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In this article you failed to mention a possibly important factor for the introduction of agriculture into Europe, namely, the creation of the Black Sea from a large freshwater lake at the end of the last ice age. Could this not have forced the early farmers westward after they had lost so much of their cultivable land?

John S. Garrigues
The Woodlands, Texas

Middle Eastern farmers had already colonized parts of southeastern Europe by 7,500 years ago, one geological proposal for when the Black Sea formed. But it’s possible that some farmers fled flooded areas into central Europe, says Ofer Bar Yosef of Harvard University. —B. Bower