How Grains Might Have Shaped Civilization (and Created Taxes)
15.5.26
The switch from foraging to agriculture turned out to be one of the most important events for the societies which adopted it. Agriculture allowed the cultivation and production of food, and additionally required settlement to tend and eventually harvest the crops, which led to the many of the social structures and hierarchies we still see to this day. Looking at the history and archaeological findings from the early civilizations, an interesting pattern seems to emerge regarding their crops: wheat, barley, rice, and maize; these are all grains! From China to Mesoamerica, most early civilizations adopted some sort of grain as their cultivar. It’s possible early foraging societies treated wild grain as a sort of backup food, and over time started tending to wild fields. In addition, grains were essential for the preparation of bread and beer, and could additionally be prepared as porridges as a way to feed neonates or infants. It’s very likely that a mix of social, psychological, and evolutionary circumstances lead to the adoption of grains for agriculture. At the same time, the moment we started tending to wild crops like grains, we involuntarily started to domesticate them, essentially shaping a symbiotic relationship with our cultivars out of which they lost their ability to reproduce independently while also becoming more favourable for cultivation.
The adoption of grains may have had an interesting consequence on society, as it is argued that the properties of grains are what allowed early states to form and flourish. Firstly, grains follow a predictable annual life cycle. This made it easier to plan and organise labour forces for planting and harvesting. This planning necessitated the invention of some sort of clock or calendar, or just in general a better understanding of time, and it’s hypothesised some very ancient megalithic monuments such as Stonehenge served exactly this time-tracking purpose. Secondly, grains are dry and incredibly shelf-stable, and thus can be hoarded in massive quantities. This rendered whoever was in charge of a granary, which is essentially a grain bank, responsible for the life and death of a village. This special and important position is what led to the formation of a priestly or royal class that didn’t have to farm, but rather manage the wealth, i.e. the grain, of the state. Granaries were especially important in times of droughts or floods, as they would essentially redistribute the grain to the people to ensure their survival and well-being. Additionally, granaries would distribute grains as pay for the people doing public work, like digging canals and ditches to better irrigate the fields. But to fill a granary, a state requires a portion of the harvest. Thus a state requires taxing a specific amount from all harvests to ensure granaries had enough to work with. To collect taxes you then require a census (to know who lives there), a land survey (to know how much they grow), and a police force (to make them pay). Grains were especially easy to survey and monitor for the exact reasons stated above: they follow predictable life cycles. Additionally, they grow above ground, unlike other plants such as tubers which grow underground and are harvestable over many months. This makes it easier for a tax collector to estimate how much wealth is there, while also visiting and surveying at the right times; it’s very hard to hide a harvest. Agriculture also implies settlement, as already mentioned, which requires you to forfeit your ability to flee from potential dangers or invaders, therefore a state requires a standing army to protect and defend the granaries and its territories.
While all the above reasons and explanations are presented in a very logical and seemingly chronological order, they all likely occurred nearly contemporarily, as all of these factors could have worked in a synergistic feedback loop, in which each factor reinforced the others. Many other features of what we consider civilization further developed to facilitate these concepts and ideas, such as cuneiform, one of the earliest forms of writing, being used for accounting. This also allowed for further stratification and division of labour, as you would need people to do the accounting, who require grain cultivated by farmers. And as discussed, you need people to go and collect the taxes, which then go to the granaries which are managed by priests or kings.
One interesting exception to this pattern is the Caral-Supe civilization, which primarily relied on fish and used cotton as their cultivar, which could be made into fishing nets to support their fishing activity. The Humboldt current along the western coast of South America provided a year-round supply of anchovies and sardines, which could be salted and dried to be stored. Though eventually, they had to succumb to maize, as El Niño events would periodically devastate fish populations. Additionally, fish was much harder to tax than grain, for the same reasons already discussed, and as Andean states grew more militaristic, their choice of food became one which was easier to control and distribute.