Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of UK Essays.
- Nan Tao Ma
The domestication of plant and animal has always been an important progress in human agriculture
Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of UK Essays.
- Nan Tao Ma
The domestication of plant and animal has always been an important progress in human agriculture and development. The domestication of plant such as wheat, grain or vegetable greatly improved the food obtain and capability which allowed an increase on population due to the stable food production; While the domestication of animal such as cow, horse or dog strength the development of human society by significantly decreasing the manpower needed and increasing the amount of work output. Although the domestication exists in human history for such a long time and it’s common for human to domestication, there are still many questions and debate about the beginning of the domestication. What factor pushed human to domestication, how did they first do it and why they happened to develop in several widely spread area at the same time. The development of the domestication is another question that troubles people. Why in some other places there are a little or no domestication and what common does the domestication have in different area. In this essay, we are going to discuss and analyze the beginning of domestication of animal and plant by finding the factors that pushed people toward domestication of plant and animal from looking at time and environment ; And compare the different area of domestication to understand how did domestication develop through time and environment from knowing the common factors that they shared during the process of domestication.
To understand why something happened, it’s always important to know when it had happen.
From the remain of sheep and goat that found in hominid site in southern and southern west Asia that were older than 10000 years ago showed that there is no sign or evidence of any domestication. It only suggested that hunters had been killing a whole population of goat and sheep for need of food. However after the period of that, around 9000 – 10000 years ago, there is a change toward the remain of sheep and goat that found in hominid site. The a large increase of skeleton remains of younger sheep and goat were found in the hominid area. This showed that the practice of domestication might began at that period of time, as the hominid started to keep herds of such animals away from the nature realm of wild sheep and goat and trying to make and raise them to adapted to human society. In the jiangxi province of China near the west side of the long river, the remain of rice is found in the an old cave ruins that was 9000 – 13000 years old and was once an settlement of early hominid that lived in that area along with stone made tools and other animal remains. Although it was still a debate on whether hominid did start to grow rice at that period of time, the large amount of remain in that had proved that hominid did have some kind of practice on domestication; Else, there would not be such big settlement near the long river, as hunting and gathering 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 dogs fossil in these areas gave an important evidence of when human started to domesticated animal, as dogs should be the one of the first animals that human domesticated due to fact that hominids’ lives were 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 hominid’s site that were 5000- 7000 years old. From all the data that were gathered, it proved that the practice of domestication of animal and plant started around 7000 -10000 years ago, when the neolithic age started. The rise of sea level and climate change right after quitting the ice age could be the important factors that forced hominid to change their life cycle they had and lead some of them to domesticate animal and plant other than hunting and gathering in the wild.
The explanation of the change of the life cycle and the change of nature of subsistence base of hominid in sudden around 7000 – 10000 years ago has always been a question that hounded many people. Why would they gave up their old life style of hunting and gathering and adapted a new way of living such as agricultureï¼Ÿ There were many debates about why the hominid suddenly changed their way of life, there were several factors that I believe for the explanation of the changing.
The first factor was that the environment pressure forced hominid to change their way of living. The end of the ice age brought great changes to the environment of the earth. During the process this might have killed many traditional foods of hominid. For example the mammoths were killed because of the rapid shift of environment that decreased their cycle of life and being hunted too much by hominid; And not just mammoths, there might be also many other animals that hominid viewed as traditional food were largely dec