The Origins And Spread Of Agriculture And Pastoralism In Eurasia: Crops, Fields, Flocks And Herds

Abstract

Introduction, David Harris. Part 1 Thematic perspectives: growing plants and raising animals - an anthropological perspective on domestication, Tim Ingold ecology, evolutionary theory and agricultural origins, Mark Blumler the spread of agriculture and nomadic pastoralism - insights from genetics, linguistics and archaeology, Luca Cavalli-Sforza language families and the spread of farming, Colin Renfrew tracking early crops and early farmers - the potential of biomolecular archaeology, Martin Jones et al the impact of diseases upon the emergence and spread of agriculture, Les Groube plate tectonics and imaginary prehistories - structure and contingency in agricultural origins, Andrew Sherratt. Part 2 Southwest Asia: the mode of domestication of the founder crops of Southwest Asian agriculture, Daniel Zohary climate-induced changes in the plant resources of hunter-gatherers of the northern Fertile Crescent - preludes to cereal cultivation?, Gordon Hillman the emergence of cultivation and pastoralism in the marginal zone of the southern Levant, Andrew Garrard et al animal domestication - accident or intention?, Hans-Peter Uerpmann the beginning of caprine domestication in Southwest Asia, Tony Legge the context of caprine domestication in the Zagros region, Frank Hole the one-humped camel in Asia - origin, utilization and mechanisms of dispersal, Ilsa Kohler-Rollefson. Part 3 Europe: the development of agriculture in Greece - when, how, who and what?, Paul Halstead the cultural context of the first use of domesticates in continental central and northwest Europe, Julian Thomas agricultural frontiers and the transition to farming in the circum-Baltic area, Marek Zvelebil the first farmers of southern Scandinavia, Douglas Price arboriculture in Southwest Europe - dehesas as managed woodlands, Richard Harrison. Part 4 Central Asia to the Pacific: the beginnings of agriculture in western Central Asia, David Harris and Chris Gosden the origins and spread of agriculture and pastoralism in northwestern South Asia, Richard Meadow new evidence for early rice cultivation in South, Southeast and East Asia, Ian Glover and Charles Higham Jomon and Yayoi - the transition to agriculture in Japanese prehistory, Keiji Imamura the origins and spread of agriculture in the Indo-Pacific region - gradualism and diffusion or revolution and colonization?, Peter Bellwood people- plant interactions in the New Guinea highlands - agricultural hearthland or horticultural backwater?, Tim Bayliss-Smith early agriculture and what went before in island Melanesia - continuity or intrusion?, Matthew Spriggs the origins of tropical vegeculture - zingiberacene, araceae and dioscoreaceae in Southeast Asia, Jon Hather. Part 5 Conclusion: the origins and spread of agricutlure and pastoralism in Eurasia - an overview, David Harris.