The First Farmers of Europe: An Evolutionary Perspective

Description

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. 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