First Farmers: the Origins of Agricultural Societies offers readers an understanding of the origins and histories of early agricultural populations in all parts of the world.
- Uses data from archaeology, comparative linguistics, and biological anthropology to cover developments over the past 12,000 years
- Examines the reasons for the multiple primary origins of agriculture
- Focuses on agricultural origins in and dispersals out of the Middle East, central Africa, China, New Guinea, Mesoamerica and the northern Andes
- Covers the origins and dispersals of major language families such as Indo-European, Austronesian, Sino-Tibetan, Niger-Congo and Uto-Aztecan
Detailed Contents.
List of Figures.
List of Tables.
Preface.
1 The Early Farming Dispersal Hypothesis in Perspective.
The disciplinary players.
Broad perspectives.
Some key guiding principles.
2 The Origins and Dispersals of Agriculture: Some Operational Considerations.
The significance of agriculture: productivity and population numbers.
Why did agriculture develop in the first place?.
The significance of agriculture vis-à-vis hunting and gathering.
Under what circumstances might hunters and gatherers have adopted agriculture in prehistory?.
Group 1: The “niche” hunter-gatherers of Africa and Asia.
Group 2: The “unenclosed” hunter-gatherers of Australia, the Andamans and the Americas.
Group 3: Hunter-gatherers who descend from former agriculturalists.
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