Feast or Famine: The Broad Spectrum Revolution Revisited

Summary

Widely accepted models for the diversification of subsistence economies that preceded the domestication of plants and animals in the Near East frame this key transition in the context of demographically induced resource pressure following a diet breadth model of forager decision making. Many of the supporting arguments for this scenario are open to an alternative view that casts these developments within the context of resource abundance and enhanced predictability. Contrasting explanatory models based in Optimal Foraging Theory and Niche Construction theory are evaluated in light of emerging empirical data from the region.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• New Perspectives on Agricultural Origins

Keywords

Spatial Coverage