ABSTRACT
In the Caribbean and circum-Caribbean, domestication became an outgrowth of typical gatherer-forager practices, a process that began during the Archaic Age in the region. While some communities in the Caribbean and circum-Caribbean can properly be described as farmers, even though agriculture was in fact part of a larger network of other food-getting strategies such as collecting, fishing, and hunting, others productively managed landscapes to produce subsistence surpluses that supported large populations. According to Price and Gebauer the transition to agriculture is perhaps the most remarkable event in the entire course of human prehistory. These sentiments are echoed by Weisdorf.J.L who described the rise of Neolithic agriculture "as unquestionably one of the most important events in human cultural history." Archaeologists studying human-environment relationships have become increasingly cognizant that climate change may have affected the course of culture history in many parts of the world. The chapter also presents an overview of key concepts discussed in this book.
