However, I believe even Graebner says there was large scale surpluses and production for exchange in Egypt without credit, no ?
Charles
http://www.fhw.gr/chronos/01/en/nl/culture/contactfr.html
The cultural contacts of Neolithic communities, of a farming and stock-raising character, can be reconstructed only to a small extent. Based on the material remains which have come to light during excavations, contacts were made in economy and society and had a limited or extended range. Exchanges on an economic level concerned food, textiles, stone or wooden vessels, pottery, salt, raw materials (obsidian, flint, metals) etc. The distribution of food for example took place locally, that is either within the settlement itself or with neighbouring settlements, in order to meet a shortage of vital products (wheat, meat), due to floods, frosts, droughts, fires and other natural disasters affecting production unexpectedly. The discovery of stone tools of Melian obsidian almost all over Greece indicates that an extensive network of exchanges whose beginnings go back to the Mesolithic Period had been set up. The abundance of tools of obsidian, typical in settlements of the Late Neolithic, shows the extent to which the Neolithic economy was dependent on exchange. The distribution of metals (copper, silver, lead) from the mines of Lavrion and Siphnos must be associated with an extensive network for the distribution of obsidian during the Final Neolithic.
Worth noting from the Early Neolithic is the exchange which took place with objects of social connotation, such as seals and jewellery. During the Late and Final Neolithic an increase in "social prestige" objects has been observed in the whole of the Aegean, namely rings and bracelets from sea-shell (Spondylus gaederopus) and ring idol figurines. Archaeological finds testify to the specialization of settlements in the manufacture of jewellery from Spondylus (e.g. Dimini) and their trading via both limited and extensive exchange networks. The discovery of jewellery or non-processed Spondylus, a sea-shell living only in the Eastern Mediterrenean, in Neolithic settlements of the Balkans and Central Europe is evidence of the existence of extensive cultural networks. In these networks the exchange of ideology and know-how (metallurgy) also occurred, manifested in the known ring idols of stone, clay, gold and silver from the Balkans (e.g. cemetery of Varna, Bulgaria), discovered in riverside sites and coastal caves of the Aegean (e.g. Alepotrtypa-Diros, Euripides Cave-Salamina) during the Late and the Final Neolithic. The growth in exchanges reflects the demographic (increase in the number of settlements, denser habitation of coastal zones) and social changes of the last phases of the Neolithic Period.
Indicative of the relationships between Neolithic communities is the increase in painted pottery during the Middle and Late Neolithic. The production of certain classes, such as pottery with "scraped" ware (Middle-Late Neolithic) or "grey" ware (Late Neolithic) only in specific workshops of Thessaly and their dissemination all over the plain of Thessaly or even as far as southern Greece, shows the tendency of cultural customs to spread to other nearby regions. The whole range of cultural features of a region is described by traditional prehistoric research with the term "culture". Thus the Middle Neolithic in Thessaly is known as "Sesklo culture", while the Late Neolithic ΙΙ is defined as "Dimini culture", since in these settlements the distinctive features of the corresponding periods are documented. However, recent research has proved through the study of relationships and exchanges that these "cultures" were relatively fluid.
^^^^^ Chapter 3: The Neolithic
The Neolithic (circa 4000-2500 BC) has traditionally been seen as the period in which farming was introduced into Britain. In particular it was categorised as sedentary mixed farming, with heavy emphasis upon the agricultural side (e.g. Renfrew 1973). It was also in this period that monuments were first constructed. The Neolithic thus traditionally offered a stunning contrast with the preceding Mesolithic. The previous mobile, hunter-gatherer society was replaced almost over night by a sedentary group of farmers shooting leaf shaped arrowheads and chopping down trees with polished stone axes. After a few years establishing themselves, the demonstrable superiority of farming led to a surplus so people could be spared to build monuments (Case 1969; S. Harris 1986). These monuments were variously seen as territorial markers (Renfrew 1973), instruments of conversion (Sherratt 1990), or in an older argument the cultural signature of a new group of people (Daniel 1958).
Our conception of the Neolithic has now radically changed. Instead of mixed fields, houses and the occasional monument marking out a group’s territory, we have a mobile population, often relying on a diverse range of resources, that still includes wild animals and gathered plants (Thomas 1991; 1999). The similarities with the Mesolithic are now stressed. Continuity in population, economy, and with the discovery of polished axes in Mesolithic contexts, material culture are emphasised (but see Schulting 1998 for a revival of the colonist debate). Nonetheless the making of pottery and the construction of monuments, beginning with the chambered tombs and long-barrows and later the causewayed enclosures, are still seen as uniquely Neolithic. This is also true of the use of domestic plants and animals. Overall however continuity is now the watchword, whereas before revolution stood in its place. In this brief chapter I shall lay out in more detail the argument behind this view of the Neolithic, stressing the importance of variation in our understanding of both mobility and subsistence. I shall then turn to Neolithic monuments and the causewayed enclosures that will form the substance of our study.
^^^^^^ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic
A significant and far-reaching shift in human subsistence and lifestyle was to be brought about in areas where crop farming and cultivation were first developed: the previous reliance on an essentially nomadic hunter-gatherer subsistence technique or pastoral transhumance was at first supplemented, and then increasingly replaced by, a reliance upon the foods produced from cultivated lands. These developments are also believed to have greatly encouraged the growth of settlements, since it may be supposed that the increased need to spend more time and labor in tending crop fields required more localized dwellings. This trend would continue into the Bronze Age, eventually giving rise to towns, and later cities and state whose larger populations could be sustained by the increased productivity from cultivated lands.
The profound differences in human interactions and subsistence methods associated with the onset of early agricultural practices in the Neolithic have been called the Neolithic Revolution, a term coined in the 1920s by the Australian archaeologist Vere Gordon Childe.
One potential benefit of the development and increasing sophistication of farming technology was the possibility of producing surplus crop yields, in other words, food supplies in excess of the immediate needs of the community. Surpluses could be stored for later use, or possibly traded for other necessities or luxuries. Agricultural life afforded securities that pastoral life could not, and sedentary farming populations grew faster than nomadic.
However, early farmers were also adversely affected in times of famine, such as may be caused by drought or pests. In instances where agriculture had become the predominant way of life, the sensitivity to these shortages could be particularly acute, affecting agrarian populations to an extent that otherwise may not have been routinely experienced by prior hunter-gatherer communities.[25] Nevertheless, agrarian communities generally proved successful, and their growth and the expansion of territory under cultivation continued.