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How did agriculture begin? In what sequence and in what combinations
were different species of plants first domesticated in different parts of the
world? Where were certain plants and animals first domesticated, and how? Why
did agriculture emerge in some regions and not others? In
The Emergence of Agriculture, well-known archaeologist Bruce Smith explores
the initial emergence and early expansion of agriculture, and the transformations
in human society that it made possible. Archaeologists have come to recognize
that agriculture didn't just emerge in one or two places, from whence it spread
to others, but was independently invented several times over in widely separated
parts of the world. In his book, Bruce Smith charts the course of the agricultural
revolution as it occurred in the Middle East, Europe, China, Africa, and the Americas,
showing, too, how basic archaeological methods and modern technologies such as
plant analysis, radiocarbon dating, and DNA sampling are used to investigate this
pivotal event. Although in the popular mind the agricultural revolution is often
seen as a one-step transition from hunter-gatherer societies to farming ones,
Smith shows how truly varied were the patterns of animal and plant domestication
in different parts of the world. Much of the field's
excitement comes from the multifaceted approaches used to explore the origins
of agriculture. Whereas the archaeologists Daniel Helmer and Hans-Peter Uerpmann
can tell when sheep were domesticated by measuring the size of the 8000-year old
animal bones, botanist Jack Harlan has traced the early history of sorghum, domesticated
4000 years ago, by examining only living organisms. Even military photographs
and old bags of seeds recovered from attics have proved invaluable clues to the
identities of early farmers. Bruce Smith describes how he himself, for example,
with a colleague, consulted nineteenth century mail order catalogs to trace the
wild ancestor of a gourd domesticated thousands of years ago to a remote river
valley in Arkansas. In vivid prose enhanced by striking illustrations, he offers
an intriguing and original account of one of the most important events in human
history. Bruce D. Smith is a senior research scientist,
director of the archaeology program, and curator of North American archaeology
at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution. The author
or editor of six books on the prehistory of Eastern North America, he is the current
president of the Society for American Archaeology. |
