Questioning the Fundamentals of Plant and Animal Domestication

Part of: Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Questioning the Fundamentals of Plant and Animal Domestication," at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Domestication is a loaded term. At its most cartoonish, it conjures images of ‘man’ taming wild beasts into submission - an image often thought of as a discrete event involving a dominator-dominated relationship that inevitably culminates in the rise of complex societies. While plant and animal domestication is crucial to understanding ever-evolving human-animal-environmental interactions, less attention has been directed at the ways in which the confluence of ecology, culture, history and biological variables have shaped the domestication relationships along a time continuum. Moreover, the techniques used by archaeologists have also expanded to include novel shape analyses and molecular biological and DNA approaches.

This symposium focuses on specific plant and animal case studies, each of which details the ways in which new thinking about the pattern and process of domestication is dispensing with the cartoon and replacing it with a far more satisfying narrative that includes an appreciation for continual evolutionary change, but within a human and cultural context that allows for different selective pressures to alter the phenotypes of the species on whose existence we now rely. In addition, each paper will highlight how novel theoretical and methodological approaches will contribute to future research into domestication.

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  • Documents (12)

Documents
  • An Agroecological Perspective on Crop Domestication in Western Asia (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Michael Charles. Charlotte Diffey. Laura Green. Amy Bogaard.

    This is an abstract from the "Questioning the Fundamentals of Plant and Animal Domestication" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Domestication has been discussed inter alia as a syndrome, a case study in niche construction and a reversible process. These perspectives frame new understandings of how management practice shaped domestication processes. For plants, recent experimental work has also been important for clarifying the effect of domestication...

  • The Archaeology and Ancient Genomics of Early Horse Domestication: Not as Simple as Once Thought! (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Alan Outram. Ludovic Orlando.

    This is an abstract from the "Questioning the Fundamentals of Plant and Animal Domestication" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The earliest unambiguous evidence for equine husbandry relates to the Eneolithic Botai Culture of Northern Kazakhstan, circa. 5,500 years ago. However, whilst recent archaeological investigations and ancient genomics have added further weight to the case for domesticity and husbandry, it is now apparent that Botai horses are...

  • Documenting Domestication 2.0 (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Melinda Zeder.

    This is an abstract from the "Questioning the Fundamentals of Plant and Animal Domestication" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Published in 2006, the edited volume Documenting Domestication: New Genetic and Archaeological Paradigms presented case-study examples of cutting-edge approaches to documenting the domestication of plant and animal species. The twelve years since the publication of this book have seen remarkable advances in our ability to...

  • The Environmental and Cultural Context of North American Turkey Domestication (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Erin Thornton. Kitty Emery. Camilla Speller.

    This is an abstract from the "Questioning the Fundamentals of Plant and Animal Domestication" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) is the only native vertebrate animal domesticated in North America. As such, the history, timing and process of its domestication is critical to our understanding of past human-animal relationships in the ancient Americas. This paper summarizes recent advancements in reconstructing the...

  • Gene-Culture Coevolution and Breeding of Ornamental Plants is a Specific Aesthetics-Driven Social Niche (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Arie Altman. Stephen Shennan. John Odling-Smee.

    This is an abstract from the "Questioning the Fundamentals of Plant and Animal Domestication" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Agriculture, including plant and animal domestication and breeding, is traditionally and mainly directed towards supplying human needs for food and nutritional factors, both for improving food quantity and quality and for tolerance to various environmental stresses. Less explored are the needs and driving forces behind...

  • The History of the Fox Farm Experiment and Its Ramifications for Understanding the Origins of Domesticated Animals (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Kathryn Lord. Greger Larson. Raymond Coppinger. Elinor Karlsson.

    This is an abstract from the "Questioning the Fundamentals of Plant and Animal Domestication" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Domestic and wild animals are distinguished primarily by behavioral changes difficult to discern in archaeological remains. Domestication syndrome describes the suite of behavioral and morphological changes proposed to consistently accompany domestication, including skeletal changes. It is largely based on an experiment in...

  • Of Rabbits and Men: Using Ancient DNA and GMM to Investigate Rabbit Domestication (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Joel Alves. Carly Ameen. Tom Fowler. Naomi Sykes. Greger Larson.

    This is an abstract from the "Questioning the Fundamentals of Plant and Animal Domestication" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Rabbits are one of the most recently domesticated animals, and yet, over thousands of years, they have lived in a diverse range of relationships with people. This close interaction is recorded in archaeological and historical records and reflected today in the diversity of breeds worldwide. Whilst extensive research has been...

  • Pathways to Plant Domestication: Categories of Cultivation Practice and Convergent Evolution (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Dorian Fuller.

    This is an abstract from the "Questioning the Fundamentals of Plant and Animal Domestication" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Taking inspiration from Zeder’s notion of pathways to animal domestication (commensal, prey, directed), this presentation will outline equivalent pathways of plant domestication types, and suggest a range of species that can be grouped by these pathways. These pathways are united by issues of habit (annual, perennial),...

  • Predomestic Animal Management and the Social Context of Animal Exploitation in SW Asia (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Benjamin Arbuckle.

    This is an abstract from the "Questioning the Fundamentals of Plant and Animal Domestication" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. More than a century of faunal work seeking evidence for the origins of domestic livestock in SW Asia has shed considerable light on the timing, locations and processes of animal domestication. The early stages in the shift from hunting to herding, however, remain difficult to identify and as a result both the mechanisms and...

  • The Relationship between Humans and Camels in Late Prehistoric Southeastern Arabia: The Problems of Distinguishing between 'Wild' and 'Domestic' Camels Using Zooarchaeological Materials and Methods (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only James Roberts. Lloyd Weeks. Melanie Fillios. Charlotte Cable. Yaaqoub Yousef al-Aali.

    This is an abstract from the "Questioning the Fundamentals of Plant and Animal Domestication" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The dromedary camel (Camelus dromedarius) is a crucial component of the lifeways of humans in arid regions. Delineating the nature of the early relationship between humans and dromedaries is therefore critical to our understanding of the ancient human societies that co-existed with the dromedary in these areas. Many studies...

  • Understanding the Interplay between Domesticate Choice and the Environment: The Case of the Humble Australian Sheep (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Melanie Fillios. Sarah Ledogar.

    This is an abstract from the "Questioning the Fundamentals of Plant and Animal Domestication" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Domestication could be described as a drawn out, nuanced dance between humans and animals – a dance that shapes not just the animal actors – but the physical, cultural and economic environment of all the players. Recent examples of this effect abound in areas colonized by Europeans, particularly those with drastically...

  • Whose Donkey? Domestication and Variability (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Fiona Marshall.

    This is an abstract from the "Questioning the Fundamentals of Plant and Animal Domestication" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Morphological, genetic, ethnographic and behavioral research on domestication has provided a basis for understanding variability in the process of donkey domestication. It is clear that the lack of herd-based sociality among wild relatives of the donkey and people’s reliance on donkeys for transport create distinctive...