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The long-term decline in terms of trade and the neolithisation of Northern Europe

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  • Serge Svizzero

    (CEMOI - Centre d'Économie et de Management de l'Océan Indien - UR - Université de La Réunion)

Abstract

While agriculture spread quite rapidly from the Levant to most parts of Europe during the sixth millennium, its adoption was delayed to the fourth millennium in Northern Europe, an area inhabited by complex hunter-gatherers (HGs)-mainly the Ertebølle culture. This hiatus leads us to reject diffusion by migration or acculturation. It favours integrationist models of contact between foragers and farmers and attributes the shift to agriculture to social competition between HGs. We provide an alternative explanation of this shift, based on an economic mechanism related to trade between foragers and farmers. We demonstrate that the terms of trade of raw materials extracted and sold by foragers have a tendency to decline in the long term in relation to the food resources produced and sold by farmers. Neolithisation of Northern Europe can therefore be viewed as the outcome of a long-term process based on trade in which HGs voluntarily get involved without forecasting that it will, in the end, constrain most of them to give up their way of life. Such an explanation is consistent with the long period of contact between foragers and farmers provided by archaeological records and recent palaeogenetic studies.

Suggested Citation

  • Serge Svizzero, 2015. "The long-term decline in terms of trade and the neolithisation of Northern Europe," Post-Print hal-02150104, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-02150104
    DOI: 10.1080/03585522.2015.1008566
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.univ-reunion.fr/hal-02150104
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Weisdorf, Jacob, 2009. "Why did the first farmers toil? Human metabolism and the origins of agriculture," European Review of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 13(2), pages 157-172, August.
    2. Serge Svizzero, 2014. "Pre-Neolithic Economy," Post-Print hal-02152612, HAL.
    3. Jeffrey G. Williamson, 2008. "Globalization and the Great Divergence: Terms of Trade Booms and Volatility in the Poor Periphery 1782-1913," NBER Working Papers 13841, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Smith, Adam, 2008. "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations: A Selected Edition," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199535927 edited by Sutherland, Kathryn.
    5. Smith, Vernon L, 1975. "The Primitive Hunter Culture, Pleistocene Extinction, and the Rise of Agriculture," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 83(4), pages 727-755, August.
    6. Serge Svizzero, 2014. "Pre-Neolithic Economy [L'économie pré-néolithique]," Post-Print hal-02153091, HAL.
    7. Jacob L. Weisdorf, 2003. "Stone Age Economics: The Origins of Agriculture and the Emergence of Non-Food Specialists," Discussion Papers 03-34, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
    8. Jacob L. Weisdorf, 2005. "From Foraging To Farming: Explaining The Neolithic Revolution," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(4), pages 561-586, September.
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    Cited by:

    1. Serge Svizzero, 2017. "Persistent Controversies about the Neolithic Revolution," Post-Print hal-02145483, HAL.
    2. Serge Svizzero, 2015. "Farmers' spatial behaviour, demographic density dependence and the spread of Neolithic agriculture in Central Europe," Post-Print hal-02150100, HAL.
    3. Serge Svizzero, 2015. "Trade, immiserising growth and the long-term neolithisation process of the Pitted Ware Culture," Post-Print hal-02148984, HAL.

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