Neanderthals, Bandits and Farmers: How Agriculture Really BeganTradition has it that agriculture began in the Middle East around 10,000 years ago, that once people realized the advantages of farming, it spread rapidly to the furthest outposts of the world, and that this led to the Neolithic Revolution and the end of the hunting-gathering lifestyle. In this book Colin Tudge argues that agriculture in some form was in the repertoire of our ancestors for thousands of years before the Neolithic farming revolution: people did not suddenly invent forced into it over a long period. What we see in the Neolithic Revolution is not the beginning of agriculture on a large scale, in one place, with refined tools.Drawing on a wide range of evidence from fossil records to the Bible, Tudge offers a persuasive hypothesis about a puzzling epoch in our past. In so doing, he provides new insights into the Pleistocene overkill, the demise of the Neanderthals, the location of the biblical Eden, and much more. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved. |
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Neanderthals, Bandits and Farmers: How Agriculture Really Began Colin Tudge No preview available - 1998 |
Common terms and phrases
Abel Africa AGRICULTURE REALLY BEGAN anatomically modern ancient arable farming arable techniques arablists archaeologists Australia Australian aborigines bandits BANDITS AND FARMERS become rare beginning of agriculture big predators bison breed Budiansky Cain cereals climate Clive Gamble coaxes more food Colin Tudge creatures Cro-Magnons crop protection crucial cultivation Darwinian Darwinism Today domestic ecological success Elephant birds envisage Eurasia evolutionary extinct FARMERS HOW AGRICULTURE fauna favoured plants fertile firestick farming food plants food supply game management gazelles Genesis giant grain grass grazing Helena Cronin hobby hominids Homo sapiens horticulture hunting and gathering hypothesis Ice Age increase kind land large scale late Palaeolithic least livestock manipulate the environment mice Middle East million years ago Neanderthals Neolithic Revolution North America Palaeolithic pastoralism pastoralists perhaps Persian Gulf places Pleistocene Pleistocene overkill population rises practise prey base prey species propagation proto-farmers reason seeds sheep soil spread Stan Gooch suggested traditional traditionally trees wheat wild