In this Book
- Behavioral Ecology and the Transition to Agriculture
- Book
- 2006
- Published by: University of California Press
- Series: Origins of Human Behavior and Culture
summary
This innovative volume is the first collective effort by archaeologists and ethnographers to use concepts and models from human behavioral ecology to explore one of the most consequential transitions in human history: the origins of agriculture. Carefully balancing theory and detailed empirical study, and drawing from a series of ethnographic and archaeological case studies from eleven locations—including North and South America, Mesoamerica, Europe, the Near East, Africa, and the Pacific—the contributors to this volume examine the transition from hunting and gathering to farming and herding using a broad set of analytical models and concepts. These include diet breadth, central place foraging, ideal free distribution, discounting, risk sensitivity, population ecology, and costly signaling. An introductory chapter both charts the basics of the theory and notes areas of rapid advance in our understanding of how human subsistence systems evolve. Two concluding chapters by senior archaeologists reflect on the potential for human behavioral ecology to explain domestication and the transition from foraging to farming.
Table of Contents
Download Full Book
- Title Page, Copyright
- pp. 2-7
- List of Contributors
- pp. ix-x
- References
- pp. 323-380
Additional Information
ISBN
9780520932456
Related ISBN(s)
9780520246478
MARC Record
OCLC
63813456
Pages
407
Launched on MUSE
2014-01-01
Language
English
Open Access
No