Interdisciplinary teams investigating the origins of agriculture in the Eastern Fertile Crescent ... more Interdisciplinary teams investigating the origins of agriculture in the Eastern Fertile Crescent in the 1950s through 1970s considered the region a primary center of initial domestication and agricultural emergence. Political events then shifted the focus of archaeological investigation on agricultural origins to the Western Fertile Crescent. Decades of subsequent research appeared to indicate that the west was the earliest and most important center of agricultural origins in Southwest Asia, with the Eastern Fertile Crescent portrayed as a backwater that lagged behind transformative innovations from the west. The resumption of investigations in the east in the early 2000s, coupled with new scientific methods for documenting agricultural emergence, has reestablished the region as a heartland of domestication of both crop and livestock species. This broad topic is covered in two papers, beginning here with the history of this work from the 1950s through the early 2000s. The second paper will present a synthesis of recent work in the east, evaluating the continued relevance of early work in light of recent explanatory models for agricultural origins.
... Feeding cities: Specialized animal economy in the ancient Near East. Post a Comment. CONTRIBU... more ... Feeding cities: Specialized animal economy in the ancient Near East. Post a Comment. CONTRIBUTORS: Author: Zeder, Melinda A. PUBLISHER: Smithsonian Institution Press (Washington). SERIES TITLE: YEAR: 1991. PUB TYPE: Book (ISBN 0874749964 ). VOLUME/ ...
Interdisciplinary teams investigating the origins of agriculture in the Eastern Fertile Crescent ... more Interdisciplinary teams investigating the origins of agriculture in the Eastern Fertile Crescent in the 1950s through 1970s considered the region a primary center of initial domestication and agricultural emergence. Political events then shifted the focus of archaeological investigation on agricultural origins to the Western Fertile Crescent. Decades of subsequent research appeared to indicate that the west was the earliest and most important center of agricultural origins in Southwest Asia, with the Eastern Fertile Crescent portrayed as a backwater that lagged behind transformative innovations from the west. The resumption of investigations in the east in the early 2000s, coupled with new scientific methods for documenting agricultural emergence, has reestablished the region as a heartland of domestication of both crop and livestock species. Part One of this two-part paper traced the history of this work from the 1950s through the early 2000s. Part Two presents a synthesis of recent work in the east, evaluating the continued relevance of early work in light of modern explanatory models for agricultural origins.
One of the challenges in evaluating arguments for extending the conceptual framework of evolution... more One of the challenges in evaluating arguments for extending the conceptual framework of evolutionary biology involves the identification of a tractable model system that allows for an assessment of the core assumptions of the extended evolutionary synthesis (EES). The domestication of plants and animals by humans provides one such case study opportunity. Here, I consider domestication as a model system for exploring major tenets of the EES. First I discuss the novel insights that niche construction theory (NCT, one of the pillars of the EES) provides into the domestication processes, particularly as they relate to five key areas: coevolution, evolvability, ecological inheritance, cooperation and the pace of evolutionary change. This discussion is next used to frame testable predictions about initial domestication of plants and animals that contrast with those grounded in standard evolutionary theory, demonstrating how these predictions might be tested in multiple regions where initial domestication took place. I then turn to a broader consideration of how domestication provides a model case study consideration of the different ways in which the core assumptions of the EES strengthen and expand our understanding of evolution, including reciprocal causation, developmental processes as drivers of evolutionary change, inclusive inheritance, and the tempo and rate of evolutionary change.
Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University eBooks, 1978
Close Document Image Close Document Printer Image Print This Document! Conservation Information N... more Close Document Image Close Document Printer Image Print This Document! Conservation Information Network (BCIN). Author: Meadow, Richard H.; Zeder, Melinda A. Corporate Author: Society for American Archaeology Title ...
Over the past 11,000 years humans have brought a wide variety of animals under domestication. Dom... more Over the past 11,000 years humans have brought a wide variety of animals under domestication. Domestic animals belong to all Linnaean animal classes—mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, insects, and even, arguably, bacteria. Raised for food, secondary products, labor, and companionship, domestic animals have become intricately woven into human economy, society, and religion. Animal domestication is an on-going process, as humans, with increasingly sophisticated technology for breeding and rearing animals in captivity, continue to bring more and more species under their control. Understanding the process of animal domestication and its reciprocal impacts on humans and animal domesticates requires a multidisciplinary approach. This paper brings together recent research in archaeology, genetics, and animal sciences in a discussion of the process of domestication, its impact on animal domesticates, and the various pathways humans and their animal partners have followed into domestication.
Interdisciplinary teams investigating the origins of agriculture in the Eastern Fertile Crescent ... more Interdisciplinary teams investigating the origins of agriculture in the Eastern Fertile Crescent in the 1950s through 1970s considered the region a primary center of initial domestication and agricultural emergence. Political events then shifted the focus of archaeological investigation on agricultural origins to the Western Fertile Crescent. Decades of subsequent research appeared to indicate that the west was the earliest and most important center of agricultural origins in Southwest Asia, with the Eastern Fertile Crescent portrayed as a backwater that lagged behind transformative innovations from the west. The resumption of investigations in the east in the early 2000s, coupled with new scientific methods for documenting agricultural emergence, has reestablished the region as a heartland of domestication of both crop and livestock species. This broad topic is covered in two papers, beginning here with the history of this work from the 1950s through the early 2000s. The second paper will present a synthesis of recent work in the east, evaluating the continued relevance of early work in light of recent explanatory models for agricultural origins.
Initial goat domestication is documented in the highlands of western Iran at 10,000 calibrated ca... more Initial goat domestication is documented in the highlands of western Iran at 10,000 calibrated calendar years ago. Metrical analyses of patterns of sexual dimorphism in modern wild goat skeletons ( Capra hircus aegagrus ) allow sex-specific age curves to be computed for archaeofaunal assemblages. A distinct shift to selective harvesting of subadult males marks initial human management and the transition from hunting to herding of the species. Direct accelerator mass spectrometry radiocarbon dates on skeletal elements provide a tight temporal context for the transition.
Interdisciplinary teams investigating the origins of agriculture in the Eastern Fertile Crescent ... more Interdisciplinary teams investigating the origins of agriculture in the Eastern Fertile Crescent in the 1950s through 1970s considered the region a primary center of initial domestication and agricultural emergence. Political events then shifted the focus of archaeological investigation on agricultural origins to the Western Fertile Crescent. Decades of subsequent research appeared to indicate that the west was the earliest and most important center of agricultural origins in Southwest Asia, with the Eastern Fertile Crescent portrayed as a backwater that lagged behind transformative innovations from the west. The resumption of investigations in the east in the early 2000s, coupled with new scientific methods for documenting agricultural emergence, has reestablished the region as a heartland of domestication of both crop and livestock species. This broad topic is covered in two papers, beginning here with the history of this work from the 1950s through the early 2000s. The second paper will present a synthesis of recent work in the east, evaluating the continued relevance of early work in light of recent explanatory models for agricultural origins.
... Feeding cities: Specialized animal economy in the ancient Near East. Post a Comment. CONTRIBU... more ... Feeding cities: Specialized animal economy in the ancient Near East. Post a Comment. CONTRIBUTORS: Author: Zeder, Melinda A. PUBLISHER: Smithsonian Institution Press (Washington). SERIES TITLE: YEAR: 1991. PUB TYPE: Book (ISBN 0874749964 ). VOLUME/ ...
Interdisciplinary teams investigating the origins of agriculture in the Eastern Fertile Crescent ... more Interdisciplinary teams investigating the origins of agriculture in the Eastern Fertile Crescent in the 1950s through 1970s considered the region a primary center of initial domestication and agricultural emergence. Political events then shifted the focus of archaeological investigation on agricultural origins to the Western Fertile Crescent. Decades of subsequent research appeared to indicate that the west was the earliest and most important center of agricultural origins in Southwest Asia, with the Eastern Fertile Crescent portrayed as a backwater that lagged behind transformative innovations from the west. The resumption of investigations in the east in the early 2000s, coupled with new scientific methods for documenting agricultural emergence, has reestablished the region as a heartland of domestication of both crop and livestock species. Part One of this two-part paper traced the history of this work from the 1950s through the early 2000s. Part Two presents a synthesis of recent work in the east, evaluating the continued relevance of early work in light of modern explanatory models for agricultural origins.
One of the challenges in evaluating arguments for extending the conceptual framework of evolution... more One of the challenges in evaluating arguments for extending the conceptual framework of evolutionary biology involves the identification of a tractable model system that allows for an assessment of the core assumptions of the extended evolutionary synthesis (EES). The domestication of plants and animals by humans provides one such case study opportunity. Here, I consider domestication as a model system for exploring major tenets of the EES. First I discuss the novel insights that niche construction theory (NCT, one of the pillars of the EES) provides into the domestication processes, particularly as they relate to five key areas: coevolution, evolvability, ecological inheritance, cooperation and the pace of evolutionary change. This discussion is next used to frame testable predictions about initial domestication of plants and animals that contrast with those grounded in standard evolutionary theory, demonstrating how these predictions might be tested in multiple regions where initial domestication took place. I then turn to a broader consideration of how domestication provides a model case study consideration of the different ways in which the core assumptions of the EES strengthen and expand our understanding of evolution, including reciprocal causation, developmental processes as drivers of evolutionary change, inclusive inheritance, and the tempo and rate of evolutionary change.
Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University eBooks, 1978
Close Document Image Close Document Printer Image Print This Document! Conservation Information N... more Close Document Image Close Document Printer Image Print This Document! Conservation Information Network (BCIN). Author: Meadow, Richard H.; Zeder, Melinda A. Corporate Author: Society for American Archaeology Title ...
Over the past 11,000 years humans have brought a wide variety of animals under domestication. Dom... more Over the past 11,000 years humans have brought a wide variety of animals under domestication. Domestic animals belong to all Linnaean animal classes—mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, insects, and even, arguably, bacteria. Raised for food, secondary products, labor, and companionship, domestic animals have become intricately woven into human economy, society, and religion. Animal domestication is an on-going process, as humans, with increasingly sophisticated technology for breeding and rearing animals in captivity, continue to bring more and more species under their control. Understanding the process of animal domestication and its reciprocal impacts on humans and animal domesticates requires a multidisciplinary approach. This paper brings together recent research in archaeology, genetics, and animal sciences in a discussion of the process of domestication, its impact on animal domesticates, and the various pathways humans and their animal partners have followed into domestication.
Interdisciplinary teams investigating the origins of agriculture in the Eastern Fertile Crescent ... more Interdisciplinary teams investigating the origins of agriculture in the Eastern Fertile Crescent in the 1950s through 1970s considered the region a primary center of initial domestication and agricultural emergence. Political events then shifted the focus of archaeological investigation on agricultural origins to the Western Fertile Crescent. Decades of subsequent research appeared to indicate that the west was the earliest and most important center of agricultural origins in Southwest Asia, with the Eastern Fertile Crescent portrayed as a backwater that lagged behind transformative innovations from the west. The resumption of investigations in the east in the early 2000s, coupled with new scientific methods for documenting agricultural emergence, has reestablished the region as a heartland of domestication of both crop and livestock species. This broad topic is covered in two papers, beginning here with the history of this work from the 1950s through the early 2000s. The second paper will present a synthesis of recent work in the east, evaluating the continued relevance of early work in light of recent explanatory models for agricultural origins.
Initial goat domestication is documented in the highlands of western Iran at 10,000 calibrated ca... more Initial goat domestication is documented in the highlands of western Iran at 10,000 calibrated calendar years ago. Metrical analyses of patterns of sexual dimorphism in modern wild goat skeletons ( Capra hircus aegagrus ) allow sex-specific age curves to be computed for archaeofaunal assemblages. A distinct shift to selective harvesting of subadult males marks initial human management and the transition from hunting to herding of the species. Direct accelerator mass spectrometry radiocarbon dates on skeletal elements provide a tight temporal context for the transition.
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Papers by Melinda Zeder