  One of the last chapters in the long course of human evolution was the shift
from hunting and gathering to the production of food or strategies of
subsistence based on farming and the herding of animals. In Southwest Asia, the
first steps towards the origins of agriculture began some 12,000 years ago and
then spread over most regions of Europe during the span of time from about
10,400 years ago (the start of the so-called PPNB on the island of Cyprus)
through around 6,000 years ago. The aim of this chapter is to provide an
overview on the research that we have done on the question of the Neolithic
transition in Europe, which began when Luca CavalliSforza, a leading figure in
the field of human population genetics, and I began to work in collaboration at
the University of Pavia in November of 1970. This draft forms the basis of my
paper as part of the Festschrift prepared for the 45th anniversary of Ryszard
Grygiel and Peter Bogucki's scientific cooperation.
