Global Perspectives on the Origins of Agriculture in East Asia

There is broad agreement that any unilineal progressive view of the ‘origins and spread of agriculture’ is no longer sufficient to explain this most debated of topics in prehistory. Archaeological evidence for local (pre)historic trajectories, detailing the relationships between plants and animals, often beginning far back in the Palaeolithic and extending deep into the Holocene, now requires that we view the ‘transition to agriculture’ in new ways, emphasising human action, perception and choice in place of the spread of farming peoples.

This edited volume presents new research on the origins and spread of agriculture in the Japanese archipelago in a global perspective. Contributions include regional trajectories towards agriculture in East and Southeast Asia, Europe and the Americas.

The papers advance discussion beyond models dominated by traditional understandings of the Neolithic revolution in southwestern Asia and Europe, to a truly global perspective on one of the most significant sets of developments in human history.