CRISES AND ECONOMIC-DYNAMICS IN TRADITIONAL SOCIETIES

The problem of cause-and-effect in the transition to a food-producing economy is still under sharp debate1* * See Notes section at end of paper for all footnotes.. It is useful to treat this matter in a much broader context, considering the transformation of subsistence economy in general. Ethnographic data at hand are of much importance for this purpose, permitting the treatment of different, well-described situations and allowing the analysis of the various factors involved. It is argued that a single-factor approach to causation is fruitless, as are attempts to put forward any general model that explains the emergence of food-producing economy all over the world. Crisis was one of the most important stimuli for the transformation of traditional economies, but one should distinguish between several different kinds of crises when discussing their roles in economic changes. In addition, there were also some particular stimuli for change in noncrisis circumstances which are also discussed in the present paper. © 1992.