Farming in Prehistory

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 207 mg in response to the world’s dwindling meat resources. Camels can provide meat protein which is both inexpensive and obtainable from animals capable of being reared in environments unsuited to other types of meat-producing animals. It was in the arid areas that the camel originally adapted to its rather rigorous environment and from there spread throughout the Middle East and other areas. However, I cannot accept the author’s contention that the modernization of life has been coupled with a more humanitarian attitude toward animals. In reality, the “animalistic” view which Bulliet asserts characterized societies previously heavily dependent on the rearing and employ­ ment of animals for hauling, husbandry, and other purposes is un­ founded. In the case of herders, for example, each man knew his own animals individually and exhibited a very real and humane re­ lationship with them as compared with the more modern-day ten­ dency to perceive the camel primarily, if not wholly, as a source of meat products—an idea strongly suggested at the end of The Camel and the Wheel as a befitting means of continuing the exploitation of the camel for human purposes. The love for animals in traditional societies is reflected in stories and poems and even used oftentimes as a theme by today’s film in­ dustry in these societies. In modernized societies this unique re­ lationship has been replaced by that between man and the machine, which, by its very nature, is an objective one. Thus, it would seem that in the modern world a less humane attitude has usurped the tradi­ tionally intimate relationship between men and their animals. Asghar Talaye Minai* Farming in Prehistory: From Hunter-Gatherer to Food-Producer. By Bar­ bara Bender. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1975. Pp. xi+268; il­ lustrations. $18.95. The Food Crisis in Prehistory: Overpopulation and the Origin of Agriculture. By Mark Nathan Cohen. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1977. Pp. x+341. $15.00. The where, how, and why ofthe origins of plant and animal domes­ tication continue to be major problems in cultural evolution. Interest in these problems has increased in the past two decades with the development ofthe “new” archaeology, that is, the use of archaeologi­ cal data not simply to establish a chronology of events, but to test specific hypotheses. (In addition to the books under review, see C. A. Reed, ed., The Origins ofAgriculture [Chicago: Aldine Publishing Co., 1976], and J. R. Harlan et al., eds., The Origins ofAfrican Plant Domesti­ *Dr. Minai is associate professor of urbanism and architecture at the University of Teheran and vice chancellor of Farabi University, Iran. 208 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE cation [Chicago: Aldine Publishing Co., 1976], both in the Mouton World Anthropology Series). Both Mark Cohen and Barbara Bender address the problem ofthe origins of food production in their books. The two books are similarly organized. Both review the literature on the causes of food production, and Bender considers extensively the effects of climate and the distribution of potential domesticates. Both have a chapter on the interpretation of archaeological data: Bender’s concern is with the evidence for domestication, and Cohen’s attention is directed to evidence for population pressure. Finally, both books contain extensive reviews of the archaeological record on early food production: Bender concentrates on Southwest Asia, Mesoamerica, and Peru, the areas which she selects as the most likely centers of early food production; while Cohen reviews the ar­ chaeological record of the world before 10,000 b.p. dividing the world into the Old World, North America, Middle America, and South America. However, the questions Bender and Cohen ask about early food production and the conclusions they reach are very different. These differences make the point that the answers to questions are determined by the nature of the questions themselves. Bender asks a general question as to the causes of plant and animal domestication. Her answer is also general: “This brief résumé of de­ velopments in Meso-America and South-west Asia surely underlines the fact that food production must not be viewed as a unilinear devel­ opment. . . . There is no single hypothesis

Agriculture · Animal husbandry · Archaeology · Biology · Domestication · Environmental ethics · Ethnology · Modernization theory · Overpopulation · Political science · Prehistory · Sociology · Animal Diversity and Health Studies · Ecology · History · Law · Philosophy