Foraging and Farming The Evolution of Plant Exploitation [Hardcover]

This book is one of a series of more than 20 volumes resulting from the World Archaeological Congress, September 1986, attempting to bring together not only archaeologists and anthropologists from many parts of the world, as well as academics from contingent disciplines, but also non-academics from a wide range of cultural backgrounds. This volume develops a new approach to plant exploitation and early agriculture in a worldwide comparative context. It modifies the conceptual dichotomy between hunter-gatherers and farmers , viewing human exploitation of plant resources as a global evolutionary process which incorporated the beginnings of cultivation and crop domestication. The studies throughout the book come from a worldwide range of geographical contexts, from the Andes to China and from Australia to the Upper Mid-West of North America. This work is of interest to anthropologists, archaeologists, botanists and geographers. Originally published 1989.

Foreword P.J. UckoPreface. Introduction Part 1: The Evolution of Plant Exploitation: Concepts and Processes1. An Evolutionary Continuum of People-plant Interaction D.R. Harris 2. Darwinism and its Role in the Explanation of Domestication D. Rindos3. Domestication and Domiculture in Northern Australia: A Social Perspective A.K. Chase4. The Domestication of Environment D.E. YenPart 2: Plant Exploitation in Non-agrarian Contexts: The Ethnographic Witness 5. Wild-grass Seed Harvesting in the Sahara and Sub-Sahara of Africa J.R. Harlan6. Australian Aboriginal Seed Grinding and its Archaeological Record: A Case Study from the Western Desert S. Cane7. Plant Foods of the Gidjingali: Ethnographic and Archaeological Perspectives from Northern Australia on Tuber and Seed Exploitation R. Jones and B. Meehan8. Plant Usage and Management in Southwest Australian Aboriginal Societies &ll3,