Behavioral ecology and the transition to agriculture / edited by Douglas J. Kennett, Bruce Winterhalder.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Kennett, Douglas J.

Winterhalder, Bruce.

Series:

Origins of Human Behavior and Culture

Origins of Human Behavior and Culture ; 1

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Agriculture--Origin.

Agriculture.

Agriculture, Prehistoric.

Human behavior.

Human ecology.

Human evolution.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (409 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Berkeley : University of California Press, c2006.

Language Note:

English

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.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

Contributors

Foreword

Preface

1. Behavioral Ecology and the Transition from Hunting and Gathering to Agriculture

2. A Future Discounting Explanation for the Persistence of a Mixed Foraging-Horticulture Strategy among the Mikea of Madagascar

3. Central Place Foraging and Food Production on the Cumberland Plateau, Eastern Kentucky

4. Aspects of Optimization and Risk During the Early Agricultural Period in Southeastern Arizona

5. A Formal Model for Predicting Agriculture among the Fremont

6. An Ecological Model for the Origins of Maize-Based Food Production on the Pacific Coast of Southern Mexico

7. The Origins of Plant Cultivation and Domestication in the Neotropics

8. Costly Signaling, the Sexual Division of Labor, and Animal Domestication in the Andean Highlands

9. Human Behavioral Ecology, Domestic Animals, and Land Use during the Transition to Agriculture in Valencia, Eastern Spain

10. Breaking the Rain Barrier and the Tropical Spread of Near Eastern Agriculture into Southern Arabia

11. The Emergence of Agriculture in New Guinea

12. The Ideal Free Distribution, Food Production, and the Colonization of Oceania

13. Human Behavioral Ecology and the Transition to Food Production

14. Agriculture, Archaeology, and Human Behavioral Ecology

References

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.

ISBN:

9786612759437

9781282759435

1282759434

9780520932456

0520932455

9781598759174

1598759175

OCLC:

475969752