Part I
Chapter 2

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2.1 The Neolithic

During a period spanning the 10^th and the 4^th millennium BC, the “Neolithic revolution” (or “First Agricultural revolution”, for which see, e.g. Childe 1928 Neolithic and Childe 1936 Man) slowly but inexorably led to the full development of the innovations started in the Paleolithic era, reaching the so-called “urban revolution” (see, e.g. Childe 1950 Urban).

Archaeological evidence increases, characterized by specific elements:

• permanent settlements with individual buildings (i.e. villages);
• control over animals and agriculture;
• ceramic production (previously unknown process of crafting, thus in a certain way, an “invention”; on this topic, see also Crescioli 2009 M A).

Two specific features of this period can be pinpointed:

1. the development of new social structures and mechanisms of control;
2. a real “entrance into history” leading to the “urban revolution”.

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2.2 The Organic Nature of Settlements

First villages, as organic complexes, are defined by “well-defined entities in which volumes (houses and other structures) and spaces (paths and open areas) relate so as to form a unique whole with its own perceptual reality” (Buccellati, Origins, p. 23). The technical aspects behind this organic development will be described in Chapter 3.3.

As for the perceptual aspect, these inhabited spaces will develop a sense of collectivity, leading to the notion of “neighborhood” (even if actual neihbors are not physically present), a first social grouping where people take care of each other.

In this period, it was also developed the binomial of the private and the public spheres (cf. Chapter 5.10), the latter conceived as a proper para-perceptual dimension.

Further, villages are even enclosures for the communities, an enclosure which is at the same time both extrinsec and intrinsec, being the suture point between the community and society.

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2.3 The Perception of Boundaries

This “enclosure system” defines the sense of an internal and an external zone, something previously unknown: it was precisely this new structures of society defining specific borders/boundaries.

Three further observations can be added:

1. boundaries are also internal to the villages, delimitating the first notion of a proper sense of property, also defining the sense of private belonging (cf. Chapter 5.9);
2. at the same time, also a concept of public property developed from a sens of common property;
3. the boundaries of a village, because of the permanent proximity of settlements, inevitabily trigger the sense for the existence of external (similar or different) communities (i.e., other villages), defining a kind of threshold to an “other” (and, therefore, leading to the notion of otherness, implying reciprocal awareness and knowledge).

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2.4 The Heightening of Perception

Cf. Chapter 1.7).

The grouping of people in stable settlements increased the perceptual system: village are not physically present in nature, being a human construct, and this implies a perceptual “manipulation” of the territory, leading to the creation of perceptual boundaries which are always present in the individual mindset, even in physical absense of the individual (a strong impact on human psyche).

This phenomenon can be labeled as “phenomenological threshold” (cf. Chapter 1.7): this is the moment when symbols start being shaped in an articulated way.

For instance, the village can be regarded (and indeed it was) as an embryonic form of “motherland”: the territory is not just a mere geographical area, and this is clear from the fact that giving a name to villages probably dates back to this very time. Furthermore, it is important to underline that this act of name-giving is properly an artificial construct (since names are not intrisecably embeddedd in nature), having sometimes specific symbolic associations.

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2.5 The Invention of Territory

The “invention” of territory (defined by the physical aggregation [above, 2.2] and by the process of name-giving [above, 2.4]) carries about a specific assumption, clearly defined as such by G. Buccellati: “My assumption is that the geographic nomenclature of the paleolithic period was limited to natural phenomena with quite specific physiognomies, for example a stream (possibly a term like “Buranan” used for what we know as the Euphrates) or very defined prominence (“Bashar” used for a mountain between the steppe and the Euphrates). It is conceivable that these names date to more archaic linguistic moments, in the pre-Neolithic. This deals with natural phenomena that come to be identified as a very discrete unit with a simple act of perception: essentially, they are seen as such” (Buccellati, Origins, p. 26).

Moreover, the existence of other villages beyond the boundaries of a settlement implies factors that transcend the purely geographical dimension, like social and economic exchange; this is surely related to a superimposition of para-perceptual dimension on the landscape, which is defined as such because its reality exists in the mind of the observer.

And, all in all, this phenomenon occurred in the Neolithic period (when an actual para-percetion of the territory as a coherent whole developed), while in the Paleolithic time the perception was still more immediate and direct.

Last, but not least, this new awareness of the territory implies that it requires a constant and durable maintenance, extending in time even for centuries, a factor which strenghtned the links between social groups and the territory itself.

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2.6 The Dawn of Society

Cf. Chapter 3.7.

The “invention” of territory (above, 2.5) and the birth of villages (above, 2.1) led to the dawn of society, as a new way of human “association”.

This fact bribgs about two relevant consequences:

1. the ideological basis for demographic expansion, thank to the development of agriculture (see Chapter 3);
2. the slow development of politics as such: “The para-perception of territory soon had to become a prerogative common to all the members of society. In other words, everyone was very aware of it. But the ability to fully use the resources required organizational abilities that not everyone had. And this is where we see developing new mechanisms of control that rested in the hands of the few, those who progressively emerged as the “heads” of the group” (Buccellati, Origins, p. 27).

It is very likely that already in earlier times “heads” of the group were already existing; anyhow, in the Neolithic time two new factors, envisaged in the aforementioned structural re-shaping of society, make them shifting from simple “leaders” to proper “rulers” (and further later, “kings/emperors”):

1. the necessity for a permanence in time (and even in space) of forms that corresponded to the permanence of settlements emerged;
2. the forms of control developed a complexity that corresponded to the complexity of new mental associations, that is, to the para-perceptual aspects (cf. Chapter 1.3)).

In the end, “it is on this foundation that the exercise of power acquired an entirely new physiognomy, which allows us, as we shall see, to satisfactorily explain the political explosion that took place with the urban revolution” (Buccellati, Origins, p. 28; cf. also Chapter 5.2).