ReViews: A Revolution—12,000 Years Ago

Neolithic

Susan Foster McCarter (New York: Routledge, 2007), 221 pp., $34.95 (paperback), $110 (hardback)

The Neolithic Revolution in the Near East: Transforming the Human Landscape.

Alan H. Simmons (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2007), 338 pp., $55 (hardback)

As you sit there reading this review, just about everything you see and touch in the room around you— and an incredibly varied array of things outside of it— can be traced ultimately to a slow process by which humans emerged from another slot in the natural environment to a situation where humans now control— and threaten— just about all of the biosphere and enormous stretches of the landscape. The food you eat, the beverages you drink, the clothing you wear, the arts you enjoy, the troubles you face— the list goes on and on— began their development in a new way thousands of years ago