Innovations, food storage and the origins of agriculture

Geoffroy de Saulieu and Alain Testart

Environmental Archaeology, 2015, vol. 20, issue 4, 314-320

Abstract: The global phenomenon of the birth of agriculture remains an enigma and challenges the role of food storage. Much has been written about their invention. A general explanation is needed for its progression in various parts of the world, which is both sociologically based and founded on the archaeological data. This task led Alain Testart to claim that it was by developing their existing skill sets (foraging, pottery, food storage and small-scale agriculture) that nomadic hunter-gatherers, burdened by an increasingly diverse set of tools and equipment, became sedentary. This sedentarism in turn allowed them to specialise in those activities, which had (literally) weighed them down: notably, breeding the first plant cultivars and, often, storing food.

Date: 2015
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DOI: 10.1179/1749631414Y.0000000061

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