Gene-Culture Coevolution and Breeding of Ornamental Plants is a Specific Aesthetics-Driven Social Niche

Summary

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 domesticating and breeding ornamental plants. In the following we examine the cultural-social aspects and specific social niches of ornamental plant domestication and breeding, analysing several specific case studies (rose, tulip, lawn/turf,bonsai). What drove people to domesticate, breed and cultivate cut flowers and a variety of ornamental plants, and for what purposes? Were social life and stature, or economic success, or recreational activities the driving force behind breeding? We suggest that human sense for aesthetics, combined with economic and social reasons, and in some cases religion, were the driving force behind ornamental plant agriculture. Similar examples occur in several domesticated animals (e.g. dogs, cats and fighting-oriented chicken breeds) where social and aesthetic considerations may be one of several breeding targets.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Questioning the Fundamentals of Plant and Animal Domestication   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 24085