First Farmers: The Origins of Agricultural Societies - Paperback

by Peter Bellwood (Author)

First Farmers: the Origins of Agricultural Societies offers readers an understanding of the origins and histories of early agricultural populations in all parts of the world.

• Uses data from archaeology, comparative linguistics, and biological anthropology to cover developments over the past 12,000 years
• Examines the reasons for the multiple primary origins of agriculture
• Focuses on agricultural origins in and dispersals out of the Middle East, central Africa, China, New Guinea, Mesoamerica and the northern Andes
• Covers the origins and dispersals of major language families such as Indo-European, Austronesian, Sino-Tibetan, Niger-Congo and Uto-Aztecan

Back Jacket

First Farmers examines the reasons for the multiple primary origins of agriculture, looks at relations between hunter-gatherers and farmers, and addresses issues of agricultural adoption, the origins and dispersal histories of language families, and the dispersal histories of biological populations. Bellwood offers discussion of regional agricultural origins in, and dispersals out of, these areas: the Middle East, central Africa, China, New Guinea, Mesoamerica, and the northern Andes. The linguistic survey covers the origins and dispersals of major language families such as Indo-European, Austronesian, Sino-Tibetan, Niger-Congo, and Uto-Aztecan.

Author Biography

Peter Bellwood is Professor of Archaeology at the Australian National University. He is the author of Examining the Farming/Language Dispersal Hypothesis (co-edited with Colin Renfrew, 2003), Prehistory of the Indo-Malaysian Archipelago (2nd edition 1997), The Polynesians: Prehistory of an Island People (1987), and Man's Conquest of the Pacific: The Prehistory of Southeast Asia and Oceania (1986).