{"id":897,"date":"2008-05-07T02:34:18","date_gmt":"2008-05-07T06:34:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/s265039441.onlinehome.us\/philpaine\/?p=897"},"modified":"2018-08-14T08:05:35","modified_gmt":"2018-08-14T12:05:35","slug":"16200-%c2%a0-peter-bellwood-the-first-farmers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=897","title":{"rendered":"16200.&nbsp;(Peter Bellwood) The First Farmers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">I\u2019ve been read\u00ading every\u00adthing I can find on this sub\u00adject for months, now, and this is by far the best book I\u2019ve seen. It is mod\u00adi\u00adfy\u00ading some of my views, and re-enforc\u00ading oth\u00aders. It will take me some time to absorb and reflect on the mate\u00adr\u00adial, here, so I will not leap to a con\u00adclu\u00adsive judg\u00adment until it has been well-mulled.<span id=\"more-897\"><\/span> What\u00adever your views on the sub\u00adject of the neolith\u00adic tran\u00adsi\u00adtion to agri\u00adcul\u00adture, this book is essen\u00adtial read\u00ading. It brings togeth\u00ader the main blocks of evi\u00addence (from archae\u00adl\u00adog\u00ady, lin\u00adguis\u00adtics, genet\u00adics, pale\u00ado\u00adcli\u00adma\u00adtol\u00adogy, skele\u00adtal anthro\u00adpol\u00adogy, plant and ani\u00admal biol\u00adogy) in a bal\u00adanced and sys\u00adtem\u00adatic way. In most cas\u00ades, Bell\u00adwood lets the evi\u00addence speak for itself, and draws con\u00adclu\u00adsions only when they seem com\u00adpelled by the facts. I think he is miss\u00ading a major the\u00ado\u00adret\u00adi\u00adcal ele\u00adment, if my hunch\u00ades remain con\u00adsis\u00adtent with the evi\u00addence as it stands. But I think this will require more sat\u00adu\u00adra\u00adtion in the exist\u00ading lit\u00ader\u00ada\u00adture, before I start mouthing off. I\u2019m an ama\u00adteur and an out\u00adsider. This can be an advan\u00adtage, in cer\u00adtain cir\u00adcum\u00adstances, as the his\u00adtory of sci\u00adence has shown, but it is also very easy for an ama\u00adteur to drift into crankery \u2014 which I hope nev\u00ader to&nbsp;do.<br>\n<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019ve been read\u00ading every\u00adthing I can find on this sub\u00adject for months, now, and this is by far the best book I\u2019ve seen. It is mod\u00adi\u00adfy\u00ading some of my views, and re-enfor\u00adc\u00ading oth\u00aders. It will take me some time&nbsp;to&nbsp;\u2026<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=897\">Read more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[946,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-b-reading","category-bs-reading-2008"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=897"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8524,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897\/revisions\/8524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}