Domestication of plants in the Old World
Subtitle: the origin and spread of domesticated plants in Southwest Asia, Europe, and the Mediterranean Basin
By: Daniel Zohary, Maria Hopf, Ehud Weiss
Contributors: Hopf, Maria; Weiss, Ehud
Edition: 4th ed.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2012
Place of publication: Oxford
Language: eng
Number of pages: 243
ISBN-13: 9780199549061
Subjects: Prehistoric Agriculture; Cultivated Plants; Origin; History
Description: "The origin of agriculture is one of the defining events of human history. Some 11-10,000 years ago bands of hunter-gatherers started to abandon their high-mobility lifestyles in favour of growing crops, and the creation of settled, sedentary communities. This shift into an agricultural lifestyle triggered the evolution of complex political and economic structures, and technological developments, and ultimately underpinned the rise of all the great civilizations of recent human history.

Domestication of Plants in the Old World reviews and synthesizes the information on the origins and domestication of cultivated plants in the Old World, and subsequently the spread of cultivation from southwest Asia into Asia, Europe, and north Africa, from the very earliest beginnings. This book is mainly based on detailed consideration of two lines of evidences: the plant remains found at archaeological sites, and the knowledge that has accumulated about the present-day wild relatives of domesticated plants. This new edition revises and updates previous data and incorporates the most recent findings from molecular biology about the genetic relations between domesticated plants and their wild ancestors, and incorporates extensive new archaeological data about the spread of agriculture within the region. The reference list has been completely updated, as have the list of archaeological sites and the site maps."--Pub. desc.
Notes: Previous ed.: 1999.

Includes bibliographical references and index.