This benchmark volume is a valuable synthesis of our current knowledge about the origins and spread of animal domestication in the Near East and Europe.

Domestication, dispersal and use of animals in Europe; Domestication and use of animals in the Americas; Prehistoric man and animals in Australia and Oceania; Indigenous domesticated animals of Asia and Africa and their uses; Conservation of animal genetic resources; Evolutionary adaptations and their significance in animal production; The institutionalization of research in animal science; The ethics of animal use; The rational use of wild animals; Modifying growth: an example of possibilities and limitations; Animal production and energy resources; Animal production and the world food situation; Animal products and their competitiors; Livestock in economic development; Grazing animals in the next few decades.

This book had its origins in a symposium held at the University of Edinburgh from 30 March to 2 April 2000, which was attended by archaeologists with a shared interest in the prehistory of the small but distinctive region of Southeast Europe known as the Iron Gates. In the broad sense the area refers to the section of the Danube valley where the river forms the modern political border between Serbia and Romania, and this definition is adopted for the present volume. First and foremost the volume is intended to illustrate the immense research potential of the Iron Gates region. A second objective is to provide case studies that illustrate the nature of current research and the rich possibilities offered by the growing range of scientific techniques available to archaeologists and their application to existing archaeological collections. Contents: 1) Lithic technology and settlement systems of the Final Palaeolithic and Early Mesolithic in the Iron Gates (Dusan Mihailovic); 2) The development of the ground stone industry in the Serbian part of the Iron Gates (Dragana Antonovic); 3) Sturgeon fishing along the Middle and Lower Danube (Laszlo Bartosiewicz, Clive Bonsall & Vasile Sisu); 4) The Mesolithic-Neolithic in the Derdap as evidenced by non-metric anatomical variants (Mirjana Roksandic); 5) Demography of the Derdap Mesolithic-Neolithic transition (Mary Jackes, Mirjana Roksandic & Christopher Meiklejohn); 6) Approaches to Starcevo culture chronology (Joni L. Manson); 7) Faunal assemblages from the Early Neolithic of the central Balkans: methodological issues in the reconstruction of subsistence and land Use (Haskel Greenfield); 8) Lepenski Vir animal bones: what was left in the houses? (Vesna Dimitrijevic); 9) New-born infant burials underneath house floors at Lepenski Vir: in pursuit of contextual meanings (Sofija Stefanovic & Dusan Boric); 10) DNA-based sex identification of the infant remains from Lepenski Vir (Biljana Culjkovic, Sofija Stefanovic & Stanka Romac); 11) Dating burials and architecture at Lepenski Vir (Clive Bonsall, Ivana Radovanovic, Mirjana Roksandic, Gordon Cook, Thomas Higham & Catriona Pickard); 12) Reanalysis of the vertebrate fauna from Hajducka Vodenica in the Danubian Iron Gates: subsistence and taphonomy from the Early Neolithic and Mesolithic (Haskel Greenfield); 13) Velesnica and the Lepenski Vir culture (Rastko Vasic); 14) The human osteological material from Velesnica (Mirjana Roksandic); 15) The Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in the Trieste Karst (north-eastern Italy) as seen from the excavations at the Edera Cave (Paolo Biagi, Elisabetta Starnini & Barbara Voytek).

This volume comprises 29 interdisciplinary papers presented by participants from 17 nations during a workshop in Berlin. Topics of major interest include faunal changes at the Pleistocene/Holocene transition, the formation and evolution of the Holocene fauna in different regions of Europe and methodological problems, as well as single species as natural and anthropogenic factors in the evolution of vertebrate fauna of Europe. All papers are in English except for two German articles.

Knowledge of the origin and spread of farming has been revolutionised in recent years by the application of new scientific techniques, especially the analysis of ancient DNA from human genomes. In this book, Stephen Shennan presents the latest research on the spread of farming by archaeologists, geneticists and other archaeological scientists. He shows that it resulted from a population expansion from present-day Turkey. Using ideas from the disciplines of human behavioural ecology and cultural evolution, he explains how this process took place. The expansion was not the result of 'population pressure' but of the opportunities for increased fertility by colonising new regions that farming offered. The knowledge and resources for the farming 'niche' were passed on from parents to their children. However, Shennan demonstrates that the demographic patterns associated with the spread of farming resulted in population booms and busts, not continuous expansion.

It is no exaggeration to suggest that the domestication of animals was perhaps one of the most important developments in human history. It is a phenomenon that has transformed human life over the last 15,000 years, with the term 'domestic animal' being a familiar one to every person on the planet.