SCHOOL OF ARCHAEOLOGY AND ANTHROPOLOGY

THE ORIGINS & DISPERSALS OF AGRICULTURAL POPULATIONS (ARCH 2039)

SEMESTER 2, 2001

COURSE SYNOPSIS:

Without agricultural production, civilization as we know it today could never have come into existence. Nor could any of the great civilizations of history. This unit will examine the role of agricultural subsistence at a crucial stage in human history, when post-hunter-gatherer populations in various regions began to lay the foundations of the present distributions of peoples, cultures and languages across the tropical and temperate latitudes of the earth.

The unit will commence with a comparative examination of the beginnings of agriculture in those regions where archaeologists believe it to have been a primary development, rather than a result of diffusion. These regions are southwestern Asia, central China, the New Guinea Highlands, central Mesoamerica, the northern Andes and the Eastern Woodlands of the USA. Environmental factors which shaped the eventual forms of each agricultural complex will be examined. So too will possible hunter-gatherer responses to agriculture, as witnessed especially in the ethnographic record.

The unit will continue with an examination of the subsequent histories of several major world ethnolinguistic populations which emerged as a result of agricultural or pastoral subsistence. Several large-scale examples will be chosen here, including the populations within the Bantu, Indo-European, Afro-Asiatic, Austronesian and Uto-Aztecan language families. The archaeological and linguistic evidence for the origins and dispersals of these populations will be compared, together with genetic evidence where it is pertinent.

A major issue to be considered (and one greatly debated by archaeologists) concerns the relative significances of (1) population growth and dispersal, as against (2) diffusion and interaction, in determining patterns of human diversity. It is also necessary to consider how archaeological complexes, language families and biological populations change through time and how the results of research in archaeology, linguistics and biological anthropology can be usefully compared.

COURSE OUTLINE:

The course will contain 21 lectures, 8 tutorials and 3 films.

Lecture times:   Monday 12.00, HA G40

                        Tuesday 1.00, AD Hope G12

Tutorial times to be announced at beginning of semester

TOPICS:

Part 1: Background Issues

16-17 July        

Introduction: the overall picture of early agriculture. Definitions: agriculture, cultivation, domestication, arboriculture, horticulture. The regions, climates, major crops.
Example of the kinds of issues we will be examining during the course.

23-24 July        

Proto-agricultural practices amongst hunter-gatherers. The earliest stages of agriculture and the various social and environmental inducements which might lie behind them. Why did agriculture begin?

30-31 July        

What are the effects of agriculture? Population growth. Environmental degradation. Successful intensification. Organised warfare.
 

6-7 August.      

How do hunter-gatherers and agriculturalists share space? Under what circumstances might hunters have shifted to agriculture? Is "foraging" really different from agriculture?

13-14 August   

The Linguistic Record of How Language Families are Created and Spread.

Language families as genetic units - concepts of homeland and dispersal.

How languages interact. Elite dominance. Language shift.

How old are proto-languages? What can we learn from proto-language reconstructions?

During weeks 6 and 7 in late August there will be films – details to be announced later

Part 2: The Archaeological Record of Early Agriculture and Associated Linguistic Correlations

3-4 September  

Middle East, North Africa, Europe (Afroasiatic and Indo-European)

10-11 Sept.      

Sub-Saharan Africa (especially Bantu)

1 October        

Labour day – no lecture

2 October        

China and Japan (Sino-Tibetan/Tibeto-Burman, Daic, Austroasiatic, Japanese)

8-9 October     

Island SE Asia, New Guinea and Oceania (Austronesian, Papuan)

15-16 October  

Mesoamerica and the Southwestern USA (Uto-Aztecan, Otomanguean, Mayan, MixeZoque)

The Eastern Woodlands and the Andes/Amazon (Iroquoian, Algonkian, Siouan, South American families)

22-23 October  

Farmers who became full-time hunters and gatherers - case studies in New Zealand, Great Basin, Borneo.

Is it possible to study linguistic and archaeological prehistory in successful combination? The contribution of genetics.

TUTORIAL TOPICS

30-31 July                    

Does agriculture differ from foraging and if so, how?

6-7 August                   

The legitimate uses of linguistic data.

13-14 August   

Austronesian – case study involving archaeology, language, genetics

20-28 August   

No Tutorials

3-4 September.

Indo-European origins and dispersal.

10-11 September.         

Bantu origins and dispersal.

1-2 October                

No tutorials (Labour Day)

8-9 October.    

East and SE Asia.

15-16 October.

Uto-Aztecan – Archaic Southwest vs agricultural spread from Mexico.

22-23 October.

Agriculturalist to hunter-gatherer. The Punan and Bushman disputes.

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Author: Peter Hiscock, School of Archaeology and Anthropology
Feedback: peter.hiscock@anu.edu.au.
Date Last Modified: 01-07-01
URL: http://artalpha.anu.edu.au/web/arc/resources/papers/courses/012039.htm