The expansions of farming societies and the role of the Neolithic demographic transition

Peter Bellwood; Marc Oxenham

doi:10.1007/978-1-4020-8539-0_2

The expansions of farming societies and the role of the Neolithic demographic transition

Peter Bellwood^*, Marc Oxenham

^*Corresponding author for this work

Archaeology

Australian National University

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter

84 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The hypothesis of the Neolithic demographic transition (NDT) postulates that sharp increases in birthrates occurred as populations in different parts of the world adopted sedentary lifestyles and food storage, reduced their birth intervals, and came to depend increasingly on food production as opposed to foraging. For a period after these regional transitions to food production occurred, birth rates and absolute population numbers increased dramatically, at least in those areas (Europe, Middle East, North Africa, North America, Southeast Asia) so far subjected to cemetery analysis. This chapter discusses some general issues connected with early farmer expansion and presents archaeological and cemetery data relevant for an evaluation of the NDT hypothesis from East and Southeast Asia.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	The Neolithic Demographic Transition and its Consequences
Editors	JP Bocquet-Appel, O Bar-Yosef
Publisher	Springer Netherlands
Pages	13-34
Number of pages	22
ISBN (Electronic)	978-1-4020-8539-0
ISBN (Print)	9781402085383
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-8539-0_2
Publication status	Published - 31 Dec 2008

Keywords

First farmers
Food production
Human migration
Neolithic demographic transition
Palaeodemography
Southeast asian prehistory

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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The expansions of farming societies and the role of the Neolithic demographic transition

Abstract

Keywords

UN SDGs

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