Secondary Products and the “Secondary Products Revolution”

Introduction

The term “secondary products” was coined by Andrew Sherratt in 1981 to refer to three resources that can be provided by livestock prior to slaughter: milk, wool, and labor. He saw these as components in a post-Neolithic “Secondary Products Revolution” (SPR) that fundamentally changed the economic bases of pre- and protohistoric societies in the Near East during the fourth millennium BCE, before spreading to Europe by diffusion: systematic production of milk and wool rendered specialized large-scale pastoralism (geared toward exchange) feasible; cattle-drawn plows permitted both intensification of agriculture and expansion of cultivation to previously marginal soils; and wheeled vehicles pulled by livestock allowed transportation of both arable and pastoral products in bulk.

Sherratt was in fact building on arguments by previous researchers that milking and wool use were not part of the original “Neolithic package,” but rather later developments (e.g., Bökönyi 1974)....