Radiocarbon dating and the expansion of farming culture from the Near East over Europe

The pursuit of radiocarbon dating is one of those elegant exercises in pure science that is fully justified as an end in itself and has justly brought world renown to its inventor. The purpose of this communication is merely to examine one of its many applications, namely the light it has thrown on the westward spread of farming from the ecologically focal regions of south-west Asia to Europe and north Africa. Because of its impact on the evolving ecosystem the spread of farming is of special concern to botanists. Even more so is it a preoccupation of students of man, since it symbolizes a transformation of human society of which the effects are still being felt. The evidence for this phenomenon itself falls into two broad and partly overlapping categories: first there is the indirect evidence afforded by plant ‘indicators’, notably fossil pollen, and second, the direct evidence gained through the investigation of materials from the actual settlements of the prehistoric cultivators themselves.