A few years ago I was watching a documentary about the Neolithic revolution (this looks like part of it), and had a light-bulb moment – I realised that the story in the bible in the book of Genesis might be about the Neolithic revolution.

The Neolithic revolution happened in the Fertile Crescent (present day Iraq). It is one of several places in the world where agriculture was developed independently. By agriculture: I mean intensive planting which requires people to babysit the crops (as opposed to throwing seeds on a suitable area and coming back later), and also animal farming which requires the animals to be kept confined, fed, watered etc.

In the bible, to me at least – it seems that there are clearly two different Adam/Eve stories that have been mashed together. For example, in one version Eve was created from clay alongside Adam as his equal, but in the other version she was created after Adam from his rib. I think this is a mixture of the story of Lilith and of Eve to create one character. I think Lilith is the hunter-gatherer woman – wise, ancient, knowledgeable, well-rounded, Adam’s equal – but demonised as barbaric, savage, overly sexual and a baby-killer. Eve is the agricultural wife – subservient to Adam, nurturing, shuts her mouth, and takes care of the farm and house.

Adam and Eve live in the Garden of Eden – where everything is provided for them. They just have to follow some laws. Eve talks to a serpent who encourages her to eat from the forbidden tree of knowledge. Eve eats from the tree, and successfully encourages Adam to also eat. Both know that this is against God’s law. They knowingly break God’s law – and as a consequence are permanently locked out of the Garden of Eden. Outside of the garden, life is hard and involves back-breaking work and disease. They live in fear of retribution from God – who is a thunder and lightning god in the first few books of the bible. Eve becomes subservient chattel (property) of Adam.

This story has parallels with the Neolithic revolution. Before the Neolithic revolution, people were believed to be nomadic hunter-gatherers (I am not buying this 100%, but let’s go with it for now). Perhaps by chance, a group of women – camping, digging for yams and looking after young children while the men were out hunting, noticed some fruits growing in the compost heap where the group throw food scraps. The women experiment, are successful, and supplement the family diet with an improvised crop. Around the same time, others experiment keeping animals. This is great until bad weather sets in, and a storm wipes out the women’s crop. Or other things can go wrong – such as disease in higher density semi-permanent camps with animals, or gradual loss of knowledge (eg bush medicine) and breaking of laws. In which case, the camp packs up, and moves back into their law and into a more hunter-gatherer lifestyle. But eventually, perhaps the agricultural lifestyle becomes successful, produces more children surviving till adulthood, many more mouths to feed, which leads to dependency on that agricultural lifestyle, the need for military conquest for more land, more crops, etc… At some point, there is no going back.

Can you see the parallels?

• Hunter-gatherers have many spirits – or many different factors to consider that can make-or-break their survival. They can talk to snakes. For a hunter-gatherer, a storm god is not an especially scary god. They can see a storm coming days in advance if they pay attention, plenty of time to find shelter. Agriculturalists on the other-hand are very heavily dependent on good weather. They are terrified of a storm which can destroy their crop and literally cause them to starve to death. Adam and Eve were at the mercy of the storm God outside of the Garden of Eden.
• Eating from the tree of knowledge (taboo eating from fruits growing in the scrap pile!?) permanently kicked them out of the garden. They became dependent on the technology they had developed. More food, more mouths to feed, more food needed…There was no going back. Much like mobile phones today – once dependency is there, it’s very difficult to reverse.
• Disease – Adam and Eve suffered disease after being kicked out of the Garden. Living in close quarters with animals would lead to new diseases that would not have affected hunter-gatherers in the Garden of Eden. Plus – new diseases (eg. from drinking faeces-contaminated water, rats, bird/swine flu) would be expected and the people would not have knowledge to prevent or treat them.
• Women became property of men, Eve becomes subservient to Adam. Permanent and semi-permanent settlements means someone MUST stay around, someone must “own” parcels of land and take the extra responsibility for crops/animals/land and housekeeping. Women with childbearing responsibility are the obvious choice for such roles. Men take on a more military/defense/offense role and become successful from being violent. Women/land packages are men’s reward for being good brutes. Women lose their status as equals with men, they are valued for attributes that directly benefit men – child-bearing capability, physical attractiveness and nurturing qualities. These are qualities which would not have had as high priority in a hunter-gatherer society; where women would be valued for more specialised survival skills, leadership, medicine, crafts and ancient knowledge.
• Adam and Eve were talking to snakes in the garden. Once out of the garden they seem to have lost that connection. They gained knowledge, but also lost connection with the spirits of the land. They probably lost a LOT of ancient knowledge as they had to cut down sacred sites and sacred sites of other people just to feed themselves.
• Adam and Eve had two sons, Cain and Abel. Abel farmed animals, Cain farmed crops. Cain murdered Abel out of jealousy, and was punished by God by being ‘driven from the soil’ and made to go nomadic. The development of crop growing would have not happened overnight. Failed crops due to bad conditions forced groups to periodically return to old hunter-gatherer ways.
• The story is from Mesopotamia – which is from the same part of the world that the Neolithic revolution actually happened.

Are we (Aboriginal women) daughters of Eve?

If Eve lived in the fertile crescent in Mesopotamia as early as 11000BC, then Aboriginal people (male and female) with direct maternal blood-lines cannot possibly be female-line descended from Eve, because we have been geographically separated from Mesopotamia much longer than that. The proof is in our blood – in our mitochondrial DNA. And for direct paternal-line men – likewise, they are not on Adam’s bloodline. The evidence is in their Y Chromosomal DNA. We are probably not the only ones in the world either, we are just one of the more clear-cut examples.

We don’t need to be saved from the “original sin” because we never knowingly broke our law! We kept true to our law! We never chose to eat from the tree of knowledge.

Do-gooder Catholics, Jewish people and Christians – you – the descendants of Adam and Eve; you have broken back into the Garden of Eden, started massacring and stealing the land of the law-abiding people inside. Stop trying to make us eat from the tree, just so you can justify your actions and save us with Jesus!