The Birth of the Gods and the Origins of Agriculture

Study of social and economic transformations in the Near East during Palaeolithic-Neolithic transition.

List of plates; List of figures; Translator's note; Foreword; Preface; Chronological table; Introduction; Part I. The Origins of Agriculture: 1. Natural environment and human cultures on the eve of the Neolithic; 2. The first pre-agricultural villages: the Natufian; 3. The Revolution in symbols and the origins of Neolithic religion; 4. The first farmers: the socio-cultural context; 5. The first farmers: strategies of subsistence; 6. Agriculture, population, society: an assessment; 7. The Neolithic Revolution: a transformation of the mind; Part II. The Beginnings of Neolithic Diffusion: 8. A geographical and chronological framework for the first stages of diffusion; 9. The birth of a culture in the northern Levant and the neolithisation of Anatolia; 10. Diffusion into the central and southern Levant; 11. The evidence of symbolism in the southern Levant; 12. The dynamics of a dominant culture; Part III. The Great Exodus: 13. The problem of diffusion in the Neolithic; 14. The completion of the neolithic process in the 'Levantine nucleus'; 15. The arrival of farmers on the Mediterranean littoral and in Cyprus; 16. The sedentary peoples push east: the eastern Jezirah and the Syrian desert; 17. Pastoral nomadism; 18. Hypotheses for the spread of the Neolithic; Conclusion; Postscript; Notes; Bibliography; Index.