It offers a powerfully coherent perspective, which challengingly sets one of the great themes of human history in a new and simplified vision.' Colin Renfrew, University of CambridgeBellwood is a master at summarising complex information. Rarely does one encounter a book with the sweeping historical scope of Peter Bellwood's convincing worldwide synthesis of agricultural origins and population dispersals.' Patrick Kirch, University of California, Berkeley'Global in its scope, Peter Bellwood's First Farmers boldly correlates the spreads of early farming with episodes of human population and language dispersal. It deserves to be a standard reference for archaeologists, linguists, geneticists, and anthropologists interested in the formation of the modern world.' Jared Diamond, University of California, Los Angeles author of Guns, Germs, and Steel'A tour de force of historical anthropology. This is a stimulating and thought-provoking assessment of one of the most important questions in archaeology today.' Peter Bogucki, Princeton University'This wonderful book is a fascinating treasure-house of information about human history since the origins of agriculture. It is and will remain one of the most important anthropological volumes of the 21st century.' ChoiceThis book is a superb advertisement for archaeology as part of a multidisciplinary approach to the problem of how, where, and why our ancestors settled to plough and pasture.' Times Higher Education Supplement'Bellwood is not afraid to challenge the established orthodoxy. No student of anthropology, irrespective of subfield, should leave this book unread.

this volume stands alone in its scope and depth. Inner of the AAP PSP Award for Archaeology and Anthropology 2005Choice Outstanding Academic Title of the Yeareter Bellwood - 2006 SAA Book Award - The Society for American Archaeology annually awards a prize to honor a recently published book that has had, or is expected to have, a major impact on the direction and character of archaeological research, and/or is expected to make a substantial contribution to the archaeology of an area.Do not be misled by the humble title of Bellwood's book.

First Farmers by Peter Bellwood