Behavioral Ecology and the Transition to Agriculture Hardback
Edited by Douglas J. Kennett, Bruce Winterhalder
Part of the Origins of Human Behavior and Culture series
Hardback
Description
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.
Information
-
Available to Order - This title is available to order, with delivery expected within 2 weeks
- Format:Hardback
- Pages:408 pages, 3 b-w photographs, 31 line illustrations, 22 maps, 30 tables
- Publisher:University of California Press
- Publication Date:02/01/2006
- Category:
- ISBN:9780520246478
Information
-
Available to Order - This title is available to order, with delivery expected within 2 weeks
- Format:Hardback
- Pages:408 pages, 3 b-w photographs, 31 line illustrations, 22 maps, 30 tables
- Publisher:University of California Press
- Publication Date:02/01/2006
- Category:
- ISBN:9780520246478