‘Garden agriculture’ and the nature of early farming in Europe and the Near East

Abstract

This paper takes a comparative approach to early farming, arguing that bioarchaeological work on Neolithic Europe can inform understanding of earlier cultivation and herding in the Near East, where the ‘package’ of crops and livestock emerged in the PPNB period. Evidence for intensive cultivation (‘garden agriculture’) integrated with small-scale herding is outlined for south-east and central Europe before turning to crop and caprine husbandry practices during the PPNB. It is concluded that integration of small-scale cultivation and herding during the PPNB facilitated the spread of agriculture to Europe.