Notes: | Includes bibliographical references (pages 415-526) and index. Restrictions unspecified Licensed electronic resource available to Carleton faculty, staff, students and walk-in users. Not available to alumni. Electronic reproduction. [S.l.] : HathiTrust Digital Library, 2010. Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002. http://purl.oclc.org/DLF/benchrepro0212 digitized 2010 HathiTrust Digital Library committed to preserve Print version record.
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Summary: | "The Agricultural Revolution in Prehistory addresses one of the most debated and least understood revolutions in the history of our species - the change from foraging (hunting and gathering) to farming. Ten thousand years ago there were few if any communities whom we can properly call farmers; five thousand years later, large numbers of the world's population were farmers, using a wide variety of crops and animals in different combinations in different regions. The possible reasons for the transition have long been one of the most controversial topics in archaeology, and continue to be so." "Graeme Barker integrates a massive array of information from archaeology (including archaeological approaches right across the humanities and science spectrum), together with many other disciplines including anthropology, botany, climatology, genetics, linguistics, and zoology. Against current orthodoxy, he develops a strong case for the parallel development of geographically specific agricultural systems in many areas of the world, transformations in the lifeways of forager societies that in some cases have origins reaching much further back in time that commonly suggested. Barker argues that the change from foraging to farming was as much about foragers developing new ways of thinking about their relationship to the world they inhabited as about new ways of obtaining food. The Agricultural Revolution in Prehistory is clearly written, without jargon, and includes a large number of helpful line drawings and photographs as well as a comprehensive bibliography. It will be essential reading for all students of archaeology, as well as specialists in the various fields, and it is also intended for the interested general reader."--Jacket.
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