Agriculture is the lever with which humans transformed the earth over the last 10,000 years and created new forms of plant and animal species that have forever altered the face of the planet. In the last decade, significant technological and methodological advances in both molecular biology and archaeology have revolutionized the study of plant and animal domestication and are reshaping our understanding of the transition from foraging to farming, one of the major turning points in human history. This groundbreaking volume for the first time brings together leading archaeologists and biologists working on the domestication of both plants and animals to consider a wide variety of archaeological and genetic approaches to tracing the origin and dispersal of domesticates. It provides a comprehensive overview of the state of the art in this quickly changing field as well as reviews of recent findings on specific crop and livestock species in the Americas, Eurasia, and Africa. Offering a unique global perspective, it explores common challenges and potential avenues for future progress in documenting domestication.
Author(s): Melinda A. Zeder, Daniel G. Bradley, Eve Emshwiller, Bruce D. Smith
Edition: 1
Publisher: University of California Press
Year: 2006
Language: English
Pages: 377
Contents......Page 6
List of Contributors......Page 8
List of Tables......Page 10
List of Figures......Page 12
1. Documenting Domestication: Bringing Together Plants, Animals, Archaeology, and Genetics......Page 16
I. Archaeological Documentation of Plant Domestication......Page 28
2. Documenting Domesticated Plants in the Archaeological Record......Page 30
3. Seed Size Increase as a Marker of Domestication in Squash......Page 40
4. A Morphological Approach to Documenting the Domestication of Chenopodium in the Andes......Page 47
5. Identifying Manioc (Manihot esculenta Crantz) and Other Crops in Pre-Columbian Tropical America through Starch Grain Analysis: A Case Study from Central Panama......Page 61
6. Phytolith Evidence for the Early Presence of Domesticated Banana (Musa) in Africa......Page 83
7. Documenting the Presence of Maize in Central and South America through Phytolith Analysis of Food Residues......Page 97
II. Genetic Documentation of Plant Domestication......Page 112
8. Genetic Data and Plant Domestication......Page 114
9. DNA Sequence Data and Inferences on Cassava’s Originof Domestication......Page 138
10. Relationship between Chinese Chive (Allium tuberosum)and Its Putative Progenitor A. ramosum as Assessed byRandom Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD)......Page 149
11. Using Multiple Types of Molecular Markers to UnderstandOlive Phylogeography......Page 158
12. Origins of Polyploid Crops: The Example of the OctoploidTuber Crop Oxalis tuberosa......Page 168
III. Archaeological Documentation of Animal Domestication......Page 184
13. Archaeological Approaches to Documenting Animal Domestication......Page 186
14. A Critical Assessment of Markers of Initial Domestication in Goats (Capra hircus)......Page 196
15. The Domestication of the Pig (Sus scrofa): New Challenges and Approaches......Page 224
16. The Domestication of South American Camelids: A Viewfrom the South-Central Andes......Page 243
17. Early Horse Domestication on the Eurasian Steppe......Page 260
IV. Genetic Documentation of Animal Domestication......Page 286
18. Documenting Domestication: Reading Animal GeneticTexts......Page 288
19. Genetic Analysis of Dog Domestication......Page 294
20. Origins and Diffusion of Domestic Goats Inferred from DNA Markers: Example Analyses of mtDNA,Y Chromosome, and Microsatellites......Page 309
21. Mitochondrial DNA Diversity in Modern Sheep: Implications for Domestication......Page 321
22. Genetics and Origins of Domestic Cattle......Page 332
23. Genetic Analysis of the Origins of Domestic South American Camelids......Page 344
24. Genetic Documentation of Horse and Donkey Domestication......Page 357
Index......Page 370
