The Secondary Products Revolution: the past, the present and the future

Andrew Sherratt's (1981) model of the Secondary Products Revolution explored the effects of changes in the scale and nature of domestic animal exploitation on Old World societies. He proposed that the earliest domestic stock animals in the Near East (sheep, goat and cattle) were initially domesticated during the Neolithic for their primary products (meat, hide and bone), but that their more intensive exploitation for secondary animal products (milk, wool and traction) appeared in the Near East much later (during the Chalcolithic) and subsequently spread to surrounding regions (Europe and Asia). While the zooarchaeological evidence largely supports the model, questions have been raised about its veracity since there is evidence for pre-Chalcolithic exploitation of secondary products (e.g. ceramic lipid analyses). This paper summarizes past efforts to test the model, presents the results of recent research on the subject (e.g. artefactual, zooarchaeological and lipid analysis) and suggests directions for future research. Some of the discrepancies that have arisen between the archaeological, ceramic lipid and zooarchaeological data will be discussed.