Gregg (archaeology, Southern Ill. U.) argues that the transition from hunter-gatherer societies to settled agricultural communities in prehistoric Europe involved a wide variety of interactions for over a millennium. She considers the ecological requirements of crops and livestock, develops a computer simulation to identify an optimal farming strategy for early Neolithic populations, and models the effects that interaction with the farmers would have had on the foragers' subsistence-settlement system. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Archeologists have always considered the beginnings of Andean civilization from c.13,000 to 6,000 years ago to be important in terms of the appearance of domesticated plants and animals, social differentiation, and a sedentary lifestyle, but there is more to this period than just these developments. During this period, the spread of crop production and other technologies, kinship-based labor projects, mound-building, and population aggregation formed ever-changing conditions across the Andes. From Foraging to Farming in the Andes proposes a new and more complex model for understanding the transition from hunting and gathering to cultivation. It argues that such developments evolved regionally, were fluid and uneven, and were subject to reversal. This book develops these arguments from a large body of archaeological evidence, collected over 30 years in two valleys in northern Peru, and then places the valleys in the context of recent scholarship studying similar developments around the world.
The best-selling author of Why the West Rules—for Now examines the evolution and future of human values Most people in the world today think democracy and gender equality are good, and that violence and wealth inequality are bad. But most people who lived during the 10,000 years before the nineteenth century thought just the opposite. Drawing on archaeology, anthropology, biology, and history, Ian Morris explains why. Fundamental long-term changes in values, Morris argues, are driven by the most basic force of all: energy. Humans have found three main ways to get the energy they need—from foraging, farming, and fossil fuels. Each energy source sets strict limits on what kinds of societies can succeed, and each kind of society rewards specific values. But if our fossil-fuel world favors democratic, open societies, the ongoing revolution in energy capture means that our most cherished values are very likely to turn out not to be useful any more. Foragers, Farmers, and Fossil Fuels offers a compelling new argument about the evolution of human values, one that has far-reaching implications for how we understand the past—and for what might happen next. Originating as the Tanner Lectures delivered at Princeton University, the book includes challenging responses by classicist Richard Seaford, historian of China Jonathan Spence, philosopher Christine Korsgaard, and novelist Margaret Atwood.
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.
Between Foraging and Farming is liber amicorum for prof. Leendert Louwe Kooijmans, former dean of the Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University. Neolithisation has been Louwe Kooijmans' research field since the nineteen-sixties and that is the reason why the topic of this book is the Meso-Neo transition.Twenty-three researchers contributed to this volume, among them colleagues from the Faculty like Corrie Bakels, Annelou van Gijn , Pieter van de Velde and Harry Fokkens, but also from other Dutch institutes like Marjorie de Grooth and Jan Albert Bakker, and colleagues from abroad like Bryony Coles, Alasdair Whittle, Richard Bradley, Peter Bogucki, Soren Andersen and Haio Zimmermann. A fitting homage for a great researcher.
The cathedral-like Niah Caves of Sarawak (Borneo) have iconic status in the archaeology of Southeast Asia, because the excavations by Tom and Barbara Harrisson in the 1950s and 1960s revealed the longest sequence of human occupation in the region, from (we now know) 50,000 years ago to the recent past. This book is the first of two volumes describing the results of new work in the caves by a multi-disciplinary team of archaeologists and geographers aimed at clarifying the many questions raised by the earlier work. This first volume is a closely integrated account of how the old and new work combines to provide profound new insights into the prehistory of the region: the strategies developed by our species to live in rainforest from the time of first arrival; how rainforest foragers engaged in forms of 'vegeculture' thousands of years before rice farming; and how rice farming represented profound transformations in the social (and spiritual?) lives of rainforest dwellers far more than being the dietary staple that it is today.
Tel Abu Hureyra, a settlement by the Euphrates River in Syria, was excavated in 1972-73 by an international team of archaeologists that included the authors of the book and scientists from English, American, and Australian universities. The excavation uncovered two successive villages: in the first village (c. 11,500-10,000 BP), inhabitants foraged vegetation and hunted local wildlife, the Persian gazelle, in particular. In the second village (c. 9700-7000 BP), inhabitants employed a more sophisticated method of food production, the cultivation of grain crops and the pasturing of sheep, goats, cattle, and pigs. Documented first hand in this book, these findings capture the transition in human history from the hunting-and-gathering to the farming way of life.
Food Freedom is an experiment in the gift economy and we offer it to you on a donation basis. Please visit https://www.robingreenfield.org/shop/foodfreedom/ to learn more and order a copy! *** Ten years ago, Robin Greenfield awoke to the destruction of the industrial food system. Since then, he has been deeply exploring the food we eat, often through immersive activism, which led to one of his most burning questions: could he step outside of the food system completely and grow and forage 100% of his food? In Food Freedom, he shares his adventures of living without grocery stores or restaurants. Nothing packaged, processed, or shipped; not even multivitamins, supplements, or spices. Within the city of Orlando, Florida, he turned lawns into abundant gardens, with a biodiversity of over 100 plant species. He foraged 200 species of plants and mushrooms from nature, experimenting with food as his medicine. Follow Robin on an emotional journey as he explores: - Growing and foraging to deepen his connection to local food and establish a relationship of reciprocity with the land - The industrial food system that likely brought you today’s meal - How communities are taking back control of their food and creating food sovereignty - How you, too, can grow your own and forage to gain food freedom The good food revolution is not a lonely path. Millions have embarked on the journey and are waiting for you to join them. Question your food. Uncover the truth. Liberate yourself through relationships with our plant community! 100% of profits, after book distribution, are donated to Gardens of Liberation, supporting Indigenous and Black-led food sovereignty initiatives.
"For the newcomer to the literature and logic of human behavioral ecology, this book is a flat-out bonanza—entirely accessible, self-critical, largely free of polemic, and, above all, stimulating beyond measure. It's an extraordinary contribution. Our understanding of the foraging-farming dynamic may just have changed forever."—David Hurst Thomas, American Museum of Natural History
