Transport animals and distinctive pathways to domestication

Summary

Animal behavior, diverse strategies of human management and environmental selection all contribute to domestication processes. Recent research suggests human control of breeding may have been less important than assumed and that breeding of captive animals with wild relatives significantly influenced domestication processes. Less social transport animals from extreme environments experience high levels of environmental selection and are especially likely to encounter wild relatives. Slow growth rates also lead to low culling levels. However, little research has focused on diverse practices of animal management and their role in reducing or increasing gene flow and infuencing domestication pathways. This analysis suggests that diverse management practices relating to penning, foddering, political relations, hard winters, or poverty may all have affected the likelihood of gene flow and rates of domestication. More research is needed that identifies such processes in individual settlements and specific regions.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• New Perspectives on Agricultural Origins

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