Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-b95js Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-26T19:06:15.479Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Climatic cycles and behavioural revolutions: the emergence of modern humans and the beginning of farming

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Andrew Sherratt
Andrew Sherratt*
Affiliation:
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 2PH, England. E-mail: andrew.sherratt@linacre.oxford.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Publication of a new volume on the beginnings of Old World farming (Harris 1996) has provided a compendium of current views on this critical inflection-point in human inhabitance of the world. Was it driven by climatic change, as Gordon Childe suggested? And what of the earlier emergence of modern human behaviour: were these two chapters in the same story?

Type
Papers
Information
Antiquity , Volume 71 , Issue 272 , June 1997 , pp. 271 - 287
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 1997

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adovasio, J. M., Soffer, O. & Klima, B.. 1996. Upper Palaeolithic fibre technology from Pavlov I, Czech Republic, Antiquity 70: 526–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aitken, M. J. 1990. Science-based dating in archaeology. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Aitken, M. J., Stringer, C. B. & Mellars, P. A. (ed.) 1993. The origin of modern humans and the impact of chronometrie dating. Princeton (NJ): Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alley, R. B. et al. 1993. Abrupt increase in Greenland snow accumulation at the end of the Younger Dryas event, Nature 362: 527–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barber, E. J. W. 1991. Prehistoric textiles: the development of cloth in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages. Princeton (NJ): Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bard, E., Hamelin, B., Fairbanks, R. G. & Zindler, A.. 1990. Calibration of the 14C timescale over the last 30,000 years using mass-spectrometric U-Th ages from the Barbados Corals, Nature 345: 587–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bard, E., Arnold, M., Fairbanks, R. G. & Hamelin, B.. 1993. 230Th-234U and 14C ages obtained by mass spectrometry on corals, Radiocarbon 35: 191–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bard, E. & Kromer, B.. 1995. The Younger Dryas: absolute and radiocarbon chronology, in Troelstra, et al. (ed.): 161–6.Google Scholar
Bar-Yosef, O. 1993. The role of western Asia in modern human origins, in Aitken, et al. (ed.): 132–47.Google Scholar
Bar-Yosef, O. & Alon, D. (ED.). 1988. Nahal Hemar Cave, Jerusalem: ‘Atiqot. English series 18.Google Scholar
Bar-Yosef, O. & Belfer-Cohen, A.. 1989. The origins of sedentism and farming communities, fournal of World Prehistory 3: 447–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bar-Yosef, O. & Belfer-Cohen, A.. 1992. From foraging to farming in the Mediterranean Levant, in Gebauer, A. B. & Price, T. D. (ed.), Transitions to agriculture in prehistory. 21–48. Madison (WI): Prehistory Press.Google Scholar
Bar-Yosef, O. & Kra, R. S. (ed.). 1994. Late Quaternary chronology and palaeoclimates of the eastern Mediterranean. Tucson (AZ): Department of Geosciences, University of Arizona.Google Scholar
Bar-Yosef, O. & Meadow, R. H.. 1995. The origins of agriculture in the Near East, in Price, T. D. & Gebauer, A. (ed.), Last hunters, first farmers: new perspectives on the prehistoric transition to agriculture. Santa Fe (NM): School of American Research.Google Scholar
Bar-Yosef, O. & Valla, F. (ed.). 1991. The Natufian culture in the Levant. Ann Arbor (MI): International Monographs in Prehistory.Google Scholar
Bellwood, P. 1996. The origins and spread of agriculture in the Indo-Pacific region: gradualism and diffusion or revolution and colonisation?, in Harris, : 465–98.Google Scholar
Binford, L. R. 1968. Post-Pleistocene adaptations, in Binford, S. R. & Binford, L. R. (ed.), New perspectives in archaeology. 313–1. Chicago (IL): Aldine.Google Scholar
Blümler, M. 1996. Ecology, evolutionary theory and agricultural origins, in Harris, (ed.): 25–50.Google Scholar
Blumler, M. & Byrne, R.. 1991. The ecological genetics of domestication and the origins of agriculture, Current Anthropology 32(1): 23–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bottema, S. 1995. The Younger Dryas in the eastern Mediterranean, Quaternary Science Reviews 14: 883–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brainwood, R. J. 1962. The earliest village communities of southwestern Asia reconsidered, Atti del Sesto Congresso Internazionale delle Scienze Preistoriche e Protoistoriche (Florence), 1: 115–26.Google Scholar
Brooks, C. E. P. 1924. The evolution of climate. London: Benn.Google Scholar
Byrd, B. 1989. The Natufian: settlement variability and economie adaptations in the Levant at the end of the Pleistocene, Journal of World Prehistory 3(2): 159–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Byrd, B. 1994. Public and private, domestic and corporate: the emergence of the southwest Asian village, American Antiquity 59(4): 639–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Byrne, R. 1987. Climatic change and the origins of agriculture, in Manzanilla, L. (ed.), Studies in the Neolithic and Urban Revolutions (The V. Gordon Childe Colloquium, Mexico 1986): 21–33. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports. International series S349.Google Scholar
Cauvin, J. 1994. Naissance des divinités, naissance de l'agriculture. Paris: CNRS.Google Scholar
Cavalli-Sforza, L.L. 1996. The spread of agriculture and nomadic pastoralism: insights from genetics, linguistics and archaeology, in Harris, (ed.): 51–69.Google Scholar
Childe, V. G. 1956 lorig. 1936. Man makes himself. London: Watts.Google Scholar
Childe, V. G. 1963 [orig. 1951]. Social evolution. London: Collins.Google Scholar
Clark, J. D., 1993. African and Asian Perspectives on the origins of modern humans, in Aitken, et al. (ed.): 148–78.Google Scholar
Cohen, M. N. 1977. The food crisis in prehistory: overpopulation and the origins of agriculture. New Haven (CT): Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Danscaard, W. et al. 1993. Evidence for general instability of past climate from a 250-kyr ice-core record, Nature 364: 218–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dorrell, P. 1978. The uniqueness of Jericho, in Moorey, P. R. S., & Parr, P. (ed.), Archaeology in the Levant: 11–18. Warminster: Aris & Phillips.Google Scholar
Edwards, R. L. et al. 1993. A large drop in atmospheric 14C/UC and reduced melting in the Younger Dryas, documented with 230Th ages of corals, Science 260: 962–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eldridge, N. & Gould, S.J.. 1972. Punctuated equilibria: an alternative to phyletic gradualism, in Schopf, T. J. M. (ed.), Models in paleobiology: 82–115. San Francisco (CA): Freeman Cooper.Google Scholar
Flannery, K. V. 1965. The ecology of early food production in Mesopotamia, Science 147: 1247–56.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Flannery, K. V. 1968. Archaeological systems theory and early Mesoamerica, in Meggers, B. J. (ed.), Anthropological archaeology in the Americas: 67–87. Washington (DC): Anthropological Society of Washington.Google Scholar
Flannery, K. V. 1972. The origins of the village as a settlement type in Mesoamerica and the Near East, in Ucko, P., Dimbleby, G. & Tringham, R. (ed.), Man, settlement and urbanism: 23–53. London: Duckworth.Google Scholar
Fritz, G. J. 1994. Are the first American farmers getting younger?. Current Anthropology 35(3): 305–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gamble, C. 1993. Ancestors and agendas, in Yoffee, N. & Sherratt, A. (ed.): 39–52.Google Scholar
Gamble, C. 1995. Timewalkers: the prehistory of global colonisation. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Garrard, A., Colledge, S. & Martin, L.. 1996. The emergence of crop cultivation and caprine herding in the ‘marginal zone’ of the southern Levant, in Harris, (ed.): 204–26.Google Scholar
Gilead, I. 1991. The Upper Palaeolithic period in the Levant, fournal of World Prehistory 5(2): 105–54.Google Scholar
Glover, I. C. & Higham, C. F. W.. 1996. New evidence for early rice cultivation in Southeast and East Asia, in Harris, (ed.): 413–41.Google Scholar
Goldberg, P. 1995. The changing landscape, in Levy, (ed.): 40–57.Google Scholar
Goldberg, P. & Bar-Yosef, O.. In press. Sedimentary environments of prehistoric sites in Israel and the southern Levant. Paper delivered at Lubbock Lake Landmark International Symposium ‘Fifty Years of Discovery’, October 17th-19th 1990. Lubbock (TX): Texas Tech. Press.Google Scholar
Golson, J. 1989. The origins and development of New Guinea agriculture, in Harris & Hillman (ed.): 678–87.Google Scholar
Goodfriend, G. A. & Magaritz, M.. 1988. Palaeosols and later Pleistocene rainfall fluctuations in the Negev Desert, Nature 332: 144–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gould, S. J. & Eldridge, N.. 1977. Punctuated equilibria: the tempo and mode of evolution reconsidered, Paleobiology 3: 115–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Graves, P. M. 1991. New models and metaphors for the Neanderthal debate, Current Anthropology 32: 513–1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grayson, D. K. 1991. Late Pleistocene mammalian extinctions in North America: taxonomy, chronology and explanations, Journal of World Prehistory 5(3): 193–231.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harris, D. (ed.). 1996. The origins and spread of agriculture and pastoralism in Eurasia. London: UCL Press.Google Scholar
Harris, D. & Hillman, G. (ed.). 1989. Foraging and farming: the evolution of plant exploitation. London: Unwin Hyman.Google Scholar
Henry, D. 1989. From foraging to agriculture: the Levant at the end of the Ice Age. Philadelphia (PA): University of Pennsylvania Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hillman, G. 1996. Late Pleistocene changes in wild plant-foods available to hunter-gatherers of the northern Fertile Crescent: possible preludes to cereal cultivation, in Harris, (ed.): 159–203.Google Scholar
Hillman, G., Colledge, S. M. & Harris, D.. 1989. Plant-food economy during the Epipalaeolithic period at Tell Abu Hureyra, Syria: dietary diversity, seasonality, and modes of exploitation, in Harris & Hillman (ed.): 240–68.Google Scholar
Hodder, I. 1991. The domestication of Europe. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Imb Rie, J. & Imbrie, K. P.. 1986. Ice ages. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Johnson, S. J. et al. 1992. Irregular glacial interstadiale recorded in a new Greenland ice core, Nature 359: 311–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kerr, R. A. 1996. Ice rhythms: core reveals a plethora of climatic cycles, Science 274: 499–500.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klslev, M. E. 1984. The emergence of wheat agriculture, Paléorient 10: 61–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kislev, M. E., Nadel, D. & Carmi, I.. 1992. Epipalaeolithic (19000 BP) cereal and fruit diet at Ohalo II, Sea of Galilee, Israel, Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 73: 161–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klein, R. G. 1995. Anatomy, behaviour and modern human origins, Journal of World Prehistory 9(2): 167–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kromer, B., Becker, B., Trimhorn, P., & Spurk, M.. 1995. Tree-ring based 14C calibration and stable isotope series at the YD/BP boundary, in Troelstra, et al. (ed.): 167–72.Google Scholar
Laj, C, Mazaud, A. & Duplessy, J. C.. 1996. Geomagnetic intensity and 14C abundance in the atmosphere and ocean during the last 50 kyr, Geophysical Research Letters 23: 2045–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levy, T. E. 1995. The archaeology of society in the Holy Land. Leicester: Leicester University Press.Google Scholar
Limbrey, S. 1990. Edaphic opportunism: a discussion of soil factors in relation to the beginnings of plant husbandry in south-west Asia, World Archaeology 22: 45–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lowe, J. J. et al. 1995. Direct comparison of UK temperatures and Greenland snow accumulation rates, 15000-12000 yr ago, fournal of Quaternary Science 10(2): 175–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lowe, J. J. & Walker, M. J. C.. 1997. Reconstructing quaternary environments. 2nd edition. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Mccorrjston, J. 1994. Acorn-eating and agricultural origins: California ethnographies as analogies for the ancient Near East, Antiquity 68: 97–107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mccorriston, J. & Hole, F.. 1991. The ecology of seasonal stress and the origins of agriculture in the Near East, American Anthropologist 93: 46–69 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Macneish, R. S. 1970. The prehistory of the Tehuacán Valley. Austin (TX): University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Marks, A. E. 1983. The Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition in the Levant, Advances in World Archaeology 2: 51–98.Google Scholar
Marks, A. E. 1990. The Middle and Upper Palaeolithic of the Near East and the Nile Valley: the problem of cultural transformations, in Meilars, (ed.): 56–80.Google Scholar
Martinson, D.G. et al. 1987. Age dating and the orbital theory of the ice ages: development of a high-resolution 0 to 300,000-year chronostratigraphy, Quaternary Research 27: 1–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mellars, P. A. (ed.). 1990. The emergence of modern humans. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Mellars, P. A. & Stringer, C. (ed.). 1989. The human revolution: behavioural and biological perspectives on the origins of modern humans. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Moore, A. T. M. & Hillman, G.. 1992. The Pleistocene to Holocene transition and human economy in Southwest Asia: the impact of the Younger Dryas, American Antiquity 57: 482–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nitecki, M. H. & Nitecki, V. (ed.). 1994. Origins of anatomically modern humans. New York (NY): Plenum Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peel, D. A. 1995. Ice cores: profiles of the past, Nature 378: 234–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Phillips, J. L. 1994. The Upper Paleolithic chronology of the Levant and the Nile Valley, in Bar-Yosef & Kra (ed.): 169–76.Google Scholar
Roberts, N. 1984. Pleistocene communities in time and space, in Foley, R. (ed.), Human evolution and community ecology: 25–53. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Roberts, N. & Wright, H. E.. 1994. Vegetational, lake-level, and climatic history of the Near East and Southwest Asia, in Wright, et al. (ed.): 194–220.Google Scholar
Rossignol-Strick, M. 1993. Late Quaternary climate in the eastern Mediterranean region, Paléorient 19(1): 135–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rossignol-Strick, M. 1995. Sea-land correlations of pollen records in the eastern Mediterranean for the glacial-interglacial transition: biostratigraphy versus radiometric time-scale, Quaternary Science Reviews 14: 893–916.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scarre, C. (ed.). 1988. Past worlds: the Times atlas of archaeology. London: Times Books.Google Scholar
Schick, T. 1988. Cordage, basketry and fabrics, in Bar-Yosef & Alon (ed.): 31–43.Google Scholar
Schwarcz, H. P. 1994. Chronology of modern humans in the Levant, in Bar-Yosef & Kra 21–31.Google Scholar
Shennan, S. J. 1993. After social evolution: a new archaeological agenda’?, in Yoffee, N. & Sherratt, A. (ed.): 53–9.Google Scholar
Sherratt, A. G. 1972. Socio-economic and demographic models for the Neolithic and Bronze Ages of Europe, in Clarke, D. L. (ed.): 477–542. Models in archaeology. London: Methuen. (Reprinted in Sherratt 1997.)Google Scholar
Sherratt, A. G. 1980. Water, soil and seasonality in early cereal cultivation, World Archaeology 11: 313–30. (Reprinted in Sherratt 1997).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sherratt, A. G. 1995. Reviving the grand narrative: archaeology and long-term change (David Clarke Memorial Lecture), fournal of European Archaeology 3(1): 1–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sherratt, A. G. 1996. Plate tectonics and imaginary prehistories; structure and contingency in agricultural origins, in Harris, (ed.):130–40.Google Scholar
Sherratt, A. G. 1997. Economy and society in prehistoric Europe: changing perspectives, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sherratt, A. G. & Sherratt, E. S.. 1991. From luxuries to commodities: the nature of Mediterranean Bronze Age trading systems, in Gale, N. (ed.), Bronze Age trade in the Mediterranean 351–86. Jonsered: P. Astr öms Forlag.Google Scholar
Spriggs, M. 1996. Early agriculture and what went before in island Melanesia, in Harris, (ed.): 524–37.Google Scholar
Street, F. A. 1980. Ice Age environments, in Sherratt, A. (ed.), The Cambridge encyclopedia of archaeology. 52–6. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Stuiver, M. & Reimer, P. J.. 1993. Extended 14C data base and rexdsed CALIB 3.0 14C age calibration, Radiocarbon 35: 215–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor, R. E., Haynes, C. V. & Stuiver, M.. 1996. Clovis and Folsom age estimates: stratigraphc context and radiocarbon calibration, Antiquity 70: 515–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Torres, C.M. et al. 1991. Snuff powders from pre-Hispanic San Pedro de Atacama: chemical and contextual analysis, Current Anthropology 32(5): 640–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Troelstra, S. R., Van Hinte, J. E. & Ganssen, G. M. (ed.). 1995. The Younger Dryas, Amsterdam: Koninglijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen. Verhandeling van de Afdeling Natuurkunde 44.Google Scholar
Tsedakis, P. C. 1994. Vegetation change through glacial-interglacial cycles: a long pollen sequence perspective, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B 345: 403–32.Google Scholar
Ucko, P. & Dimbleby, G. (ed.) 1969. The domestication and exploitation of plants and animals. London: Duckworth.Google Scholar
Van Andel, T.H. & Tsedakis, P. C.. 1996. Palaeolithic landscapes of Europe and environs, 150,000-25,000 years ago: an overview, Quaternary Science Reviews 15: 481–500.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vanzeist, W. & Bakker-Heeres, J. A. H.. 1982. Archaeobotanical studies in the Levant: (1) Neolithic sites in the Damascus Basin: Aswad, Ghoraifé, Ramad, Palaeohistoria 24: 165–256.Google Scholar
Vita-Finzi, C. 1969. Geological opportunism, in Ucko & Dimbleby (ed.): 31–4. London: Duckworth.Google Scholar
Vrba, E. S., Partridge, T. E., Denton, G. & Burckle, L. E. (ed.). 1996. Palaeoclimate and evolution with emphasis on human origin. New Haven (CT): Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Waterbolk, H. T. 1994. Radiocarbon dating Levantine prehistory, in Bar-Yosef & Kra (ed.): 351–71.Google Scholar
Wílke, P. J., Bettinger, R., King, T. F. & J.F.O'Connbll, . 1972. Harvest selection and domestication in seed plants, Antiquity 46: 203–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wright, H. E. 1977. Environmental change and the origin of agriculture in the Old and New Worlds, in Reed, C. (ed.), The Origins of agriculture: 281–318. The Hague: Mouton.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wright, H. E. 1993. Environmental determinism in Near Eastern Prehistory, Current Anthropology 34: 458–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wright, H. E., Kutzbach, J. E., Webb, T., Ruddiman, W. F., Strket-Perrot, F. A. & Bartlein, P. J. (ed.). 1994. Global climates since the Last Glacial Maximum. Minneapolis (MN): University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Wright, K. I. 1994. Ground-stone tools and hunter-gatherer subsistence in southwest Asia: implications for the transition to farming, American Antiquity 59(2): 238–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yechieli, Y. et al. 1993. Late Quaternary history of the Dead Sea area, Israel, Quaternary Research 39: 59–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yoffee, N. 1993. Too many chiefs?, in Yoffee & Sherratt (ed.): 60–78.Google Scholar
Yoffee, N. & Sherratt, A.. 1993. Archaeological theory: who sets the agenda? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zohary, D. 1969. The progenitors of wheat and barley in relation to domestication and agricultural dispersal in the Old World, in Ucko & Dimbleby: 47–66.Google Scholar
Zohary, D. 1996. The mode of domestication of the founder crops of Southwest Asian agriculture, in Harris, : 142–58.Google Scholar