Sheep and wheat domestication in southwest Asia: a meta-trajectory of intensification and loss

作者：Daniel Fuks, Nimrod Marom · 发表于：Animal Frontiers · 年份：2021 · DOI：10.1093/af/vfab010 · 被引用次数：78 · 研究领域：Rangeland Management and Livestock Ecology、Genetic and phenotypic traits in livestock、Agricultural Systems and Practices

Biologists since Darwin considered domestication a model for the study of evolution; we argue that domestication may also be a model for the study of globalization. The long-term history of wheat and sheep domestication exemplifies the intensification of relationships between humans and a small number of species native to southwest Asia, which includes long-term globalizing processes. Specific indicators are offered for tracking the long-term globalization of sheep and wheat, with reference to production intensity, geographic diffusion, and diversity. Domestication as here understood is one outcome of human–environment interactions whereby certain plants and animals undergo genetic changes resulting from their close relationship with humans, including increasing reliance on humans for survival and reproductive success. Domestication is thus an ongoing process and may be viewed as part of an even broader process of intensification in the relationships between humans and certain plants and animals, including hunting/gathering, herding/cultivating, specialized agriculture/pastoralism, and, recently, genetic engineering. It should be emphasized that these are not stages in a necessarily directional process, but these categories do represent a scale of intensification, at least in the strict agricultural sense of more plant/animal product per unit land (Harris, 1989). Domestication has enhanced evolutionary fitness for domesticated species, humans included (Rindos, 1984). It is th...