aiello, l. the origins of agriculture 2011

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The Origins of Agriculture: New Data, New Ideas

Author(s): Leslie C. AielloSource: Current Anthropology, Vol. 52, No. S4, The Origins of Agriculture: New Data, NewIdeas (October 2011), pp. S161-S162Published by: The University of Chicago Presson behalf of Wenner-Gren Foundation for AnthropologicalResearch

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Current Anthropology Volume 52, Supplement 4, October 2011 S161

2011 by The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved. 0011-3204/2011/52S4-0001$10.00. DOI: 10.1086/660154

The Origins of Agriculture:New Data, New Ideas

Wenner-Gren Symposium Supplement 4

by Leslie C. Aiello

The Origins of Agriculture: New Data, New Ideasresulted from

a Wenner-Gren-sponsored symposium held at the Hacienda

Temozon, Merida, Yucatan, Mexico, March 613, 2009 (fig.

1). The symposium was organized by T. Douglas Price (Uni-

versity of WisconsinMadison and the University of Aber-

deen) and Ofer Bar-Yosef (Harvard University).The major aim of the symposium was to better understand

the origins of agriculture in light of new fieldwork, new sites,

new analytical techniques, and more radiocarbon dates. The

global nature of agricultural origins was a key theme, and a

major focus of the discussions was on East Asia as well as

lesser-known regions such as Papua New Guinea, Africa, and

eastern North America, alongside more traditional areas such

as the Near East and Mesoamerica. The papers presented in

this supplementary issue are designed to provide the latest

information on the antiquity of agriculture covering at least

10 different centers of domestication.

The organizers, Price and Bar-Yosef, note in their intro-

duction that emerging data point to an unexpected synchron-icity in the timing of the first domesticates around the end

of the Pleistocene. They also note that, contrary to earlier

thought, the environments in which agriculture originated

were not marginal and that agricultural experimentation took

place in areas of concentrations of populations and resources.

Each major area may also have included multiple loci for

domestication. These were major areas of agreement in a

meeting that was characterized by lively debate over the va-

riety of hypotheses proposed for agricultural origins and

whether global or more area-specific explanations were most

appropriate. As in any good meeting, there were more ques-

tions than answers, but this is the sign of a dynamic field.

The degree of collegiality and collaboration among the diverse

symposium participants and the speed at which new data are

accumulating are good signs that our understanding of this

important period in human adaptation will continue to evolve

rapidly.

The Wenner-Gren Foundation has had a long-standing in-

Leslie C. Aiello is President of the Wenner-Gren Foundation for

Anthropological Research (470 Park Avenue South, 8th Floor North,

New York, New York 10016, U.S.A.).

terest in the origins of agriculture and domestication. One of

the earliest meetings organized by the Foundation in July 1960

led to the seminal publication Courses toward Urban Life:

Archaeological Considerations of Some Cultural Alternates

(Braidwood and Willey 1962). Other influential meetings in-

cluded theOrigins of African Plant Domestication(Harlan, DeWet, and Stemler 1972) and Where the Wild Things Are Now

(Mullin and Cassidy 2007), which invited anthropologists

from all subfields to rethink the concept of domestication in

anthropology. Information on these meetings and others can

be found on our Web site at http://wennergren.org/history.

Most recently, agricultural origins were explored in a special

issue ofCurrent Anthropologytitled Rethinking the Origins of

Agriculture introduced by Mark Cohen (Cohen 2009). The

current supplementary issue continues the discussions and

debates explored in this earlier contribution but is perhaps

more data rich and geographically diverse. Together these two

CAissues provide an excellent contemporary overview of the

state of research in this exciting area of inquiry.The Wenner-Gren Foundation is always looking for in-

novative new directions in the field for future Foundation-

sponsored and organized symposia and eventual CApubli-

cation. We encourage anthropologists to contact us with their

ideas for future meetings. Information about the Wenner-

Gren Foundation and the Symposium program can be found

on the Foundations Web site (http://wennergren.org/

programs/international-symposia).

References Cited

Braidwood, Robert John, and Gordon Randolph Willey, eds. 1962.Courses toward urban life: archaeological considerations of some cul-tural alternates. Viking Fund Publications in Anthropology, no. 32(Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research). Chi-cago: Aldine.

Cohen, Mark Nathan. 2009. Introduction: rethinking the origins ofagriculture.Current Anthropology50:591595.

Harlan, Jack R., Jan M. J. De Wet, and Ann B. L. Stemler, eds. 1976.Origins of African plant domestication. World Anthropology Series.The Hague: Mouton.

Mullin, Molly, and Rebecca Cassidy, eds. 2007. Where the wild thingsare now. Wenner-Gren International Symposium Series. Oxford:Berg.

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Figure 1. Participants in the symposium The Origins of Agriculture:New Data, New Ideas. Front row from left: Laurie Obbink (Wenner-Gren staff), Carolyn Freiwald (monitor), Leslie Aiello, Fiona Marshall,Ofer Bar-Yosef, Gyoung-Ah Lee, Ehud Weiss, Anna Belfer-Cohen. Middlerow from left: Tim Denham, Peter Bellwood, Melinda A. Zeder, DoloresR. Piperno, Greger Larson, Richard H. Meadow, Jean-Denis Vigne, Meh-met Ozdogan, Peter Rowley-Conwy. Back row from left: David Joel Co-hen, Zhao Zhijun (Jimmy), Dorian Q Fuller, Bruce D. Smith, Gary W.Crawford, T. Douglas Price, Jean-Pierre Bocquet-Appel, A. Nigel Goring-Morris. A color version of this photo appears in the online edition ofCurrent Anthropology.

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aiello, l. the origins of agriculture 2011

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