| Key to Art History |
|
|
The two selections below provide dramatically different interpretations of mankind's change from a hunter-gatherer society to an agricultural society. How do they differ? Which view makes the most sense to you?
from the History of Art for Young People by H.W. Janson and Anthony F. Janson, Fourth Edition. What brought the Old Stone Age to a close has been termed the Neolithic Revolution. And a revolution it was indeed, although its course extended over several thousand years. It began in the Near East sometime about 8000 B.C. with the first successful attempts to domesticate animals and food grains—one of the truly epoch-making achievements of human history. People in Paleolithic societies led the unsettled life of the hunter and food gatherer, reaping where nature sowed and thus at the mercy of forces that they could neither understand nor control. But now, having learned to assure a food supply by their own efforts, men and women settled down in permanent village communities.
from A discourse upon the origin and the foundation of inequality among mankind by Jean Jacques Rousseau The first man, who, after enclosing a piece of ground, took it into his head to say, "This is mine," and found people simple enough to believe him, was the true founder of civil society. How many crimes, how many wars, how many murders, how many misfortunes and horrors, would that man have saved the human species, who pulling up the stakes or filling the ditches should have cried to his fellows: Be sure not to listen to this imposter; you are lost, if you forget the fruit of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody.
[ Prehistory Overview
]
|
|
|
