Lec 09 Flashcards
(12 cards)
What is domestication? vs Taming?
Domestication: altering the genetics of a fauna or flora over generations leading to permanent changes.
Taming: altering the behavioural aspects of fauna without affecting their genetics.
Importance of Domestication?
- Transition from hunter-gatherer societies to agriculture
- permanent settlements = increase in population
- selective breeding
Early Theories? (2)
Oasis Theory:
- proposes climate changes happened at the end of Pleistocene (~12kya)
- Humans, animals, plants forced into proximity of water, leading to domestication
- Critique: evidence shows early domestication in diverse environments, not just arid.
Feasting Model of Domestication:
- social feasts + gift giving = demand for food surpluses, leading to domestication
- large feasting sites w/ early domesticated species remains (i.e pigs + cattle)
- Critique: invalid explanation for other neolithic sites
Human activity that influenced domestication in ecosystems?
- controlled burning to create conditions for useful plant species
- selective replanting + grain management = larger seeds
- construction of artificial ponds = specific fish species
Debate over CORE area of agriculture origin?
- Southern Levant (Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Syria) - linked transition from hunter-gatherer to early farming (Natufian to Pre-pottery neolithic) [1980s]
- Zagros (Iran) - others believed started in the foothills here.
- SE. Turkey - wild ancestors of key crops (eg. wheat, barley, peas, lentils, chickpeas), naturally grew
HOWEVER, no single origin approach, dispersed MOSAIC process instead.
eg. goats to modern goats (early pigmentation, stature, reproduction, milking)
Levant?
Two different concepts:
- pre-domestication = evidence for weed flora & substantial stores of wild crops
- full blown MORPHOLOGICAL domestication is DELAYED in time.
eg. Abu Heneyra, TEL-L????
Early + Middle Holocene country origins?
Early: 12-6kya
- Levant
- SE/E China
- Mexico
- Columbia/Peru
Middle Holocene: 6k-present
- Multiple places in India
- Japan
- East China
- Papua New Guinea
- Central W. Africa (Sahel)
- W/S America
- SE USA
Evidence of Plant Domestication?
- Increase in seed size (for larger food yields)
- Loss of natural seed dispersal (eg. non-shattering grains)
- 1st definite signs of domestic plants in Early Pre-pottery Neolithic B (PPNB)
- Morphological traits in findings show that annual grasses were domesticated (non-brittle ears, broad kernels)
eg. lentil, pea, chickpea - Banana evolution in New Guinea. (became seedless, bigger/more flesh)
Animal Dispersals, pre + post bronze age?
- Dog was earliest domestication. (Spread from Siberia to America >10kya)
- Pigs dispersed + involved in early farming communities expanding from Fertile Crescent (~8kya)
- Goats, originated in Turkey, spread into Levant + Iran
- Horses, spread from Kazakhstan into possibly East EU + China (~5kya)
- Zebu Cattle (Bos Indicus), originated in Indus Valley, spread into East.
- Dogs into Steppe cultures, expanding into EU, into Greenland + Artic (~1kya)
Dog Domestication?
- 1st domestication
- only species to be domesticated with people during late Pleistocene in Eurasia (earlier than farming)
- Dog-like canids up to 36kya after early divergence with wolf lineage
- High latitude dog breeds (Siberian Husky + Greenland Sledge Dogs), can trace ancestry to Taimyr Wolf Lineage
Cattle Domestication?
- African/EU Cattle (Bos Taurus)
VS
- S. Asian Zebu Cattle (Bos Indicus)
- Divergence ~210,000 BP, predating domestication.
- 3 separation events, Fertile Crescent, Indus Valley, Africa
- Zebu history = more complex, repeated admixture w/ wild progenitors over time
- EU/African Cattle = ancestors were severely bottlenecked antedating domestication
Goat Domestication?
11k BP, 8-7k formally, originally from Turkey, SE Levant, Iran
