ABSTRACT
The origins of farming in south-west Asia (Figure 10.1) has been chosen as my last major study because of the links with both environmental and social pressures. It will be recalled (Ch. 2, p. 35) that Braudel saw social interactions as most relevant in small-scale events, physical environmental ones in the long duration, but that he did not theorize the way these two kinds of influences were linked (Gosden 1994: ch. 6). This chapter provides a means of exploring this problem, and through a fundamental stage of human history.
