ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses an important change in subsistence pattern, midway through the Upper Palaeolithic in the Near East, set the stage for domestication of plants. A basic problem in human ecology is why cultures change their modes of subsistence at all. The chapter describes, one possible mechanism, a model of population pressure and disequilibrium relative to environmental carrying capacity and draws from enthnographic data on hunting and gathering groups. It examines the equilibrium model proposed by L. R. Binford as a means of explaining post-Pleistocene changes in the archaeological record. This model will be used to offer tentative explanations for subsistence changes which took place in the Near East at the three critical points mentioned: the Upper Palaeolithic, the beginning of domestication, and the beginnings of irrigation. The chapter also describes advance for viewing the rest of South-western Asia through Iranian eyes.
