First Farmers

List of Figures xii Preface to the first edition of First Farmers (2005) xv Preface to the second edition of First Farmers (2023) xix 1 The Early Farming Dispersal Hypothesis in Perspective 1 Introducing the Hypothesis 1 The Disciplinary Players 4 Broad Perspectives 5 Some Thoughts on Causation and Approach 9 2 The Origins and Dispersals of Food Production 12 Matters of Definition 12 What Changed with Food Production? 14 The Significance of Agriculture: Productivity and Population Numbers 15 What Were the Practicalities behind Plant Domestication? 20 Forager versus Farmer: An Easy Behavioral Choice? 22 Why Did Food Production Develop in the First Place? 25 Were There Any Regularities in the Origins of Food Production across the World? 27 Focusing on the Holocene as an Essential Environmental Background for Food Production 30 Agricultural Adoption: The View from Ethnography 32 The “Encapsulated” Hunter-Gatherers of Africa and Asia 34 The Independent Hunter-Gatherers of Australia, the Andamans, and the Americas 37 Hunter-Gatherers with Food-producing Ancestries 40 Why Did Ethnographic Hunter-Gatherers Not Become Food Producers? 40 To the Archaeological Record 42 A Final Observation 43 3 The Beginnings of Food Production in the Fertile Crescent 49 Introducing the Fertile Crescent 49 The Fertile Crescent Environment at the Dawn of Agriculture 52 The Domestication of Plants in the Fertile Crescent 53 The Fertile Crescent Domesticated Animals 56 The Hunter-Gatherer Background to Farming in the Fertile Crescent 58 The Fertile Crescent Neolithic: The Rise of Villages, Towns, and Food Production 61 The Pre-Pottery Neolithic A and Its Contemporaries (c. 9500–8500 BCE) 65 The Pre-Pottery Neolithic B and Its Contemporaries (c. 8500–7000 BCE) 68 Further Observations on the PPNB World 70 The Pre-Pottery Neolithic on the Move: The Zagros, Central Anatolia, and Cyprus 71 The Real Turning Point in the Neolithic Revolution 75 4 The Spreads of Food Production beyond the Fertile Crescent: Europe, the Middle East, and South Asia 81 The Spread of the Neolithic Economy through Europe 81 Western Anatolia 84 The Aegean, Greece, and the Northern Mediterranean Littoral 86 The Balkans, and the Danubians of the Linearbandkeramik (LBK) 87 Northern Europe 90 The British Isles 91 The Western Steppes: The Lower Danube to the Urals 92 European Neolithic Societies 93 Agricultural Dispersals to the East of the Fertile Crescent 94 The Indian Subcontinent (South Asia) 97 The Domesticated Crops of the Indian Subcontinent 97 Regional Trajectories into Food Production in South Asia: The Consequences of Mehrgarh 98 Western India: Extending beyond the Harappan 100 Southern India 101 The Ganges Basin and Northeast India 102 Europe and South Asia Compared 104 5 Africa: Multiple Routes into Food Production 109 Three African Themes 109 The African Continent 110 Before Farming: The Green Sahara 112 The Spread of the Fertile Crescent Agricultural Complex into Egypt 113 The North African Littoral 116 Pastoralism before Crop Agriculture in Northeastern Africa? 116 The Origins of the African Domesticated Plants 118 The Appearance of Agriculture in Central and Southern Africa 120 A Summary for Africa 123 6 The Beginnings of Agriculture in East Asia 127 The Environmental Background to Early Agriculture in East Asia 127 The Domesticated Plants and Animals of East Asia 129 The Cultural Background to Early Agriculture in East Asia 130 Where and How the Millets and Rice Became Domesticated 131 Agriculture and Migration in China 134 The Archaeological Record of the Early Neolithic in the Liao and Yellow River Basins 136 The Archaeological Record of the Early Neolithic in the Yangtze Basin 140 Demographic Trends in Neolithic China 142 Later Developments (Post-5000 BCE) in the Chinese Neolithic 142 7 The Dispersals of Food Producers into Southeast Asia and Oceania 150 The Hunter-Gatherer Background to the Arrival of Farmers in Mainland Southeast Asia 152 The Oldest Neolithic Assemblages in Guangxi and Northern Vietnam 155 First Farmers across Mainland Southeast Asia 157 Early Farmers in Taiwan and Island Southeast Asia 161 The Archaeological Record of Food Production in Island Southeast Asia 164 The New Guinea Agricultural Trajectory and Its Role in Pacific Colonization 167 Early Farmers as First Settlers in Remote Oceania 169 8 Early Agriculture in the Americas 176 Some Necessary Background to Early American Food Production 178 The Geography of Early Agriculture in the Americas 181 Maize 182 Other Important Crops 184 South America: The Andes 186 Amazonia 191 Middle America (with Mesoamerica) 193 The Southwest USA 196 Of Pipelines and Freeways 198 Immigrant Mesoamerican Farmers in the US Southwest? 201 Independent Agricultural Origins in the Eastern Woodlands 202 9 What Do Language Families Mean for Human Prehistory? 212 Language Families, and How They Have Evolved 213 Text Box; The Austronesian languages and their speakers 214 The Identification and Phylogenetic Study of Language Families 217 Of Trees and Rakes 220 At What Rates Do Languages Change through Time? 222 Missing Links? 225 How Did Languages and Language Families Spread? 227 Languages in Competition: Language Shift 229 Where to Next? 231 10 The Profound Impact of the Fertile Crescent 235 Where Did the Indo-European Family Originate, and When? 235 A Pontic Steppes Origin for the Indo-European Languages? 241 Elamite and Dravidian, and the Indo-Iranians 244 The Afro-Asiatic Language Family 248 The Background to a Genetic Perspective 250 Genomic Evidence for Neolithic Migration Out of the Fertile Crescent 252 Indo-European from the Pontic Steppes? The Genetic Perspective 253 Fertile Crescent DNA Heads East 255 A New Genetic Perspective on Indo-European Origins? 260 Genomic Ancestry and the Afro-Asiatic Language Family 261 11 Asia, Oceania, Africa, The Americas 268 The East Asian Language Families 268 Sino-Tibetan 270 Transeurasian 271 The Mainland Southeast Asian Language Families 273 Austroasiatic 274 Kra-Dai (Tai-Kadai) and Hmong-Mien 275 Island Southeast Asia and Oceania – Austronesian 276 Genomic Perspectives on Early Farmer and Language Family Dispersals in Southern China, Southeast Asia, and Oceania 278 Whence the Polynesians and Micronesians? 278 Was Taiwan a Likely Genomic Homeland for Austronesian-speaking Populations? 280 Which Neolithic Populations in China Contributed Genes to Southeast Asian and Pacific Populations? 281 Oceania: The Trans-New Guinea Family 284 The African Language Families 285 The Nilo-Saharan Family and the Khoisan Language Group 286 The Niger-Congo Family, with Its Bantu Subgroup 288 The Americas 291 Middle America, Mesoamerica, and the US Southwest 293 Uto-Aztecan 296 South America 298 Eastern North America 302 12 The Early Farming Dispersal Hypothesis: Two Decades Later 316 Index 319