Investigating the transition to agriculture. 
Because understanding the transition to food production is fundamentally an exercise in dietary reconstruction, research designs that incorporate multiple lines of evidence provide the most rigorous tests.  An approach is advocated that evaluates multiple lines of evidence critically, verifying one indicator by one or more different ones.  Theoretical and methodological issues arising from presentations/exchanges during the "State University of New York Conversation in the Discipline: The Origins of Agriculture" are discussed.