Big Man Government
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As places got more crowded,
in the Neolithic
or New Stone Age period, some people began to live in larger
groups. These villages were still not very big: maybe ten or
fifteen families, maybe a total of less than a hundred people.
But still that was enough people to make it hard to make decisions.
People argued and fought over what to do. |
In some places, what happened was that one man or woman (but usually a man) got to be able to tell the others what to do, and they would do it, most of the time. Often this was because the "big man" was stronger or bigger than everyone else and could beat them up, or she might have friends who would beat everyone else up. Sometimes everyone just thought this was the smartest person around. Sometimes they just were good at making friends and convincing people of things. Or they might be better at hunting than other people. Somehow this man or woman would get everyone else in the village to do what he or she said, most of the time.
What kinds of decisions were people making in the New
Stone Age?
They were deciding where to build their village, and how to build a
wall around it, and who should work on building the wall. They were
making (and breaking) trading agreements
with other villages. They were deciding where to plant
their crops, and where to store them for the winter. They needed
a war leader in case people attacked, or in case they attacked other
people. Probably the most important thing was to decide who got the
water, and what they
did with it. Water has always been scarce around
the Mediterranean and in Western
Asia, and people fight over whose garden will be watered. A big
man or woman can decide that kind of fight without anyone getting hurt.
Not all the people who had "big men" were settled down in villages, though. Nomads also sometimes had "big men," if their group was big enough to need one. Nomadic big men decided where the group should travel to, and when, and also acted as war leaders and arranged trade agreements with settled people and with other nomads, and agreements on the use of watering holes.
