1. Man-Land Relations in Early History
Ancient records show that, in the beginning, tribes and clans
organized life and exercised control over the area they had
taken possession of. Survival of the group was the main goal,
and the emerging relations between man and land were meant
to support this goal. The group defended the territory it
had occupied against others, so that the members had the exclusive
right to hunt and fish. This right of the conqueror was the
first land right. The group allotted land to individual families
for their utilization. After a period of hunting and gathering,
cultivation of land started. In the beginning, mainly riverbanks
and similar easily cultivable areas were used. In a later
period, the invention of brass and iron made it possible to
produce tools and to clear jungles, thus developing agriculture
to a stage, at which yields sometimes exceeded subsistence
requirements.
The custom, according to which whoever cleared a plot of
the unlimited jungle had the right to use that land, developed
into a new land right, the right of the first clearer.
Need for mutual help in the strenuous clearing work, defence
of the cleared land and repeated use of that land year after
year led, in the course of time, to the formation of villages
which assumed the regulation of land rights. Strong families
were able to cultivate more land than others and produced
a surplus over subsistence requirements, i.e. control over
more land meant greater wealth for the family. Differences
in the areas of cultivated land caused a differentiation within
the society.
The example of India:
In ancient history, tribes exercised control over the land
they had taken possession of, especially regarding its delimitation
and defense. The tribe allotted land to the individual families
which these utilized, usually for shifting cultivation. At
that time, the countryside was covered by the jungle, and
whoever cleared a plot in the jungle had the right to use
it as long as he wanted. Only in the case of abandonment did
the power of disposition revert to the tribe.
The hard work of clearing the land required the families'
mutual help. This as well as small defense measures and the
increase in the number of families led, in the course of time,
to the formation of villages which assumed the regulation
of land rights. They consisted of a group of families who
had acquired land rights for having cleared the land. In these
cases, the claims of the families were limited to the cleared
land, while the uncultivated land in the vicinity was utilized
jointly, but no claim was made to it. In other villages, land
rights were held jointly, i.e. the village community claimed
the right to the whole land within the village boundaries
and allotted it to individual families for utilization. This
was exercised by a village council.
Thus, while there were individual as wall as joint land
rights at that time already, these rights were a privilege
granting inheritable utilization rights and included social
obligations, especially taking into consideration the village
communities' interests.
The exemple of Korea:
In Korea, life in early times was seminomadic with clan communities
organizing life collectively to guarantee livelihood and protection.
Agriculture was limited to easily cultivable river beds, until
bras and iron were introduced from China around 500 B.C.,
and oxen, cows, silk and rice were also introduced. This led
to an increase in productivity in agriculture so that a small
family system was sufficient to assure subsistence and replaced
the larger clan community. An emerging surplus over subsistence
requirements made some families richer than other ones. This
differentiation went on: to control more land meant greater
wealth, and individual families united to form tribes which
tried to conquer land and take prisoners to work as slaves.
Tribal chiefs could secure more land and became richer. Thus,
while land was always controlled by groups, the technological
development in agriculture brought about a stratification
in the former egalitarian society.
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