Neanderthals, Bandits and Farmers. How Agriculture Really Began (Darwinism Today) (Hardcover)

Tudge wants a fresh assessment - starting with a proper definition of "farming". By his definition, "farming" is simply any modification of an environment supporting edible resources. "Modification" ranges from protecting a known resource from predation to diverting water to stimulate growth. There are no "fields" dedicated to crop production - the sites were opportunistic finds. Tudge here raises the point overlooked by most scholars -"farming" began at the end of the last Ice Age. The best crop sites were low-lying stream valleys containing rich soils and available water. As the glaciers melted and sea levels rose, these locations were inundated and lost to research. The Middle Eastern "burst" of agrarian development was due to a dislocated population that had already practiced farming elsewhere. The Tigris-Euphrates was an exile.

Neither, Tudge argues, will we find paddocks for domestic animals in the early locations. In Tudge's view animal domestication began by selecting those animals amenable to human contact. Continuous association evoked genetic changes in these creatures until domestication became the norm. Nor were the keepers of goats, sheep and other small animals necessarily constant in the practice. Tudge notes a South African people who keep goats for some years, then abandon them for a spate of hunting.

He also insists on a Darwinian perspective on farming and pastoralism's origins. The "sudden" outburst of Middle Eastern agriculture violates the Darwinian process by obscuring earlier evidence. Like any evolutionary process, each step is slow, hesitant and scattered in time and place. Success builds on success until a new pattern is firmly established. Farming and pastoralism emerged in steps, but once established, it became an irreversible process. Agriculture produces not only excess crops, but excess population to consume them. Extra land is needed to supply the new population - and the cycle repeats. This surge in population of modern humans due to agriculture , Tudge contends, was the death knell of the Neanderthals. With Tudge's form of farming originating forty thousand years ago, modern humans outproduced the Neanderthals in both population and resource dominance.

This slim volume proposes many innovative and challenging ideas. Tudge is on solid ground in negating the "abrupt flowering" of modern humans and agriculture in the Middle East. He rightly argues for simpler beginnings of such a complex process. This is an important book in an important series. Tudge's excellent prose skills make this small book a delight to read. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

It's certainly true that initial agricultural activity would not have left much trace, so it undoubtedly goes back further than we think. But any thesis about proto-agriculture before the widespread game extinctions has to contend with the fact that the game themselves - and particularly the elephant family - would have made man's first attempts at environmental manipulation quite difficult, simply by trampling over things and eating the "crops". So the great slaughter of the big game had (perhaps) three effects. Firstly it provided a splendid source of food, permitting a great growth in the human population. Secondly, it then used up most of the game, producing an urgent need for new sources of food for the expanded population. Thirdly, by killing off most of the game and scaring away what remained, it made agriculture possible.

But nobody expects Colin Tudge to come up with all the answers. What is wonderful about this book is that it puts forward exciting ideas in an exciting way and provokes thought and discussion. It's just the kind of book we need.