UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES OF FEASTING

Feasting is the first archaeologically observable mechanism of long-distance trade and inter-group social cooperation. Beyond the three case studies investigated here, feasting has been implicated in the archaeological record as a positive motivator for complexity in the Levant (Hayden, Canuel, and Shanse

2013), early dynastic China (Underhill 2002), northern Europe (B. Arnold 1999; Zori et al. 2013; Guerra-Doce 2015), the Hopewell complex in the Midwest of the United States (Pauketat et al. 2002), and along the Pacific coast (Arnold et al. 2015). The ubiquity of feasting societies as antecedent to more complex civilizations speaks to the evolutionary benefits of the system (Boyd and Richerson 1996). As feast hosts (Kirzner’s entrepreneurs, Hayden’s aggrandizers) met the desires of their guests (customers, peers), the unintended consequences of institutional and technological development also followed. Feasting mechanisms provided the motivation for the development of crucial concepts of the market system, namely in the establishment of dedicated geographical boundaries and claims to land and material goods (private property [Demsetz 1967]) as well as in the development of specialized trade and services (specialization).

I have already explored some of the ways that the concept of private property manifests: from the establishment of community cemeteries and permanent settlement to more complex land tenure systems. The association between feasting events and the emergence of geographical notions of ownership is important as land ownership and tenure are crucial for understanding market processes.

A more subtle consequence of feasting mechanisms is the development of new and important technological innovations (Hayden 1998). As explored above, entrepreneurs utilized feasting mechanisms through the distribution of special goods; these goods in turn become elaborated as feast hosts looked to impress their guests even more. Specialized food is a centralized aspect of feasting activities, and here the archaeological evidence is overwhelming; feasting activities intensified cooking technologies that are correlated with the development of pottery and the domestication of cereals (Hayden 1998, 2003, 2009 2014a).

In all three examples presented here, the independent development of indigenous pottery production arises with evidence of feasting. While the first occupations of ?atalhoyuk in Anatolia do not contain pottery, the technology is widely adopted following its prominence. Similarly, some of the first evidence of local pottery production, Beaker Ware, for the Celts is found in association with burials with evidence of feasting (Guerra-Doce 2006, 2015; Rojo-Guerra et al. 2006). Toyah pottery is even more striking, as neighboring groups, such as the Caddo or the Puebloans, produced pottery for more than a thousand years before groups in central Texas adopted the technology. The development of pottery technologies is one of the first indications of craft specialization and the beginnings of a division of labor. Complete specialization, where individuals take on one industry for the majority of their time, occurs first within sedentary groups under hierarchical, city-state level societies (Feder 2014, 344). Nonetheless, division of labor allows for crucial specialization in markets and propels the development of complex economic production, the importance of which has been known since before the time of Adam Smith.

In coordination with the development of specialized labor, important technological advancements accompanied feasting societies across the globe. The domestication of cereal grains (such as wheat, corn, and rice) precipitated agriculture and revolutionized food production worldwide. Cereal grains were domesticated from wild tropical grasses; the domestication process increased yields, size of the grains, as well as ease of harvest and processing (Zeder et al. 2006). Mounting archaeological and genetic data indicate that humans utilized wild forms of these grains without changing general hunter-gatherer-fisher lifeways. In cases where agriculture was adopted, there seems to be a several-hundred-years gap between the utilization of cereals (such as wheat [Blockley and Pinhasi 2011], corn [Bryant 2007], and rice [Zhu et al. 2007]) and their use as agricultural staples. These grains would have taken much energy to process and were often utilized as specialty foods within feasting contexts (e.g., Jennings 2004; Guerra-Doce 2015). Wheat, for example, has been found in several wild forms at archaeological sites in the Levant from the Natufian, around twelve thousand years ago; these grains would have tough outer coats (glumes), which make it harder to process, and weak stems that hold the grain to the stalk (rachis) that make the grains difficult to harvest (Feder 2014, 287). Following the feasting regimes in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic, grains with softer glumes and weak rachis were increasingly selected, as were varieties with increasing numbers of seeds; this selection process altered the genetic structure and phenotype of wheat to what it is today. Early wheat has been seen in many early tell sites, with the possibility that the grain was being processed to produce beer (Atalay and Hastorf 2006; Katz and Voigt 1986; Crewe and Hill 2012; Guerra-Doce 2015; Hayden, Canuel, and Shanse 2013; Maeir and Garfinkel 1992; Sallaberger 2015).

The evidence for maize domestication follows a similar narrative. Maize is an extremely altered form of the tropical grass teosinte (Zea mays spp.); teosinte has extremely small grains that are covered in a hard glume. The earliest evidence for teosinte exploitation is not for the grain, but rather for the sweet sap in the stalk. This sap can be enjoyed simply by chewing the stalk, but also through fermenting the sap into a weak wine. The transformation from a hard shell to soft grain is a single-point mutation; human exploitation of the plant cannot then be explained through use of the plant as a grain from its origins. Following increasing use of maize in the Mexican lowlands, which has primarily been identified through microfossils of the stalk (Piperno and Pearsall 1993, 1998), maize developed and became the staple crop for much of the New World. Chicha, corn beer, was an important part of feasting events under the Olmec, Maya, Aztec, and Inca and likely has held importance as a specialty food for much longer into the prehistory of the region (Bray 2009; Bruman 2000; Goodman-Elgar 2009; Jennings 2004; Weismantel 2009).

It has been well argued that exploitation of cereal grains for feasting events, as described here, strengthened the relationship between humans and these carbohydrates, which led to their unintended domestication (Hayden 2009, 2014a; Smalley and Blake 2003). Feasting regimes often emphasize the use of alcoholic beverages from cereal grains (B. Arnold 1999; Bray 2003, 2009; Dietler 1990; Dietrich et al. 2012; Joffe 1998; Guerra-Doce 2015; Weismantel 2009; Hayden 2009; Zori et al. 2013); the archaeological evidence is mounting, but the association between brewing for feasting and domestication is increasingly convincing (Braidwood et al. 1953; Hayden 2003). The onset of the Holocene, the current geologic epoch, brought drier, warmer temperatures that undoubtedly improved conditions for cultivating tropic grasses (Blockley and Pinhasi 2011; Flannery 1973). Domesticated grains became the staple crop in agricultural revolutions worldwide, of which the impact cannot be understated.

As discussed here, as a result of feasting mechanisms, the archaeological evidence points to developments in technologies essential to the development of agriculture as well as the emergence of land ownership regimes. These innovations are foundations under which market systems operate.