The First Farmers of Europe: An Evolutionary Perspective by Stephen Shennan (review)

The Neolithic transition in Southwest Asia and its subsequent spread toward Europe poses some of the most relevant questions in human history. Shennan proposes a Darwinian approach to the origin and spread of farming by locating fertility and child survival at the center of the system, linking them to farming as the main source of calorie income. The translation from this theoretical background to the interpretation of archaeological data is not explicit in this book, but it can be extracted from its consistent structure. Shennan considers genetic data—together with a (debated) population proxy (namely, summed radiocarbon probability distributions)—combining them with archaeobotanical and archaeozoological data in order to formulate theories about the peaks and troughs of the radiocarbon curve in each particular region. Thus, the book synthetically integrates with admirable command diverse types of data and methodologies.

The book is structured chronologically and geographically, starting with the beginnings of farming in southwest Asia (c. 10 000 b.c.e.), and ending with the British Isles (c. 4000 b.c.e.). Shennan concludes that the spread of farming was under a constant process of selection that affected its rhythm and nature. He proposes a cyclical phenomenon after the arrival of farming into a new region—a sudden population growth followed by an abrupt drop—arguing that the latter might be due to farming failure. He also dismantles most of the existing arguments in favor of a significant degree of interaction between Mesolithic and Neolithic groups in most areas of Mediterranean and central Europe. The proposal is interesting to read and often succeeds in transmitting the broad-scale view, despite the nuances of each region, that such a process requires.

The lack of methodological discussion is a problem within the book. Although it certainly makes reading easier, it renders the interpretations more obscure, because they are not questioned. This observation applies to all the different disciplines considered in this work but especially the use of radiocarbon dates as population proxy. Any archaeobotanist (including this reviewer) can show how this lack of critical evaluation of the sources undermines the arguments for permanent garden-type farming and shifting agriculture models (for which no direct evidence exists).

An additional problem concerns the main line of argumentation of the work. Shennan ties the fate of populations to the ability of a household or a village to produce enough food for its members. He treats episodes of apparent population growth as linked to favorable farming conditions (good soils, appropriate climate, etc.). Hence, declines in population must be a consequence of climatic changes or soil depletion. While the identification of a general pattern of initial population growth followed by a sudden population crisis might be plausible, the causes for the drop do not receive proper discussion. It is hard to believe that the main problem of early farmers was soil depletion, and it has already been proven that people availed themselves of other strategies (for example, hunting and gathering) to cope with difficulties.

On the semantic level, some of the author's word choices are puzzling, such as when he explains expansion phenomena as probably due more to population increase than to the movement of "refugees" (77). The use of this term at all with regard to conditions in the Neolithic period is highly suspect, particularly considering what it signifies in the current planetary situation. The text repetition on the site of Chalain 3 is another editorial glitch (119, 136).

Notwithstanding the tolerable sacrifices that it makes for the sake of the grand narrative, this contribution to the understanding of Neolithic Europe should prove valuable to archaeologists, even into the next generation, for its integration of multiple disciplines. If archaeologists are to take control of the discourse about human past, they must face, as Shennan puts it, important questions that matter to people. This book is proof that archaeologists are up to the task.