The Cambridge World History: Volume 2, A World with Agriculture, 12,000 BCE–500 CE

Explores the origins and impact of agriculture across the globe, arguably the most important change in all of human history.

Graeme Barker (Edited by), Candice Goucher (Edited by)

9781108407649, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 9 November 2017

662 pages, 126 b/w illus. 9 maps 4 tables
22.3 x 14.1 x 3 cm, 0.96 kg

The development of agriculture has often been described as the most important change in all of human history. Volume 2 of the Cambridge World History series explores the origins and impact of agriculture and agricultural communities, and also discusses issues associated with pastoralism and hunter-fisher-gatherer economies. To capture the patterns of this key change across the globe, the volume uses an expanded timeframe from 12,000 BCE–500 CE, beginning with the Neolithic and continuing into later periods. Scholars from a range of disciplines, including archaeology, historical linguistics, biology, anthropology, and history, trace common developments in the more complex social structures and cultural forms that agriculture enabled, such as sedentary villages and more elaborate foodways, and then present a series of regional overviews accompanied by detailed case studies from many different parts of the world, including Southwest Asia, South Asia, China, Japan, Southeast Asia and the Pacific, sub-Saharan Africa, the Americas, and Europe.

1. Introduction: a world with agriculture Graeme Barker and Candice Goucher
2. Archaeogenetics Maria Pala, Pedro Soares, Gyaneshwer Chaubey and Martin B. Richards
3. Agricultural origins: what linguistic evidence reveals Christopher Ehret
4. What did agriculture do for us? The bioarchaeology of health and diet Charlotte Roberts
5. Communities Amy Bogaard
6. Pastoralism Alan Outram
7. Agriculture and urbanism Daphne Gallagher and Rod McIntosh
8. Early agriculture in Southwest Asia Alan Simmon
9. 'Ain Ghazal (Jordan): a neolithic town prima inter pares Gary Rollefson
10. Early agriculture in South Asia Eleanor Kingwell-Banham, Cameron A. Petrie and Dorian Q. Fuller
11. Mehgarh Cameron A. Petrie
12. Early agriculture in China Xinyi Liu, Dorian Q. Fuller and Martin Jones
13. Xinglonggou Xinyi Liu, Zhijun Zhao and Guoxiang Liu
14. Early agriculture in Japan Simon Kaner and Kenichi Yano
15. The transition from wilderness to paddy: a case study from the Nara basin, Japan, 2600–2400 years ago Kenichi Okada
16. Early agriculture in Southeast Asia and the Pacific Huw Barton
17. The swamp cultivators at Kuk: early agriculture in the highlands of New Guinea Tim Denham
18. Early agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa to c.500 CE Paul Lane
19. The Tichitt tradition (1900–400 BC): early agriculture and social complexity in the West African Sahel Kevin MacDonald
20. Early agriculture in the Americas Deborah M. Pearsall
21. Nanchoc Valley, Peru Tom D. Dillehay
22. Early agricultural society in Europe Alastair Whittle
23. Pioneer farmers and frontier households in northern Poland, 5500–4000 BC Peter Bogucki and Ryszard Grygiel.

Subject Areas: Early history: c 500 to c 1450/1500 [HBLC], General & world history [HBG]