The Agricultural Revolution in Prehistory: Why did Foragers become Farmers?The Agricultural Revolution in Prehistory addresses one of the most debated and least understood revolutions in the history of our species, the change from hunting and gathering to farming. Graeme Barker takes a global view, and integrates a massive array of information from archaeology and many other disciplines, including anthropology, botany, climatology, genetics, linguistics, and zoology. Against current orthodoxy, Barker develops a strong case for the development of agricultural systems in many areas as transformations in the life-ways of the indigenous forager societies, and argues that these were as much changes in social norms and ideologies as in ways of obtaining food. With a large number of helpful line drawings and photographs as well as a comprehensive bibliography, this authoritative study will appeal to a wide general readership as well as to specialists in a variety of fields. |
Contents
| 1 | |
2 Understanding Foragers | 42 |
3 Identifying Foragers and Farmers | 73 |
4 The Hearth of Domestication? Transitions to Farming in SouthWest Asia | 104 |
the WheatRice Frontier | 149 |
6 Rice and Forest Farming in East and SouthEast Asia | 182 |
7 Weed Tuber and Maize Farming in the Americas | 231 |
Other editions - View all
The Agricultural Revolution in Prehistory: Why Did Foragers Become Farmers? Graeme Barker Limited preview - 2009 |
Common terms and phrases
Africa America Anthropology Antiquity Archaeology Barbary sheep barley Bellwood bones Cambridge University Press Çatalhöyük cattle Cave central cereals climatic communities crops cultivation culture D. R. Harris dates deer developed diet domestic domestic sheep early Holocene Early Neolithic East eastern einkorn Europe evidence example excavations farmers faunal fishing Food Production forager societies foragers Foraging and Farming forest gathering gazelle herding Holocene horticulture human hunter-gatherers Hunters hunting husbandry indicate Journal Kebaran landscape Lapita Last Glacial Maximum late Pleistocene London maize Mediterranean Mehrgarh Mesolithic microliths millennium bc millet Nabta Playa Natufian Nile North northern numbers origins of agriculture Oxford Palaeolithic pastoralism phytoliths pigs plant foods plant remains plants and animals pollen population pottery PPNA PPNB Prehistoric region rice Sahara seasonal sedentary sedentism seeds settlement sheep and goats social sorghum South-East South-West Asia southern species stone studies subsistence suggests transition to farming tropical valley wild World Archaeology Younger Dryas