His university studies of literature and philosophy set J. Cauvin apart in the “ tribe” of French prehistorians. The genesis of his theory on the relationship between the «birth of the gods » and the « birth of agriculture » dates back to the 1970s. He was already opposed to the «dominant materialist model » according to which neolithisation was an adaptive response to external environmental constraints. This was a model championed by prehistorians of the Anglo-Saxon school. Cauvin proposed on the contrary that the evolutionary emergence of an internal factor was the «prime mover » of the Neolithic revolution. He had announced this theory in a little book published in 1972, entitled Religions néolithiques de Syro-Palestine. He set it in line of descent from A. Leroi-Gourhan, who had published his own Les religions de la Préhistoire in 1964. Cauvin returned to the question in his second book, which was also somewhat limited in its readership, Les premiers villages de Syrie-Palestine, published in 1978 ; there, an entire chapter was dedicated to « artistic and religious documents » . Over that decade, his original ideas scarcely reached beyond a narrow circle of specialists, with the exception of a short article that he contributed to La Recherche in 1973. In that article, he underlined the role of a «bull cult » and the multiplication of female figurines, the ancestors of the later representations of a «fertility goddess (or mother-goddess) » . In the 1980s, Cauvin increased the number of articles directed at a wider public (1985e, 1987), and at more specialised audiences, such as theologians (1983, 1986a, 1985f), or philosophers and historians (1985d, 1986b). At that time professional prehistorians were not his target audience. However, two subjects that were more clearly meant for them— animal representations and prehistoric matriarchy— were dealt with in the same year (1985a and 1985b). The 1990s saw the publication of Cauvin’s magnum opus (1994), which returned to all the themes that he had previously discussed. This book took up the challenge of addressing both his Francophone prehistorian colleagues and the general public. Its success was such that a second edition was soon needed (1997). But it was necessary to wait until 2000 and the English translation by T. Watkins (2000a) before Cauvin’s ideas finally reached the community of Near Eastern prehistorians, of whom the majority are Anglophone. His theory gave rise to debates, in which his premature death prevented him from taking part, save for two short articles in English (2000c and 2001). Thus it was that, after a period of slow maturation, and having been put to the test in different public arenas, Jacques Cauvin’s ideas stand out as an important stage in the long history of theories that propose explanations for the nature of the Neolithic phenomenon.
En reprenant l’ensemble des publications de Jacques Cauvin, on montre comment s’est progressivement dégagé le rôle de la « religion » ou plus exactement l’évolution du « milieu intérieur », comme moteur de la néolithisation du Proche-Orient. À l’époque, cette idée prenait alors le contre-pied des idées dominantes dans la communauté scientifique qui faisait de la néolithisation une réponse à des contraintes environnementales extérieures à l’homme. Les découvertes récentes semblent bien aller dans le sens d’un primat du symbolique sur le climatique ou l’économique dans le processus qui a abouti à la « révolution » néolithique.
