Knowledge of the origin and spread of farming has been revolutionised in recent years by the application of new scientific techniques, especially the analysis of ancient DNA from human genomes. In this book, Stephen Shennan presents the latest research on the spread of farming by archaeologists, geneticists and other archaeological scientists. He shows that it resulted from a population expansion from present-day Turkey. Using ideas from the disciplines of human behavioural ecology and cultural evolution, he explains how this process took place. The expansion was not the result of 'population pressure' but of the opportunities for increased fertility by colonising new regions that farming offered. The knowledge and resources for the farming 'niche' were passed on from parents to their children. However, Shennan demonstrates that the demographic patterns associated with the spread of farming resulted in population booms and busts, not continuous expansion.
Author(s): Stephen Shennan
Series: Cambridge World Archaeology
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Year: 2018
Language: English
Pages: XVIII+254
List of Figures xi
Preface and Acknowledgements xv
1. Introduction: Population, Resources and Life Histories 1
Malthus and Boserup 2
Life History Theory 3
The Evolutionary Demography of Becoming a Farmer 6
Synthesis 9
Structure of the Book 12
2. The Origins of Agriculture in South-West Asia 16
Explaining Origins 16
Diet Breadth and the Broad Spectrum Revolution 19
Increased Sedentism and the Exploitation of Low Return-Rate Resources in the Epipalaeolithic 22
Population Patterns 26
Climate Patterns 29
Cereal Agriculture 30
Animal Domestication 38
Population Patterns in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic 43
The Social Context 47
3. The First Westward Expansion of Farming 55
The Earliest Neolithic in Cyprus 59
Anatolia and the Aegean 63
Genetic Evidence for the Nature of the Aegean Expansion 70
The Balkans 71
Subsistence and Culture of the Balkan Early Neolithic 74
Explaining the Expansion 76
4. The Spread of Farming into Central Europe 79
The Genetic Evidence for the Mechanism of LBK Expansion 80
The Archaeological Record of Farmer–Forager Interaction 82
LBK Origins 86
The Speed of the LBK Spread 88
LBK Economic and Social Organisation 91
Population Ecology of the LBK Expansion 95
The Decline and Disappearance of the LBK 101
Cultural Transmission, Niche Construction and the LBK 105
5. Maritime Expansion in the Central and West Mediterranean 106
The History of Central and West Mediterranean Expansion 108
The Adriatic and Italy 110
Southern France 114
Iberia 120
Summary and Conclusion 126
6. Continental Temperate Europe 7000–5500 BP: Internal Expansion and Adaptation 129
Post-LBK Demographic and Cultural Patterns in Central Europe 131
Expansion in the West and the Development of New Social Patterns 134
The 'Young Neolithic': c.6400–5500 BP in Northern France, Germany and the Low Countries 142
Post-LBK Genetics and the Re-Emergence of Indigenous Hunter-Gatherers 151
Settlement and Subsistence 152
Summary and Conclusion 158
7. First Farmers in Southern Scandinavia 160
The Genetic Evidence 162
The Spread of Farming into Southern Scandinavia 164
Animal Traction, the Plough and the Wheel 170
Social Intensification in the Southern Scandinavian Neolithic 174
The Decline of the TRB 179
Summary and Conclusion 181
8. The Farming Colonisation of Britain and Ireland 183
Immigration or Diffusion? 183
The Process of Colonisation 187
Population Boom and Bust in Britain and Ireland 189
Early Neolithic Subsistence Patterns 192
Middle Neolithic Subsistence and the Population 'Bust' 195
Social and Cultural Change 198
After the Crash 203
Summary and Conclusion 205
9. Conclusion: Evolutionary Patterns and Processes 207
Notes 215
References 217
Index 247
