Neanderthals, Bandits and Farmers
"Tradition has it that agriculture began in the Middle East around 10,000 years ago and that once people realized the advantages of farming, it led rapidly to the Neolithic Revolution and the end of the hunting-gathering lifestyle. In this book Colin Tudge argues that agriculture in some form was in the repertoire of our ancestors for thousands of years before the Neolithic farming revolution. The revolution was not the beginning of agriculture but the beginning of agriculture on a large scale, in one place, with refined tools. Tudge offers a persuasive hypothesis about a puzzling epoch, along the way providing new insights into the Pleistocene overkill, the demise of the Neanderthals, the location of the biblical Eden, and much more."--BOOK JACKET.