Animal and Plant Domestication

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses animal and plant domestication. It summarizes the anthropological approach to domestication and briefly compares it to the genetic research model. The paper evaluates domestication as a process in the puzzle of developing a record of early man. The paper then compares archaeological evidence as it applies to the animal record and the plant record.

From the Paper:

"The archaeological record with regard to plant domestication includes a number of variable evidences. These evidences can be sought through examination of a chain of evidence in the record. A behavioral change occurs, in the manner that people are interacting with the plant, a genetic change occurs in the plant and a morphological change occurs where the plant becomes different in the record. Utilizing this chain the archeologist can look at a whole myriad of evidence seeking everything from geological changes wrought by human intervention, such as landscape alterations that indicate agricultural clearing and a general disturbance of the area for the purpose of planting, evidence of human intervention to obtain water for irrigation as well as specific comparative changes that have occurred within the plant itself, through comparison of wild species with suspected domesticates as they appear regionally, side by side in the record. (Smith 16)"

Sample of Sources Used:

• Emshwiller, E. 2006 Genetic data and plant domestication. In, Documenting Domestication : New Genetic and Archaeological Paradigms, edited by M.A. Zeder, D.G.Bradley, E.Emshwiller, and B.D.Smith, pp.99-122. University of California Press, Berkeley.
• Smith, Bruce D. 206 Documenting domesticated plants in the archaeological record. In,Documenting Domestication : New Genetic and Archaeological Paradigms, edited by M.A. Zeder, D.G.Bradley, E.Emshwiller, and B.D.Smith, pp.15-24 University of California Press, Berkeley.
• Bradley, D.G 2006 Documenting domistication : reading Animal genetic texts. In, Documenting Domestication : New Genetic and Archaeological Paradigms, edited by M.A. Zeder, D.G.Bradley, E.Emshwiller, and B.D.Smith, pp.273-278 University of California Press, Berkeley.
• Zeder, M.A. 2006 Archaeological approaches to documenting animal domestication.In, Documenting Domestication : New Genetic and Archaeological Paradigms, edited by M.A. Zeder, D.G.Bradley, E.Emshwiller, and B.D.Smith, pp.171-180 University of California Press, Berkeley.

More papers on Animal and Plant Domestication:

• Term Paper # 101036 : "Aquaculture and Marine Coral"
• Book Review # 97337 : "Guns, Germs and Steel"
• Research Paper # 122581 : "Domesticaton of African Cattle"

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