The Neolithic Demographic Transition and its Consequences

by Bocquet-appel, Jean-pierre; Bar-Yosef, Ofer

• ISBN13: 9781402085383
• ISBN10: 1402085389
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-10-01
• Publisher: Springer Verlag

Summary

Using cemetery data, it has been possible to identify the signature of a previously unknown demographic process associated with the transition from a hunter-gatherer to an agricultural economy. Characterized by a dramatic increase in the birth rate, and consequently of the population growth rate, over a period of less than a millennium following the transition to agriculture, this global demographic process has been termed the Neolithic Demographic Transition (NDT). The NDT signature has so far been detected in Europe, North America, Mesoamerica and South America.

Table of Contents

Prehistoric Demography in a Time of Globalization	p. 1
Demographic and Economic Dimensions of the NDT
The Expansions of Farming Societies and the Role of the Neolithic Demographic Transition	p. 13
Explaining the Neolithic Demographic Transition	p. 35
The Signal of the Neolithic Demographic Transition in the Levant	p. 57
The Nature and Timing of the Neolithic Demographic Transition in the North American Southwest	p. 81
The Neolithic Demographic Transition in Mesoamerica? Larger Implications of the Strategy of Relative Chronology	p. 107
An Alternative Approach in Tracing Changes in Demographic Composition	p. 139
Zooarchaeological Aspects of the Neolithic Diet Transition in the Near East and Europe, and Their Putative Relationships with the Neolithic Demographic Transition	p. 179
Impacts of the Neolithic Demographic Transition on Linear Pottery Culture Settlement	p. 207
Settlement and Village Practices
A Roof Over One's Head: Developments in Near Eastern Residential Architecture Across the Epipalaeolithic-Neolithic Transition	p. 239
Demography and Storage Systems During the Southern Levantine Neolithic Demographic Transition	p. 287
Population Processes and Their Consequences in Early Neolithic Central Europe	p. 315
Community Size and Social Organization
Global Patterns of Early Village Development	p. 333
Centralized Communities, Population, and Social Complexity After Sedentarization	p. 359
Charming Lives: Human and Animal Figurines in the Late Epipaleolithic and Early Neolithic Periods in the Greater Levant and Eastern Anatolia	p. 387
Evaluating the Emergence of Early Villages in the North American Southwest in Light of the Proposed Neolithic Demographic Transition	p. 417
Population Growth and Health
Demographic, Biological and Cultural Aspects of the Neolithic Revolution: A View from the Southern Levant	p. 441
Implications of the NDT for World Wide Health and Mortality in Prehistory	p. 481
From Health to Civilization Stress? In Search for Traces of a Health Transition During the Early Neolithic in Europe	p. 501
Index	p. 539
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