Neanderthals, Bandits and Farmers: How Agriculture Really Began

This interesting, short book attempts to completely revise the accepted views on the origins of agriculture. Tudge suggests that early humans began to manipulate their food supply by spreading favored food plants, burning to control weeds and pests and other techniques long before formal agriculture developed. This was the favored way of life for millennia, until environmental changes and population pressure forced groups in some areas into permanent agriculture as a lifestyle.

Not sure how new the information here is, but entertaining and clearly written, producing some good "a-ha!" moments.

Interesting thesis, succinctly stated.