Experience Anu

The Golson Lecture was delivered at ANU by Professor Graeme Barker (Disney Professor of Archaeology and Director of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge) on the 21st May, 2014. Jack Golson's excavations at Kuk in New Guinea have been a fundamental contribution to one of the greatest research problems in archaeology: why did our ancestors become farmers? Ten thousand years ago most people on the globe lived by hunting and gathering. Five thousand years ago most people lived by farming, or by combining farming with hunting and gathering. Today most of the world's population depends for their food on half a dozen plants and, if they are rich enough, on the products of half a dozen animals. So why did our ancestors first become farmers? Did people choose to experiment with domesticating plants and animals, and if so why? Were they pushed into becoming farmers by forces beyond their control like climate change or population pressure? How important were hard-to-study things l