[Sasnet] Fwd: WAC 2008 - East meets West: the Transition to farming as Innovation

[Bonnie.A.B.Blackwell at williams.edu]

----- Forwarded message from Nicola Jane Whitehouse <n.whitehouse at QUB.AC.UK>
-----
    Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2008 08:26:35 +0000
    From: Nicola Jane Whitehouse <n.whitehouse at QUB.AC.UK>
Reply-To: Nicola Jane Whitehouse <n.whitehouse at QUB.AC.UK>
 Subject: WAC 2008 - East meets West: the Transition to farming as Innovation
      To: QUATERNARY at CLIFFY.UCS.MUN.CA

Apologies for cross-postings...

Dear colleagues,

We would like to draw your attention to the following session at WAC-6, World
Archaeological Congress, Dublin, 29 June-4 July, 2008.
http://www.ucd.ie/wac-6/WAC:

CALL FOR PAPERS/POSTERS: East meets West: the Transition to farming as
Innovation

Nicki J. Whitehouse1, Meriel McClatchie2, Harriet Hunt3, Zhijun Zhao4 and Tim
Denham5

1 Palaeoecology Centre, School of Geography, Archaeology & Palaeoecology,
Queen's University Belfast, Belfast BT7 1NN, Northern Ireland. Email:
n.whitehouse at qub.ac.uk
2 40 Tournore Court, Abbeyside, Dungravan, Co. Waterford, Republic of Ireland.
Email: meriel.mcclatchie at gmail.com
3 McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge,
Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3ER. Email: hvh22 at cam.ac.uk
4 Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, 27 Wangfujing
St., Beijing, 100710 P. R. China. Email: zjzhao at cass.org.cn.
5 School of Geography and Environmental Science, Building 11, Clayton Campus,
Monash University, VIC 3800, Australia. Email:Tim.Denham at arts.monash.edu.au

This session will explore the transition from hunter-gatherer food procurement
to the use of cultivated plants and domesticated animals across the broad
geographical spread of the occident to the orient - broadly speaking, from
North-West Europe, across Eurasia, into India, China, Japan and southwards to
include areas of South East Asia. This region encompasses several distinct
early agricultural traditions, but there is increasing evidence for contact
between these over wide geographic distances. This transition represents one of
the greatest human innovations, leading to substantial changes in the way
humans not only procured their food, but also the way they interacted with each
other and the wider environment surrounding them. The driving forces behind
this transition remain hotly debated and influenced by local and regional
factors; what innovations were associated with these changes and did these
differ according to the region/ area under investigation?

Was the nature of the transition from hunter-gatherers to the adoption of a
Neolithic "economy" relatively gradual or abrupt in nature, independent or
linked to innovation elsewhere? Which elements of the transition were localised
to particular regions, and which linked societies across the expanse of
Eurasia? How are stable isotopes and molecular genetics contributing to address
these questions? How did the nature of early agricultural practice (extensive
versus intensive) vary spatially and over time? Finally, what sorts of
landscapes and environments were created as a result of the innovation of
agriculture and what were the differing impacts to the environment and biota
across the region under consideration?

Abstacts Due: 22 Feb 2008. See WAC-6 website: http://www.ucd.ie/wac-6/.

Format: 10 minute papers with discussion, along with poster session.

*****************************************************************
Dr Nicki J. Whitehouse, F.R.E.S.
Palaeoecology Centre,
School of Geography, Archaeology and Palaeoecology (GAP) Queen's University
Belfast Belfast BT7 1NN Tel +44 028 90973978

Vice President (Palaeoecology) INQUA Commission on Palaeoecology and Human
Evolution
(http://www.inqua.tcd.ie/PAHE/)
Chair, Association for Environmental Archaeologists(http://www.envarch.net/)
Chair, Northern Ireland Archaeology Forum (http://www.niaf.co.uk/)
Centre for Chronology and Environment: http://www.chrono.qub.ac.uk/

----- End forwarded message -----