First Farmers: the Origins of Agricultural Societies by Peter Bellwood - Book Report/Review Example

 First Farmers: the Origins of Agricultural Societies by Peter Bellwood Farming is very important for every country, thus the origin of farming is a part of the history that is very significant and should be learned by everybody. Farming represents the beginnings of our history, an inevitable part of it and it is very interesting to trace its development starting from ancient times. However, with the new research opportunities, which became available, it is not very easy to gather all the fragments of this research and make this part of history good for learning. Students usually study the history of agriculture in the course of the history of a separate country without any comparative analysis. Peter Bellwood in his book “First farmers: the origins of agricultural societies” managed to provide a reliable collection of the investigations in this field. A serious work was implemented by the author to present the comparative analysis of farming development in different parts of the world. The book is easy to read as it offers an understandable interpretation, thus it may be used not only by experts but also by general readers. The research is focused on the places, where farming was born: Asia Mexico, China, South America etc. Therefore, the book represents one of the rare global researches of farming history. Bellwood compared the development of farming in different countries and this makes his research outstanding as only separate regions were analyzed before. It seemed that the author took the knowledge of encyclopedia and explained it in the new way analyzing farming in each country both independently and in connection. The author states: “the early farming dispersal hypothesis postulates that the spreads of early farming lifestyles were often correlated with prehistoric episodes of human population and language dispersal from agricultural homelands” (Bellwood 2005: 2). The book “First farmers: the origins of agricultural societies” provides readers with the opportunity to learn about the very beginning of agriculture in different parts of the world. Peter Bellwood traces the evolution that has been happening during the past twelve thousand years on different continents. The author investigates the relations between those people who dealt with agriculture with those who were engaged in hunter-gathering in order to explain the spread and adoption of agriculture. The book is distinguished by the complex approach made by the author and the conclusions made after summarizing the data received from the research in several fields. The author calls it “early farming dispersal hypothesis” (Bellwood 2005). Being an archeologist, the professor also involved linguistic and biological aspects in his study. According to Bellwood, “this book suggests that major episodes of human movement occurred from time to time, in various parts of the world, as different populations developed or adopted agriculture and then spread farming, languages, and genes, in some cases across vast differences” (Bellwood 2005: 1). The information from different fields of science helped to make the book multidisciplinary. Bellwood compared different countries and their agricultural history with the help of knowledge in the field of anthropology, archaeology and linguistics. In the book “First farmers: the origins of agricultural societies” the author also provides the data received by other researches to support or doubt his own conclusions. Thus the readers are able to get acquainted with plenty of information on the topic. The author makes a statement about genetic modification. He explains its existence by the fact that modern people can’t be satisfied only with gathering and hunting, thus genetic modification is applied to plants and animals. The author emphasizes the difference between farming and hunter-gathering, he explains: “particular groups of prehistoric foragers crossed the Rubicon into systematic agriculture” (Bellwood 2005: 25). Bellwood introduces his comparative approach, provides definition of agriculture and explains why this field is so important and should be studied. He discusses the ways how agriculture may have been spread and may have become known in non-agricultural societies. “First farmers: the origins of agricultural societies” explains how the agricultural societies were formed and spread. The overviews are implemented in different regions. The author’s knowledge of linguistic was enough to explain the main concepts of historical analysis. “The spreads of early farming lifestyles were often correlated with prehistoric episodes of human population and language dispersal from agricultural homelands” (Bellwood 2005: 2). Bellwood provides the readers with the history of language families and their evolution. Here it should be admitted that the author do not offer the detailed descriptions of the language families and the conclusion he provides are not fully supported and explained, but simply stated. The author emphasized the connection between linguistics and culture. Besides linguistics and anthropology, Bellwood also applied human biology as a one more point for comparison. In the final chapter the author brings all the investigations made in the particular fields together. The Professor states that the degrees of conception between biological, cultural and linguistic factors may vary depending on the region. He came over with the idea that in order to explain how agriculture was spread among the regions, it essential to study the linguistic development of these regions and the linguistics has always been a tool for spreading something. The author makes the following conclusion: “the final conclusion should be that language families and early agricultural economies spread through hunter-gatherer landscapes in prehistory essentially through population growth and dispersal, but with admixture” (Bellwood 2005: 278). Peter Bellwood’s outstanding approach that is used in the book “First farmers: the origins of agricultural societies” makes many scholars understand that while making archeological and historical investigation we should not forget and our biological and cultural heritage. Biology and genetics represent the basis of everything under investigation and in order to understand the nature of something and trace its development it is essential to analyze its roots. The author states that the spread of agriculture happened as a result of the “constant processes of population mixing, sex-specific differential migration, and successive bottlenecks” (Bellwood 2005: 272). In contrast to a great number of researches, the book “First farmers: the origins of agricultural societies” by Peter Bellwood’s presents the convincing recounting of a multifaceted argument that is based on the different kind of data. The research of agricultural history made in different regions is precious and it is a real breakthrough. Correspondingly, the research can be used as a perfect start for those scholars who are looking for a starting point for apparently impassable controversy about the agriculture, its origins and spread. It is definitely the most academic analysis of agricultural history made by a single author that can be found. The unique approach used by Peter Bellwood helps us understand the importance of studying the history of farming as the certain part of the world history and not just a part of a history of a separate country. The author wanted to “to unravel the histories of these upheavals” and the task was successfully implemented. From the book “First farmers: the origins of agricultural societies” we learn about the evolution of agriculture in different regions and the way how it spread to non-agricultural societies. Bellwood’s summarizing is very professional and he is deservingly considered to be one of the most open-minded and impartial experts. The real advantage of the book “First farmers: the origins of agricultural societies” is that it is full of very useful information provided by the author in order to prove or disprove his own conclusions as history represents a discipline that presents the facts which can be easily disproved. The book is really helpful for those who study history and archeology as well is for general readers who simply want to know new interesting facts about the history. Works Cited Bellwood, Peter 2005 First farmers: the origins of agricultural societies. Blackwell Publishing, Oxford Read More