Domesticated
Domesticated animals and plants are those species whose breeding and living conditions are under human control for the purposes of using them for food, as an aid to work, or as a pet.
Domestication of Animals
According to physiologist Jared Diamond, animal species must meet six criteria, in order to be considered for domestication (see also Guns, Germs and Steel).
- flexible diet (not too cumbersome or expensive)
- growing up reasonably fast (see growth rate)
- breeding in captivity
- pleasant disposition
- unlikely to panic
- modifiable social hierarchy (recognise a human as its chief).
The boundaries between surviving wild populations and domestic clades of elephants, for example, can become vague. This is due to the slow growth. Similar problems of definition arise when, say, cats go feral. A classification that can help solve this confusion is, in order of increasing domestication,
- wild animals,
- zoo animals, and
- domesticated or tame animals.
The first domestic animal was probably the dog, possibly as early as 11000 BCE. The next three - the goat, sheep and pig - were domesticated around 8000 BCE, all in western Asia. The cow followed around 6000 BCE The horse was domesticated first in northern Russia, around 4000 BCE. Local equivalents and smaller species were domesticated from the 2500s BCE.
Approximate Dates and Locations of first Domestication
Species Date Location
Dog 10,000 B.C. Middle East
Sheep 8,000 B.C. Middle East
Goat 8,000 B.C. Middle East
Pig 8,000 B.C. China
Cat 7,000 B.C. Egypt
Cow 6,000 B.C. Middle East
Horse 4,000 B.C. Ukraine
Donkey 4,000 B.C. Egypt
Water buffalo 4,000 B.C. China
Chicken 3,500 B.C. ?
Llama 3,500 B.C. Peru
Bactiran camel 2,500 B.C. Central Asia
Arabian camel 2,500 B.C. Arabia
Guinea pig 900 Peru
Rabbit 1500 Europe
Fox 1800s Europe
Mink 1800s Europe
Hamster 1930s United States
There is a great difference between a tame animal and a domesticated animal. Humans have tamed many thousands of animals that have never been truly domesticated. These include the elephant, giraffes, and bears. The is debate over whether some species have been domesticated or just tamed. Some state that the elephant has been domesticated, while others argue the cat has never been. One dividing line is whether a specimen born to wild parents would differ in behaviour from one born to domesticated parents. For instance a dog is certianly domesticated because even a wolf raised from a pup would be very different from a dog.
An animal that belongs to a domesticated breed but is not longer under human control is feral.
Limits on Domestication
Despite long enthusiasm about revolutionary progress in farming, few crops and probably even fewer animals ever became domesticated. While the process continues with plants (berryfruits, for example), it appears to have ceased with animals.
Domesticated species, when bred for tractability, companionship or ornamentation rather than for survival, can often fall prey to disease: several sub-species of apples or cattle, for example, face extinction; and many dogs with very respectable pedigrees appear prone to genetic problems.
One side-effect of domestication has been disease. For example, cattle have given humanity various viral poxes, measles, and tuberculosis; pigs gave influenza; and horses the rhinoviruses. Humans share over sixty diseases with dogs. Many parasites also have their origins in domestic animals.
Domestication of Plants
Owing to agriculture, even more important to human survival than the domestication of animals is the domestication of plants. Plants were first domesticated around 8000 B.C. in the Fertile Crescent in the Middle East. The first plants domesticated were generally annuals with large seeds or fruits. These included certain pulses such as peas and grains such as wheat.
The Middle East was especially suited to these species; the dry climate was conducive to large seeds, and the variety of elevations lead to a great variety of species. As it took place humans began to move from a nomadic hunter-gatherer society to a settled agricultural society. This change lead to the first city states and eventually the rise of civilization itself.
Domestication was gradual, a process of trial and error that occurred slowly. Over time perennials and small trees began to be domesticated including apples and olives. Some plants were not domesticated until recently such as the macadamia nut and the pecan.
In different parts of the world very different species were domesticated. In the Americas squash, maize, and beans formed the core of the diet. In East Asia rice, and soy were the most important crops. Some areas of the world such as Australia never saw local species domesticated.
Over the millennia many domesticated species have become utterly unlike their natural ancestors. Corn cobs are now dozens of times the size of their wild ancestors. A similar change occurred between wild and domesticated strawberries.
Categories of Domesticated Organisms
Domesticated organisms and formal or informal biological categories that include domesticated individuals are the subjects of the following Wikipedia articles:
See also
See also: agriculture, feral, animal husbandry
Reference
Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs and Steel; a short history of everybody for the last 13,000 years, Jonathan Cape, London: 1979.
External links
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