Kirjahaku

The Agricultural Revolution in Prehistory addresses one of the most debated and least understood revolutions in the history of our species, the change from hunting and gathering to farming. Graeme Barker takes a global view, and integrates a massive array of information from archaeology and many other disciplines, including anthropology, botany, climatology, genetics, linguistics, and zoology. Against current orthodoxy, Barker develops a strong case for the development of agricultural systems in many areas as transformations in the life-ways of the indigenous forager societies, and argues that these were as much changes in social norms and ideologies as in ways of obtaining food. With a large number of helpful line drawings and photographs as well as a comprehensive bibliography, this authoritative study will appeal to a wide general readership as well as to specialists in a variety of fields.

The Agricultural Revolution in Prehistory addresses one of the most debated and least understood revolutions in the history of our species, the change from hunting and gathering to farming. Graeme Barker takes a global view, and integrates a massive array of information from archaeology and many other disciplines, including anthropology, botany, climatology, genetics, linguistics, and zoology. Against current orthodoxy, Barker develops a strong case for the development of agricultural systems in many areas as transformations in the life-ways of the indigenous forager societies, and argues that these were as much changes in social norms and ideologies as in ways of obtaining food. With a large number of helpful line drawings and photographs as well as a comprehensive bibliography, this authoritative study will appeal to a wide general readership as well as to specialists in a variety of fields.

Drawing upon his own extensive knowledge of European archaeology, Graeme Barker has impressively integrated the full range of archaeological data to produce in this book a masterly account of prehistoric farming in Europe on a unique scale. He makes use of modern archaeological techniques to reconstruct the lives of prehistoric farmers in remarkable detail. Not only do we now have a vivid picture of the prehistoric farmyard, but we know what animals were kept, how they were fed and why they were bred. Evidence for crops grown and techniques of cultivation and husbandry helps recreate the prehistoric landscape. Even the social organisation that determined the use of resources, and provided the crucial stimulus for agricultural change, can be relived. Graeme Barker develops his argument through analogies with the agricultural history of classical and medieval Europe and concludes that today's industrial farmers can learn much from the successes and failures of early European farming.

Integrating the techniques of archaeology, history and geography, this book traces the history of human settlement in the Biferno Valley from early prehistory to the present century. It also covers the parallel story of landscape development, showing that the two have to be understood together. It argues for the importance of human settlement, rather than climate (as is often argued) in shaping the Mediterranean landscape. This book provides an interdisciplinary study of a restricted region, but about an important theme: the relationship between people and landscape in the past, and what we can learn from it for the future. A second volume containing the specialist supporting data collected by the archaeological project is also available, entitled "The Biferno Valley: An Archaeological History of a Mediterranean Landscape - the Archaeological and Geomorphical Record". This volume, edited by Graeme Barker, is published in the Leicester Archaeology Monograph series and is available from the School of Archaeological Studies, University of Leicester.