The first farmers
Subtitle: the origins of agricultural societies
By: Peter Bellwood.
Publisher: Blackwell Pub.
Published: 2005
Place of publication: Malden, MA
Language: eng
Number of pages: 360
Subjects: Agriculture -- Origin; Agriculture, Prehistoric; Plants, Cultivated -- Origin
Other titles: Origins of agricultural societies
Description: "First Farmers examines the reasons for the multiple primary origins of agriculture, looks at relations between hunter-gatherers and farmers, and addresses issues of agricultural adoption, the origins and dispersal histories of language families, and the dispersal histories of biological populations. Bellwood offers discussion of regional agricultural origins in, and dispersals out of, these areas: the Middle East, central Africa, China, New Guinea, Mesoamerica, and the northern Andes. The linguistic survey covers the origins and dispersals of major language families such as Indo-European, Austronesian, Sino-Tibetan, Niger-Congo, and Uto-Aztecan."--BOOK JACKET
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 292-349) and index.
Table of contents: title: The early farming dispersal hypothesis in perspective; title: The origins and dispersals of agriculture : some operational considerations; title: The beginnings of agriculture in Southwest Asia; title: Tracking the spreads of farming beyond the Fertile Crescent : Europe and Asia; title: Africa : an independent focus of agricultural development?; title: The beginnings of agriculture in East Asia; title: The spread of agriculture into Southeast Asia and Oceania; title: Early agriculture and its spread in the Americas; title: What do language families mean for human prehistory?; title: The spread of farming : comparing the archaeology and the linguistics; title: Genetics, skeletal anthropology, and the people factor; title: The nature of early agricultural expansion.