О божественном происхождении земледелия

[seminarist]

Как-то я недоумевал: каким образом первобытные люди догадались возделывать злаки? Как до этого вообще можно было додуматься?

"Идея земледелия, - писал я тогда, - вовсе не лежит на поверхности. Нужно быть Аристотелем, чтобы увидеть связь между семенами, упавшими в землю сегодня, и зеленой порослью через месяц. Кроме того, даже Аристотелю нужно было бы свободное время для таких наблюдений за природой, а его у первобытного человека, занятого борьбой за существование, не так много. Ну и, наконец, нужно было упавшие семена заметить, но не поднимать их с земли (вечно голодный троглодит все, что упало, подбирал и тянул обратно в рот).

Даже зная все это, нужно было еще додуматься провести эксперимент: бросать на землю драгоценную еду, чтобы ждать, не вырастет ли из нее новая еда. Как бы вы посмотрели на такого идиота? И нужно было, чтобы такой эксперимент увенчался успехом. Т.е. земля должна быть не абы какой, а очень плодородной.

Потом, зерна диких злаков были лишь одним из многих источников питания. Их ели, когда находили. А когда не находили, ели корешки, или плоды, или червяков, или яйцо из птичьего гнезда, или грибы, или мед из дупла, или ближнего своего. Как нужно было догадаться бросать на землю именно злаки?"

И вот сегодня в книге о Вавилонской цивилизации мне попалось остроумное объяснение. "Возможно, земледелие было побочным продуктом религиозных обрядов. Древний человек, несомненно, собирал дикие злаки. Из того, что мы знаем о первобытной религии, можно думать, что часть лучших зерен приносили в жертву родовым богам. Зерна, упавшие у алтаря, прорастали, и человек понял, что просто бросая зерна в землю, он может вырастить злаки там, где удобно." (H.W.F. Saggs, The Babylonians, I)

Не зря, значит, почти у всех народов искусство земледелия имеет божественное происхождение и в религии так много земледельческих слов и метафор. Если среди первобытных племен были рационалисты, находившие разбрасывание съедобных зёрен на алтаре глупым и расточительным, боюсь, что они вымерли.

Comments

[seminarist.livejournal.com]

I find this hard to swallow.
1)Why can't they keep being hunter-gatherers and just grow some pot (poppy, barley) on the side?
2)If agriculture is my main occupation now and barley gives such low yields that I rarely have enough bread, how do I manage to also make beer?

[shkrobius.livejournal.com]

(1) that's exactly what they've done. Then the climate changed and hunting big game was no longer an option. Meanwhile, the crops became more productive as a result of selection. (2) Farming was not their main occupation and bread was not produced. It was all beer. I am surprised you find it hard to believe: before bread was made, someone had to figure out how to leaven it. There is a consensus since 1954 that beer came first, and leavened bread came second.

[seminarist.livejournal.com]

I somehow always assumed that before people invented leavened bread, they used to eat unleavened, just as they still do in many primitive cultures. If you mix some coarse flour with water, you may bake unleavened flat bread on a hot stone, and it will be quite tasty while hot. Besides, before beer yeast leavening, there must have been sourdough - that's to say, batter leavened by the yeast naturally present on the grain surface and in the air. Sourdough bread is still eaten, though I don't know how - it IS a sour dough.

[shkrobius.livejournal.com]

To my knowledge, there is no evidence suggesting that unleavened bread was widely used before leavened bread. What people ate was not unleavened bread proper, but porriges and coal-baked flat cakes. You are right that there are wild yeasts that can leaven bread, but the earliest Egyptians breads already have beer yeasts. The problem with the wild yeasts is that they often leave unpleasant aftertaste: the fermenting is not done only by the yeasts but by their symbiont bacteria, so the cycle goes further. That's what makes sourdough sour (lactic acid). Brewing beer selects against these symbionts, so the ale yeasts are perfect for leavening.

[seminarist.livejournal.com]

Personally I would call a coal-baked flat cake an unleavened bread. As to the order of invention, it always seemed to me pretty straighforward:

1. raw grain
2. raw grain coarsely ground
3. raw grain, coarsely ground and mixed wth water
4. same, heated (protogruel)
5. same, spilled on hot stones or coal (protocakes)
6. same, left over from yesterday and leavened with naturally occuring yeast and bacteria and *then* baked on hot stones (protosourdough)
7. practically simultaneously, same, mixed rather thinly and also fermented overnight (protobeer, or rather protobarley water)

Do I correctly understand that in your opinion primitive people *first* made #3 into beer and only then got interested in making gruels, cakes, breads etc?

As to sourdough being unpalatable, I heartily agree, but that is a matter of taste. The kind of bread russian peasants were eating for a good part of the second millenium we would not enjoy either. Besides, prehistoric people didn't know any better.

[shkrobius.livejournal.com]

Yes, this is the consensual picture; this does not mean that it is correct. There is no accepted theory of agriculture origins, just guesses and speculations. The obvious problem with this picture is that the first cereal crops had very low yield, small seed size, and were very hign in tannins. So the grain had to be soaked in water to be edible. When you do that you can either make it into a porridge or you can ferment it. It is almost certain that people started doing both simultaneously. The taste was still awful, very bitter. You need strong incentive to keep going on. The idea was that alcohol provided that incentive. We know that even 4 kya, beer was so bitter that it was drunk through a straw, slowly. People always wanted their alcohol and were always ready to suffer discomfort for the sake of it.

[seminarist.livejournal.com]

I have read that it was not a straw, but a perforated tube, to filter off the dregs.

[shkrobius.livejournal.com]

http://shkrobius.livejournal.com/46564.html

[seminarist.livejournal.com]

Maybe I am imagining it, but I seem to remember a picture of such a straw somewhere, having a bulbous, perforated end. It was actually made of either metal or clay.

[shkrobius.livejournal.com]

The ones I saw (Oriental Institute, U. of Chicago) were straight, with several perforations at the end, made of copper or brass.

[seminarist.livejournal.com]

Still, they are perforated. If Babylonians just liked sipping their beer through a straw, perforations would be unnecessary.

[shkrobius.livejournal.com]

Perforations were used to filter out sediments. Perforated straws were expensive, found in posh places. Ordinary people must've used regualar staws. Africans still use them; see the photo in the post.