Prologue:

It was the final day of the 1953 excavation season at Jericho. For weeks¸ the top of a human skull had projected from the side of the trench dug deep into one of the earliest farming communities in the world. Excavator Kathleen Kenyon had given strict instructions that it was not be disturbed until the stratigraphic layers in the trench wall had been drawn and photographed. Then the excavators recovered a completes cranium, with facial features carefully modeled in clay¸ the eyes inset with shells. Kenyon looked closely at the small hole in the wall. She could see two more plastered skulls within. They were removed. Three more now appeared behind them, then a final seventh head. It took five days to extract the nest of skulls from the wall, for the crushed bones were packed tightly with stones and hard earth. They formed the earliest portrait gallery in the world, each head modeled with individual–nose¸ mouth¸ ears¸and eyebrows molded with delicacy. Kenyon believed she had found the heads of revered ancestors¸ who were critical intermediaries between the living and the spiritual world¸linking people closely to the land that brought forth their crops.

Whatever the complex factors that led to agriculture and animal domestication¸ the new food–producing economies proved dramatically successful. In 10¸000 B.C.E.¸ virtually everybody in the world lived by hunting and gathering. By 1 C.E.¸ the time of Christ¸ most people were farmers or herders¸and only minority were still hunters–gathers¸ most of them living in environments where extreme cold or aridity prevented the growth of domesticated crops. The spread of food production throughout the world took about 8000 years.

Hunter–gatherers everywhere had a profound knowledge of the food resources in their local environments. Nevertheless¸ many fewer animals and wild vegetable foods were domesticated than foraged over the millennia. In the Old World¸ early farmers tamed wheat¸ barley¸ and other cereals that grow wild over much of Asia and Europe. In the New World¸ Native Americans developed a remarkable expertise with plants of all kinds—¸ root species¸ and many varieties of nuts. From this proficiency came the staples of American farming¦ Indian corn (Zeamays)¸ the only important wild grass ro be domesticated¸ beans¸ squashes¸ and many minor crops. Root plants such as manioc and sweet potatoes¸ chili peppers¸tobacco¸ and various forms of potato were vital parts of Indian life.

This chapter examines the archaeological evidence for the origins and initial spread of farming in the Old and New Worlds¸ a process that was the foundation for subsequent¸ more complex human societies and the early civilizations.