food, helped to stabilize the diversification. During the eighth and each other nicely. The strategy of di­
food supply. Yet the specialist strate­ seventh millenniums B.C. the Magle­ versification (carried out with micro­
gy was not without risks. Specifically, mosian culture stretched across east­ lithic technology) reduced the risks
concentrating on one source of food ern Britain, the North Sea basin (which inherent in the specialized strategy.
rendered the group vulnerable to any was then dry), Denmark, northern Po­ By combining the two approaches, a
fluctuation in the population of that land and the eastern Baltic region. The postglacial group could have ensured
species. Because of the instability of people of the Maglemosian culture fed an adequate and reasonably reliable
the forest environment, in the long on large game such as aurochs (wild food supply.
term the popUlation of any species was cattle), red deer, roe deer and wild pigs. Physical evidence for this hypothe­
likely to fluctuate. One solution was They caught fish, including pike and sis has come from many postglacial
to diversify the diet by expanding the salmon. They hunted seals and migra­ sites where specialized tools and mi­
range of plants and animals that were tory birds along with small game such croliths have been found side by side.
exploited for food. as hare and beaver. They also exploit­ One example is Star Carr in north­
Diversification accentuated the con­ ed a variety of plants as foods, includ­ eastern England, which was the site of
trast between the postglacial foragers ing hazelnuts, water chestnuts and in a Maglemosian community. Digging
and their Upper Paleolithic predeces­ some areas even water lilies. there in the 1950's, Grahame Clark
sors of the Pleistocene ice age. Many As the specialist strategy brought of the University of Cambridge uncov-

108
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 ered about 200 barbed antler spear­ the society. We found that status var­
points next to microlithic tools. One ied along several social dimensions.
plausible interpretation is that the The first dimension was wealth. Three
barbed antler points were used for kill­ groups could be distinguished on the
ing game such as elk or deer at their basis of the ornaments recovered from
seasonal peak, and that the microlithic their graves. Many of the ornaments
weapons were used for hunting expedi­ are necklaces made from animal teeth,
tions where the prey could not have and the type of teeth can serve as an in­
been predicted easily and any one of dex of material wealth. The graves of
a broad range of species might have the wealthiest group contained neck­
been encountered. laces made of the most precious com­
modity: bear teeth. An intermediate

T he amalgam of specialized tactics group were buried with necklaces

and diversified ones proved to be made of beaver incisors or elk teeth.
highly effective in damping the oscilla­ The poorest group were buried with
tions of the forest zone. Perhaps the no ornaments at all.
best evidence that the food supply had
become more reliable comes from the At least two other forms of social dif­
postglacial residential sites, which of­ f\. ferentiation were evident among
ten appear to be as permanent and the graves at Deer Island. One is the
complex as early farming villages. In­ existence of special roles within the
deed, some of the sites, such as Sarnate community. One set of graves, occu­
in Latvia, would seem to have been pied exclusively by male skeletons,
occupied throughout the year. At oth­ contained rich deposits of bone spear­
er sites excavators have found the re­ points but no other artifacts. These
mains of dwellings with floors, built­ would seem to be the remains of men
in hearths, storage facilities and parti­ who had special responsibilities as
tions for dividing the internal space. hunters conferred on them by the com­
Such structures are far removed from munity. Another set of graves, which
the usual picture of hunting-and-gath­ contained an unusual abundance of or­
ering life. Their relative permanence naments, may have belonged to spe­
suggests a fundamental change had cialists in ritual. Unlike the ordinary
taken place in the lives of some forag­ members of the community (who were
ers. Rather than moving constantly in buried lying flat in horizontal graves),
search of food, the group now stayed the putative ritual specialists were
in one place for much (if not all) of the interred in vertical shaft graves. Fur­
year, sending small parties into the sur­ thermore, some distinctions of wealth
rounding territory to carry out specif­ and status appear to have been passed
ic hunting or gathering tasks. from generation to generation, as is
Along with greater residential per­ shown by the presence of graves con­
manence came social developments taining impressive burial equipment
that ultimately lifted the foraging along with the skeletons of children.
groups beyond the rudimentary social The conclusion that postglacial for­
level that is generally attributed to aging societies underwent a process of
hunting-and-gathering communities. social differentiation that lifted them
One of those developments was the above the egalitarian level is rein­
emergence of distinctions in wealth, forced by some evidence that is quite
power and status among members of generally distributed throughout the
the community. Social differentiation forest zone. The northern forests are
is best observed in the postglacial cem­ replete with objects carved of wood,
eteries, of which some 20 have now bone or stone dating from the postgla­
been excavated in Europe. The largest cial period. The subjects most often
and the richest of them is Oleneostrov­ depicted are forest animals, such as
BARBED SPEARPOINT made of antIer ski Mogilnik (Deer Island Cemetery) elk or bear, or waterfowl; anthropo­
was a specialized tool. It was found at Star morphic figurines are also found. One
on Lake Onega in northern Russia.
Carr in northern England. Early in postgla­
Deer Island, which dates from the intriguing aspect of the carvings is
cial times Star Carr was the site of a commu­
sixth millennium B.C., was excavated that as the postglacial period went on
nity of the Maglemosian culture. Its mem­
bers may well have used the spearpoint for
by Nina Nikolaevna Gurina of the more of them were made and they
hunting elk or deer, among other large game. Institute of Archaeology in Lenin­ were more widely distributed through­
In the Vale of Pickering in Yorkshire, where grad in the 1950's. Recently John M. out the forested regions.
Star Carr is situated, the peak hunting sea­ O'Shea of the University of Michigan For the most part these carvings had
son for those species probably caine during and I analyzed the findings from Deer no clear utilitarian application. Their
the winter. Such seasonality made deer and Island to see what they could tell us function seems to have been social: in
elk prime candidates for hunting with spe­ about social differentiation. a culture without money, beautifully
cialized tools. Specialized tools, which re­
O'Shea and I were particularly inter­ carved objects, which required consid­
quire considerable preparation, are used
ested in the distribution of artifacts erable time and skill to make, served as
most efficiently for exploiting resources
that appear predictably but briefly and of­
among the graves. We wanted to know tokens of value. Having them in one's
fer the potential of high yields. The barbed whether the distribution was unequal possession was impressive to other
antler point is in the collection of the Ro­ and was systematic enough to indicate members of the group. Barbara Ben­
tunda Museum at Scarborough in England. the existence of status groups within der of University College London has

110
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MICROLITHS are fragments of stone that were sharpened and set chip from the handle and reshape it, thereby reequipping himself
into bone, wood or antler handles. The microliths shown here come for killing a wide range of game. Microlithic technology was prob­
from Deercar in Yorkshire. They were made in the eighth or early ably employed when a hunting party set out without a particular
seventh millennium H.C. Such small blades, which are found at al­ prey in mind. It complemented the specialized technology, which
most all postglacial sites, were the main component of a multipur­ was appropriate for carefully planned expeditions. The microliths
pose technology. On sighting prey a hunter could remove the stone are from the collection of the Sheffield City Museum in England.

pointed out (in a slightly different so­ ic is sometimes given either a chrono­ more like a series of dashes, punctuat­
cial context) that the spread of value logical definition or a relatively sim­ ed by long periods of waiting. For ex­
tokens may well reflect increased so­ ple economic one that defines it as the ample, agriculture was being practiced
cial competition. O'Shea and my col­ period of postglacial foraging. Neither in northern Germany by about 4500
league Paul Halstead have suggested definition captures the full achieve­ B.C. After that, however, there was a
that such tokens may also have served ment of Mesolithic social develop­ long delay, and not until 1,200 years
as a form of "social storage," by being ment as represented by the complex later did it appear in Denmark and
accumulated in times of abundance hunting-and-gathering adaptation. southern Sweden. According to the
and then exchanged for food or other Since the complex foraging adap­ model, farming should have taken
basic commodities in times of need. tation was so successful in stabilizing hold in the forest zone of eastern Eu­
Thus for an individual the tokens the food supply, the question natural­ rope between 5000 and 4000 B.C.; in
might not only have expressed wealth ly arises of why it ultimately gave way actuality it was adopted between two
and status but also have provided addi­ to farming in every major region of and three millenniums later. Farming
tional insurance against fluctuations in Europe. According to the traditional spread particularly late to regions such
the food supply. view, agriculture spread rapidly and as the eastern Baltic area, northern
uniformly from the Near East, either Spain and the northern Ukraine, which

T
he emergence of a social hierarchy carried by immigrants or diffused by are rich in aquatic resources. It is nota­
completes the sketch I have been cultural imitation. Recently Albert J. ble that those are the environments
drawing of the postglacial foraging Ammerman of Princeton University where the complex foraging adapta­
groups. Social differentiation (and the and Luigi L. Cavalli-Sforza of Stan­ tion was most highly developed.
attendant increase in social competi­ ford University have constructed a When one examines the archaeolog­
tion) complemented the combination mathematical model based on those ical record on a smaller geographic
of specialized and mUltipurpose tech­ assumptions. What is known about scale, it becomes clear that in some
nology, food storage and permanent the diffusion of farming into south­ parts of the forest zone agriculture was
or quasi-permanent settlements. That eastern and central Europe fits the adopted even later than a general sur­
constellation constitutes a complex ad­ model quite well. In northern and east­ vey of Europe would suggest. Some
aptation to the ecology of the Eurasian ern Europe, however, the fit is not scholars have been tempted to take the
forest zone. In my view the complex nearly as good. first bone of a domesticated animal or
foraging adaptation ought to serve Along the northern Atlantic coast the first cereal grain found at a prehis­
as the defining characteristic of the and in the forests of eastern and north­ toric site as evidence for agriculture.
Mesolithic period. The Mesolithic is ern Europe, farming spread much Yet such items could easily have been
the time between the end of the Upper more slowly than the model would obtained by trading. It makes much
Paleolithic cultures of the Pleistocene have predicted. Indeed, on the whole it better sense to take the consistent ap­
glaciation and the introduction of ag­ appears that the forward progress of pearance of domesticated species as
riculture, which marks the beginning agriculture did not resemble a steady the criterion for the transition from
of the Neolithic period. The Mesolith- march. Instead it seems to have been foraging to agriculture. In some areas

112
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the difference between the two dates ed species are harvested in the fall, ever, could destroy the balance and
is considerable. In Finland, the east­ which is a peak period for hunting. In throw a foraging community into cri­
ern Baltic region and many parts of any case, the incentive for taking up sis. Several areas of Europe have yield­
Russia isolated remains of domesticat­ farming must have been small, at least ed evidence of such crises. In Denmark
ed species were deposited as much as initially, because there was no pressing the vanished resource was the oyster;
1,000 years before systematic farm­ need to increase productivity. The spe­ in southern Finland, the seal; in north­
ing began. cialized foraging strategy was capable western Russia, the water chestnut
of supporting relatively high popula­ along with wild cattle and the wild pig.

W
hat emerges from an examina­ tion densities and of absorbing some Farming appears to have been taken
tion of the frontier zone divid­ fluctuations in resources. Therefore up in all three regions as a stopgap in­
ing farmers and foragers, then, is a the explanation for the transition to tended to overcome the crisis caused
picture of a long period when agricul­ agriculture must be sought elsewhere by resource failure.
ture was available to the foragers but than in the inherent superiority of The integrity of foraging economies
was not put into practice. Such an im­ farming. may also have been disrupted by com­
age raises the question of why the for­ One plausible explanation is that petition with groups that practiced ag­
agers were so slow to adopt agricul­ farming was introduced to compen­ riculture. In the frontier zone foraging
ture. I think the answer is that farming sate for failures of specific resources. and farming communities must have
was not necessarily advantageous, par­ The essence of the complex foraging competed for a variety of resources;
ticularly for communities that special­ economy was the balance between the among the most significant of them
ized in exploiting aquatic resources. few species that were intensively ex­ was territory. The end of the Pitted
In such cultures adopting agricul­ ploited by means of specialized tech­ Ware culture provides an example of
ture would have required abandoning nology and the larger group of prey how loss of territory could bring with
a large investment in specialized tech­ exploited on a "chance encounter" ba­ it dire consequences for hunters-and­
nology and forms of social organiza­ sis using multipurpose tools. As long gatherers.
tion adapted specifically to complex as the delicate balance was main­ In about 2600 B.C. Pitted Ware
foraging. Furthermore, the introduc­ tained, the complex foragers were able bands occupied the interior of middle
tion of farming would have caused to reduce risks and maintain produc­ Sweden along with the coastal areas
scheduling problems, because in the tivity. The disappearance of a single and the islands between Sweden and
Eurasian forest zone most cultivat- intensively exploited resource, how- Finland. That broad territory supplied

3500 B.C.

SPREAD OF FARMING from the Near East through Europe was groups. The area in light color represents an "availability zone,"
delayed in the forest zone. On each map the area in dark color where hunting-and-gathering groups had had contact with farmers
corresponds to the territory where agriculture had taken hold and and knew of the techniques of agriculture but had not yet adopted
the gray area corresponds to the territory of hunting-and-gathering farming. In the northern Atlantic region, including Denmark and

114
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 a variety of terrestrial game together hunting communities interacted, for­ been operating, and the immediate
with the seals on which the Pitted agers would have become aware of ob­ causes varied from region to region.
Ware groups specialized. By 2300 B . C . jects that were exotic to them and on It follows that the attempt to find a
.farming had been introduced i n the which they may have put great value. single, universal explanation for the
Swedish interior. As a result Pitted For example, in the third millennium adoption of agriculture is bound to
Ware communities were restricted to B.C.trade among a chain of farming fail. In my opinion a more fruitful pro­
the coast, and their dependence on communities might have brought well­ gram of research would be to examine
seals increased greatly. As a result of fired pottery or polished axes north the specific circumstances of the tran­
the destruction of their balanced econ­ from central Europe to southern Scan­ sition in many smaller areas.
omy Pitted Ware groups were poorly dinavia. Foragers there might have Such an examination might change
equipped to cope with the fluctuations seen such goods and coveted them as our picture of foragers in several re­
in the seal population that accompa­ symbols of status. To get them, the spects. I think it would be found that
nied a change in climate between 2000 foragers would have had to intensify the persistence of the hunting-and­
and 1800 B . C . The foraging economy their search for the kind of goods they gathering adaptation has been under­
soon disappeared, and the people of could offer in return, such as beaver estimated. Furthermore, the notion
the Pitted Ware culture were proba­ pelts. Quite soon, however, the forag­ that the replacement of foraging by
bly absorbed by the farming popula­ ers would deplete the stock of beaver farming constitutes a linear march of
tion of the interior. or reach the point where further inten­ progress might be amended. In chro­
sification of hunting became uneco­ nology and in function the develop­
Another form of competition may nomic. In such cases they might well ment of the complex hunting-and­
fl. also have had a role in the tran­ have turned to farming's greater pro­ gathering adaptations was parallel to
sition to agriculture: competition with­ ductive capacity as a means of satisfy­ that of agriculture. Sooner or later the
in a foraging society. As I have de­ ing the desire for acquisition. parallelism will be recognized and the
scribed above, in the late Mesolithic As I hope the preceding paragraphs two forms will be seen for what they
period there seems to have been an in­ make clear, I do not think the tran­ were: attempts to reduce risks and in­
crease in social differentiation and in sition to farming took place every­ crease the productivity of the envi­
striving for status, much of it directed where in the forest zone for the same ronment by intensifying labor in the
toward objects serving as value tokens. reason. On the contrary, in each region world left behind by the retreat of
In the frontier zone where farming and any of several mechanisms could have the glaciers.

the nearby lands, agriculture was available beginning in about 4500 until 2500 B.C. or even later. These were the regions where the com­
B.C. but was no t adopted until shortly before 3000 B.C. Knowledge plex foraging cultures flourished. The long delay before farming
of agriculture spread through eastern Europe north of the Black was taken up suggests farming was not necessarily advantageous to
Sea between 5000 and 4000 B.C., yet farming was not adopted there groups practicing the complex hunting-and-gathering adaptation.

1 15
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