Article: Going to the goats. (Neolithic history of the Fertile Crescent)

Going to the goats

Human activities, not climate change, forced the widespread abandonment of Neolithic villages in the western Fertile Crescent around 6000 B.C., propose Gary O. Rollefson and Ilse Kohler-Rollefson of San Diego State University.

For years, anthropologists and archaeologists blamed the abandonments on reduced rainfall that made farming impossible in the region. But excavations at three sites in the north-south-trending hills of Jordan show these communities continued to flourish until around 5000 B.C. "So rainfall couldn't explain the abandonment, because these three sites and two discovered but not excavated continued to exist and ...

Related newspaper, magazine, and journal articles:

 
 
Newsweek Harper's Magazine The Washington Post Chicago Tribune Crain's Chicago Business PRNewswire Pediatric News The Nation Advertising Age The Economist (US) A FREE trial gives you access to over 80 million articles! Access over 6,500 publications with a FREE trial!