History of Plant and Animal Domestication

History of Plant and Animal DomesticationNan Tao MaThe vapidness of demonst tread and fleshly has al personal manners been an grave progress in humanagriculture and development. The vapidness of plant such as wheat, grain or vegetable greatly amend the food obtain and capability which allowed an accession on population due to the staticfood business While the domestication of wight such as cow, horse or dog strength thedevelopment of human society by targetificantly decreasing the manpower needed and increasing the come of wrick output. Although the domestication exists in human history for such a long timeand its common for human to domestication , there are still umpteen questions and debate about thebeginning of the domestication. What factor pushed human to domestication, how did they first doit and why they happened to develop in several widely spread scene of fulfill at the same time. Thedevelopment of the domestication is another question that troubles people. W hy in swell-nigh other come ons there are a little or no domestication and what common does the domestication have in dissimilar area. In this essay, we are going to discuss and analyze the beginning of domestication ofanimal and plant by revealing the factors that pushed people toward domestication of plant and animalfrom looking at time and environment And compare the different area of domestication to check how did domestication develop through time and environment from knowing thecommon factors that they shared during the process of domestication.To understand why something happened, its always important to know when it had happen.From the perch of sheep and goat that found in hominian land site in southern and southern west Asiathat were older than ten thousand years ago showed that there is no sign or evidence of any(prenominal)domestication. It only suggested that hunters had been killing a whole population of goat and sheepfor need of food. However after the dot of that, well-nigh 9000 10000 years ago, there is a changetoward the remain of sheep and goat that found in hominid site. The a large increase of skeleton system of younger sheep and goat were found in the hominid area. This showed that the practice ofdomestication might began at that period of time, as the hominid started to keep herds of suchanimals apart from the nature realm of wild sheep and goat and trying to make and raise themto adapted to human society. In the jiangxi province of China near the west brass of the long river,the remain of rice is found in the an old cave ruins that was 9000 13000 years old and was oncean settlement of early hominid that lived in that area along with stone made as wellls and other animalremains. Although it was still a debate on whether hominid did start to mother rice at that period oftime, the large amount of remain in that had proved that hominid did have some kind of practice ondomestication Else, there would not be such big settlement near the long river, as hunting andgathering does not establish a permanent settlements for things like that, epically an area this large.In the Middle East and East Asia , the remain of dogs were found around 8000 12000 years old.As we knew, the dogs were wolves before they domesticated by human. The evidence of the dogsfossil in these areas gave an important evidence of when human started to domesticated animal, asdogs should be the one of the first animals that human domesticated due to fact that hominids liveswere based on hunting in the old time. There were more remains of other animals such as pig,horse or cow were later found in the ancient hominids site that were 5000- 7000 years old. Fromall the data that were gathered, it proved that the practice of domestication of animal and plantstarted around 7000 -10000 years ago, when the neolithic days started. The rise of sea direct andclimate change right after quitting the ice age could be the important factors that forced hom inid tochange their life cycle they had and lead some of them to domesticate animal and plant other thanhunting and gathering in the wild.The explanation of the change of the life cycle and the change of nature of subsistence base ofhominid in sudden around 7000 10000 years ago has always been a question that hounded morepeople. Why would they gave up their old life path of hunting and gathering and adapted a newway of living such as agriculture There were many debates about why the hominid suddenlychanged their way of life, there were several factors that I believe for the explanation of thechanging.The first factor was that the environment pressure forced hominid to change their way ofliving. The end of the ice age brought great changes to the environment of the earth. During theprocess this might have killed many traditional foods of hominid. For ideal the mammoths werekilled because of the rapid shift of environment that rock-bottom their cycle of life and being hunted simi larly a great deal by hominid And not just mammoths, there might be also many other animals thathominid viewed as traditional food were largely decreasing due to the rapid environment whichforced hominid to change their food book of factss and find a more stable way of keeping it.The second factor was that the population pressure was the problem that triggered thetransition of hunting to domesticate. Although hunting and gathering was a common way of life inthe nature, however, when the population was too high and the traditional food in the area weredecreasing,hunting and gathering would became unstable and much inefficient, as the food sourceexisted in the area could not satisfy the needed of the hominids. Thus domestication was needed,agriculture and animal grazing were stable and providing large amount of food and compared tohunting, it wasted less energy and safer. One evidence of that was that compare 10000 years beforewhere no clear sign of domestication and 10000 years aft er where domestication probably startedthere is large amount of animals skeleton remain found in the hominids site. This showed that therewas a large action of hunting that might have killed too much animal to support the strong ontogenyhominid.The third factor was the suitable climax helped the hominid on transition from hunting andgathering to domestication. During the early Holocene, although the climax changes destroyedmany previous animals, the favorable weather and increased raining greatly helped the exuberanceof phytology and diversification of the plant family in the Holocene. This also invited manynewer spices to entered this era, such as goat or sheep and they were much gentle, as the largeamount of plant as food allowed them to not straggle for food. With the decreasing on traditionalfoods, hominids were forced to change their prey and food. However, well condition provided themenough diversity of foods that they had an significant increase on population which wouldev entually became a problem as in factor two, that hominid create domestication inevitably tomaintain a stable food source and gain abundant production from it, as domestication was muchefficient than hunting and gathering when hominid were too populated. The domestication wasdeveloped due to the existed suitable condition and suitable spices that was not in the era before.The one strong evidence that showed the possibility of the climaxs influence led and improved thehominids fluctuation from hunting and gathering into a stable domestication was the existence ofraining and seasonal change after the the glacier was melted after the ending of the ice age. soonerthe Holocene entered, there was the big freeze knew as the Younger Dryas, where there wholeland of earth was covered by ice and snows and no sign of seasonal change and raing. There waslittle or no sign of domestication. However in the Holocene, where the tropic area, existence ofraining and seasonal changes appeared, the dom estication of animal and plant grew rapidly inmany area. The explanation of it also proved the theory I talked before the raining and seasonalchanges created a prefect cycle for untaught which was not existed in the previous years. Theclimax provided a great opportunity that hominid would eventually adapted to it due the growing ofpopulation and exploring of food source to decrease the pressure in the new condition. This wasthe one of the most important factor that drove humanity into practice of domestication, as withoutthe great environment, the domestication would not be practiced.Overall, the exchange from hunting and gathering into the domestication was something thatwas inevitable. For grammatical case, when you have the opportunity to drive a car, you wold not want tokeep on riding your bicycle. It was in the human nature to always find a erupt way to live, that wekept on mutating our method. The domestication was too obvious and too effective in the newand suitable enviro nment that it was normal for hominid to discover and change their method intoit. The need of new food source in the rapid changed world, the well structured and suitablecondition for domestication pushed the hominid to change their way of life.If the exchange of hunting and gathering to domestication was inevitable, why there were some shopping center had it more intensely than others, why some place that was apparently suitable fordomestication had little or no domestication and what factor these place which had domesticationhave had in common?Although the factors in the last few paragraphs showed evidence and proved that due to theclimax, needed and exploration of new food source and grow population pushed the hominid toadopt domestication, they were only the primary factor. There are also many side factors that wouldcause change , alter or mayhap stop the exchange from hunting and gathering society intodomestication and agricultural. The special climax and weather condition of un ique places and theanimal or plant species in the particular places also have great influence on the mutation fromhunting and gathering into domestication.Even though, the global climax after the ice age became much hotter and warmer that it wassuitable for agriculture, not all the area in the earth had suitable environment for domestication to bepracticed. One obvious example was the Eskimo who lived near the north pole and still as a societyof hunting and gathering. The crucial condition of the north pole was too harsh for any practice ofagriculture, as the in the first few paragraphs we indicated that climax was the one of the mostimportant factor for domestication of plant. In north pole, the cold mail and non-existence ofraining made it impossible for any grow plant to produce enough amount of food source. However,there was still little domestication such as making dogs as pet, as the need for fast traveling andmore manpower led people to domesticate dogs ( environment pressur e). Another example was thedessert area. In most place of dessert no domestication of animal nor domestication of plant werefound as the environment was even too harsh for hominid to survive.There are also many other suitable areas that has well structured environment for agriculture orgrazing, but the species lived in its area or geography of it prevented hominid to domesticate insuch areas. The species had very big impact on the success of domestication, as for some species ,they were too hard or impossible to domesticate in that era. For example, in some areas of ancientCanada, the hominid there did not developed agricultural, but kept on hunting and gathering. Thereason why this happened was because the animals in that area was too hard to domesticate andthere was no useful plant that can be deep-seated for extra food production. It was much and safer easierto kill a bear than domesticate it, as bears cannot reproduce fast enough and dangerous to kept. TheEgypt had developed goo d agriculture, although it was in the middle of dessert. This happenedbecause of its geography near the Nile river and the suitable plants that grow beside it. The Nileriver provided enough water to support the people and agriculture, while the plants such as ricewere productive and easy to rise.The primary factor such as climax and side factors such species and geography decided thedomestication of an area, as in many areas that was fast growing they all shared common elements.In most demonstration area, the climax was a good deal close or the same, as it was the most importantfactor for domestication. It should often be dry summer, raining winter and favors plant with seedthat can survive long period. If summer was too wet or cold, or the boilers suit season was too dry, mostdomesticated plant would not survive. This was why in cold like north pole or hot place like Africa,the domestication of plant for food was very hard. For most domesticated animal, they have beenselected by several same reason. They should be unagressive and maybe unterrioral that they wereeasy to be capture and domesticate. They should be have fast growth rate and easy breeder in orderto be reproduce in a fast rate so that the food supply of hominid society could be supported bythem. They should also have a strong herding instinct that they were much easier to be controlled.This was why in early domestication, the animals that had strong herding instinct such as sheep andgoat or easy breeder and fast growth rate such as pig and chicken were selected first in most area, asthey were easy to controlled, feed and could benefit hominid in high production rate of born. Forthe plant domestication, they also shared lots of common. Most of the plant that selected were nearthe habitation site and were high productive. They also had to be suited or adapted to the rightseasonal cycle in order to provide enough food at right season for hominid. Overall, thedomestication in different places shared many common as the climax, geography and the speciesin the area greatly affected the progress of domestication.In conclude, the exchange of hunting and gathering to domestication was something that wasinevitable for human, as the prefect environment and suitable species gave the opportunity forhominid to learn and practice domestication. More importantly, it was our human nature of alwaysfinding a better way of living led us to it and from the domestication we created more stable societyand kept looking for a better life that led to engine room and created the spectacular world we havetoday.