history of Europe

The adoption of farming

From about 7000 bce in Greece, farming economies were progressively adopted in Europe, though areas farther west, such as Britain, were not affected for two millennia and Scandinavia not until even later. The period from the beginning of agriculture to the widespread use of bronze about 2300 bce is called the Neolithic Period (New Stone Age).

Agriculture had developed at an earlier date in the Middle East, and the relationship of Europe to that area and the mechanism of the introduction of agriculture have been variously explained. At one extreme is a model of immigrant colonization from the Middle East, with the agricultural frontier pushing farther westward as population grew and new settlements were founded. A variation of this model denies the uniformity of such a “wave of advance” and stresses the possibility of a more irregular pioneering movement. At the other extreme is a model of agricultural adoption by indigenous Mesolithic groups, with a minimum of reliance on any introduced people or resources.

In favour of the intrusive model is the nature of the crops that formed the basis of early agriculture; the main cereals were emmer wheat, ... (200 of 166,670 words)