A much-needed work that will prove invaluable to all students of the archaeology of the Near East, this is the story of the momentous transformation of human society and culture in the Near East. It takes us from the hunter gatherer of 50,000 years ago to a time when densely populated villages employed mixed farming methods 8,000 years ago, and gives a key account of the emergence in our human ancestors and an understanding and articulation of their world and their place in it.
By:
Trevor Watkins
Imprint: Routledge
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 234mm,
Width: 156mm,
Weight: 430g
ISBN: 9780415221528
ISBN 10: 0415221528
Pages: 222
Publication Date: 05 December 2023
Audience:
College/higher education
,
A / AS level
,
Further / Higher Education
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Introduction 1 A Concentration of Opportunity 2 Changing Subsistence Strategies: Foraging to Farming 3 Changing Subsistence Strategies: Hunting and Herding 4 Early Epipalaeolithic – The Transformation Begins 5 Complex Hunter-Harvesters in the Levant and beyond 6 Early Pre-Pottery Neolithic – Transforming Their World 7 Late Pre-Pottery Neolithic – Climax 8 Further Transformation: Dispersal and Expansion 9 The Evolutionary Framework for the Story 10 The Epipalaeolithic–Neolithic Transformation: The Pivot of Cultural Evolution 11 The Problem of Neolithic Religion 12 The Triple A: Aggregation, Acceleration, Anthropocene
Trevor Watkins is an emeritus professor at the University of Edinburgh where he taught prehistoric archaeology of the east Mediterranean and southwest Asia for many years. He led excavations in Cyprus, Syria, Iraq and Turkey. For many years, his research has been focused on the Neolithic period in southwest Asia, between twelve and eight thousand years ago. In recent years, he has been concentrating on relating the results of recent archaeological research to the latest theoretical work by leading researchers in cognitive archaeology and the field of cultural evolutionary theory. If evolution takes place over time, then archaeologists should be able to document and calibrate the process with material evidence.
