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21.12
Work history.Pre-Civilization
  
     
  A wise tradition says that “necessity is the mother of invention”, that human beings rarely change their world in plentiful times but only when faced with calamity and ruin.  
  The historical record over the past 1600 years supports this view. That in periods of climate change, in periods of war and shortage of key resources the human spirit and imagination has inevitably risen up to find a way to survive.  
  The problem however, s this is not how historians have written the history and evolution of work from hunter gatherer to farmer. For example, one of the first to provide a theory on the evolution of human work practices was Karl Wittfogel in his book Oriental Despotism (1957).  
  Irrigation increased the food supply, allowing larger numbers of people to agglomerate into towns and cities. Because farmers were vulnerable to attack, armies were needed, with the implication of an officer class. Town specialization of labour brought the emergence of potters, weavers, metalworkers, scribes, lawyers, and physicians, while the new surpluses also created the basis for commerce. The more complex economy required records, so writing, of which the first examples come from the bookkeeping records of the storehouses in ancient Mesopotamia, was born.  
  This all sounds perfectly plausible and sensible, except for one thing- it goes against everything we know about human nature. Human beings organize because they have to, because their survival depends on it, not because they can become even more efficient.  
  Secondly, it implies a pre-seeding of knowledge of these ancient farming communities at least in the minds of their leaders that does not comes with any clear catalyst other than “the gods”.  
  Thus, the “farmer first” theory of civilization and organized knowledge of work is flawed on two fronts. Let us then look to what the earth, climate change and history tells us about the pre-civilization period.  
  The end of the ice-age  
  The end of the last great Ice Age happened slowly and at different rates across the globe. 10,000 years to 6,000 years ago, the whole of the Middle East, Northern Africa and South Eastern Europe emerged as fertile lands, rich river deltas offering reliable water flows and an abundance of food.  
  These hospitable climates enabled the sustaining of big animals that were able to shed ice age fur and adjust to the warmer and wetter environments. It also meant an abundance of natural vegetation supporting higher numbers of species.  
  In contrast, Northern Europe still remained covered in snow and ice for much of the year, while the land bridges such as those between Ireland to Britain and Britain to France finally fell under the rising seas.  
  Then, from around 7,000 to 6,000 years ago the climate change for the hunter gatherer tribes of Northern Europe began to accelerate rapidly. The great herds of thick coated animals began to die off. For the populations of humans cut off living on Ireland and Britain, the change was even faster.
 
  These were tribes who lived in small nomadic communities, chasing the animals. They had no real need for great numbers of possessions. They lived and hunted by the cycle of the moon. They were certainly not farmers.
 
  For thousands of years, these small populations had learned to hunt, to survive, to specialize. The strongest of the tribe, usually (but not always) the men hunted at night, while the women prepared and protected the camp and young children. Our ancestors were equal, these small family orientated tribes had little requirement for complex strata other than a level of leadership usually born out knowledge of animals, the environment and keeping the small population alive.
  
  Nowhere else in Northern Europe than in Ireland did the dramatic changes of life and death, the old ways and the struggle for survival play out as greatly. Ireland was the test bed of what was to potentially become the destiny of all of Northern Europe.
 
  In the case of Ireland, a land, once connected to Britain that supported a nomadic hunter gatherer population of up to 30,000 around 6,000 years ago suddenly and quickly ran out of animals and even small animals.
 
  Inevitably starvation, war, and cannibalism became rife. Within a few short years, the population had plummeted to less than 10,000 and life had become short, brutal and uncertain.
 
  The birth of wisdom and the first priests
  
  The isolation of the Stone Age tribes of Ireland, the end of all large animals, the hunger and starvation was to them the end of the world. Faced with such horror including eating members of your own family or nearby neighbours the basic tenets of religion quickly appeared.
  
  A recognition of the urgent need to re-balance with nature, that human action had a direct consequence on the nature of things- a profound and important concept. Sacrifice was the first religious act of Stone Age man in Ireland and the first to be sacrificed were the leaders, the “kings” of the tribes.
  
  Unfortunately, this did not “appease” the gods of nature and left most of the dwindling tribes without leaders and accelerated the chaos of death, cannibalism and starvation.
  
  Facing starvation, the ancient former hunter gatherer tribes of Ireland ate anything they could find. This included many herbs, shrubs and trees that had halluciogenic "magical" properties.
 
  The Holly Tree (cuileann) is of particular importance. Prior to its introduction across Europe and parts of Asia, the “European” Holly was a native of Ireland. For not only did its mildly poisonous berries and leaves become a powerful source for magical dreams and deep spiritual insight, it also became quickly associated with one particular class of people, or "holy" people.
 
  These early magicians, the first druids of humanity, the cuileann, were able to rise above the hell and crisis of death and unite the dying people of Ireland. They became the world's first Priest Kings.
 
  The Holly Tree became a living symbol of their power and their magic. And it became forbidden for any person to touch their sacred plants under penalty of death. They became the "Holy Ones".
 
  Trade or die  
  Contrary to the narrow minded and ill-informed histories thrown at us today, getting off the Island and finding other sources of food and trade became a matter of life and death for the small Irish population.
 
  Let me put it another way. If the Irish were the savage barbarians that even the most educated History books claim, then they would have all died of starvation, war and cannibalism at least by 4,000 BCE making NewGrange and all the other monuments impossible.
 
  It should be obvious from the history of the Irish that they have never been the world's greatest farmers, nor were they over 6,000 years ago. But necessity forced this small band of people to unite and to take risks and the Priest Kings, the Feara Cualaan, the Holy Men gave them strength in a new model and cosmos of religion.
 
  Next door in Britain, conditions were starting to become as bad as Ireland, yet without any clear leadership. The British tribes, desperate to appease the old gods of nature undertook regular human sacrifice as well as active cannibalism.
 
  The Irish explorers on primitive rafts pushed further East until they reached Spain. It was at Spain then that the Irish discovered other tribes, animals and future trade partners.
 
  But what could the Irish first offer as trade in exchange for food? The answer was initially to come from the huge amounts of gold to be found in the hills of Ireland.
 
  The Irish gold rush
 
  Historians in their infinite wisdom place the gold rush of Ireland (if they ever mention it) around 2,000 BCE or later. The basis of these assumptions is at best tenuous and usually driven by underlying prejudice and poor forensic skills.
 
  While the now united Irish colony had found civilization beyond the shores of Britain (then the land of cannibals and human sacrifice), they needed to trade something of value in order to obtain food. What they discovered was a fascination by other tribes in the power of gold.
 
  Many people would not know this but the earliest gold artefacts of Europe are Irish. It was the Irish craftsmen that first fashioned gold objects and these objects have been found throughout Europe.
 
  For the ancient civilizations of Southern Europe, life and death struggle to find any edible food was less a concern. In those days, Spain was a fertile land full of fruits, plants and animals.
 
  In reporting back to the Druid Priest Kings, the Feara Cualaan (the ancestors of the O'Cuilleain/O’Collins) ordered the population to develop crafts and skills at mining the gold and fashioning objects with which to trade for food.
 
  The decision not to attempt large farming, but to trade paid off. The Irish survived through trade and not only thrived but rapidly began to develop a sophisticated society, language and cosmology. By about 3300 BCE the population had grown back to around 15,000 along with slaves captured from Britain and brought back to work the mines.
 
  It also gave the Druid Priest Kings time to develop their emerging religion and to plan the evolution of their culture. With such social cohesion, plenty of food and wealth, the Druid Kings, the Feara Cualaan commissioned great tombs and even commissioned a massive sacred temple (NewGrange). But their greatest legacy was the combination of religion, of organized work and of trade. These three things when combined produced a whole host of cultures across the ancient Mediterranean.
  
  History begins with Ireland, not Sumer
  
  Meanwhile, back in the lands of plenty, an extraordinary event too place remarkably around 3300 to 3100 BCE, civilization appeared to emerge in a highly advanced state, without a clear crisis of survival to spark its cause.
  
  Instead, the populations of the rich deltas of the Black Sea basin (later flooded), the Mesopotamian/Tigris and the Nile all became birth places for highly organized cultures that set about using their workforces to produce food.
  
  Religion suddenly formed in a sophisticated way, language flourished as well as trade.
  
  Now historically, all roads centre on the Sumerian cultures as the source of this great wisdom. Indeed by about 2500 BCE, the Sumerian city states had developed advanced knowledge and craft skills thanks to the abundance of food and a natural transport route in the form of the river.
  
  But the spark, the catalyst, the overwhelming reason why it all started is now possibly revealed.
  
  For just as the Irish Priest Kings had pushed their few remaining community members to seek out trade for their own survival, they sparked a gold rush of wisdom and organized work that spanned the entire ancient world and heralded the birth of ancient civilization.
  
  Necessity indeed had been the mother of invention.
  
     
 
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