ABSTRACT
In early conceptions of the rise of civilization, pastoral nomadic societies were perceived as intermediate between the most primitive culture-evolutionary stage of hunting-gathering and more advanced village-farming and, later, urban civilization. In his early synthesis of the Neolithic Revolution, V.G. Childe (e.g., 1951:59-86) adapted this framework to his own theoretical approach, retaining the hunter-gatherer-to-herder-to-farmer-to-city-dweller sequence, suggesting that farming developed as a by-product of the need to support herds; these were domesticated as a natural consequence of the propinquity between humans and animals as they were forced to concentrate around water sources (oases) following the great (perceived) desiccation after the last glacial pluvial.
