Articulo 3

THE DOMESTICATION OF ANIMALS
Author(s): Melinda A. Zeder

Source: Journal of Anthropological Research , SUMMER 2012, Vol. 68, No. 2 (SUMMER
2012), pp. 161-190
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23264664
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JOURNAL OF
ANTHROPOLOGICAL RESEARCH
(Formerly Southwestern Journal of Anthropology)
VOLUME 68 • NUMBER 2 • SUMMER 2012
THE DOMESTICATION OF ANIMALS
Melinda A. Zeder
Program in Human Ecology and Archaeobiology, National Museum of Natural History,

Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20013-7012. Email: [email protected].
key words: Domestication, Animals, Behavior, Genetics, Animal sciences, Archaeology
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.
Humans have brought a wide range of animals into domestic partnerships
over the past 11,000 years—as livestock, working animals, household p

and companions. The pathways that different animal species followed i
domestication are remarkably varied, shaped by the different biolog
constraints and opportunities of the animals brought into domestication
well as by the different cultural contexts of their human partners. It is a jour
that continues today as humans, with enhanced understanding of the proce
domestication and increasingly sophisticated technology for breeding and rea
captive animals, bring an ever-expanding array of animal species, on land an
sea, into domestication. Recent years have seen dramatic improvements in o
understanding of animal domestication and the varied pathways traveled in
domestication. Increasingly fine-grained insights into animal domestication h
Journal of Anthropological Research, vol. 68, 2012
161

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162 JOURNAL OF ANTHROPOLOGICAL RESEARCH
been gained from research grounded in archaeology, genetics, and animal scienc
This paper brings together information on animal domestication generated by
work in these varied fields to explore the universals of animal domestication an
to trace the three primary pathways that animals and their human partners ha
followed, and continue to follow, into domestic partnerships.
DOMESTICATION DEFINED
All definitions of domestication, whether dealing with plants or animals,

that domestication involves a relationship between humans and target
animal populations (see Zeder 2006a). The primary difference between
definitions of domestication lies in the degree of emphasis placed on e
human or the plant/animal side of the equation. Some definitions,
those focusing on animal domestication, cast humans as the lead partn
relationship. Domestication is seen as a process in which humans delibe
and with forethought assume control over the domesticate's movement,
protection, distribution, and, above all, its breeding—directed at achievin
clearly identified goals (Bokonyi 1989; Clutton-Brock 1994; Ducos 1
1969; Reed 1959). Domesticates within this perspective are usually char
in economic terms as productive capital (e.g., Meadow 1989) or by the
which they become integrated into the social fabric of human society
1978; Ingold 1996; Russell 2002, 2007).
Other definitional approaches, in contrast, portray domesticat
mutualistic relationship in which both partners, human and domestica
benefits. This approach is especially common among researchers fo
plant domestication (Anderson 1952; Blumer 1996; Harlan et al. 197
1996; Smith 2001), though it is also seen among those concentrating on
domesticates (Budiansky 1992; Morey 1994; O'Connor 1997). Perh
farthest extreme on this side of the human/domesticate balance is found in the
work of David Rindos (1984), who argued that the relationship between humans
and domesticates is no different from other mutualistic relationships in the natural
world, drawing close parallels between human relationships with crop plants and
those between social insects and a variety of plants and other insect species. In
fact, Rindos went so far as to argue against any role of deliberate intent on the
part of humans in the domestication process, placing plants in the driver's seat of
a relationship that afforded them great evolutionary advantage while reducing the
selective fitness of their human partners.
There is, I think, a middle ground between these two polar opposite
characterizations of the relationship between humans and domesticates. I
believe a strong argument can be made that domestication qualifies as a form
of biological mutualism with clear benefits for each partner in the relationship.
Although the quality of life of domesticates, especially animal domesticates, is
arguably poorer than that of their free-living progenitors, there can be no question
that domestication has vastly enhanced the reproductive output of crop plants,
livestock, and pets far beyond that of their wild progenitors. Similarly, while a diet

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DOMESTICATION OF ANIMALS 163
based on domesticates may not have the same nutritional value as that based
wild resources, and although the lifestyle of farmers and herders may not, by som
measures, compare all that well with that of hunter-gatherers, domesticates h
provided humans with resources that they could more predictably and secur
control, move, and redistribute—an advantage that fueled a virtual populatio
explosion of agro-pastoralists and their spread to all corners of the globe.
Although domestication shares many features with mutualistic relationship
in nature, there are, nevertheless, critical differences that distinguish domesticat
from any symbiosis found in nature. Mutualisms in nature involve essentiall
symmetrical, codependent relationships driven by selection operating
mutation-induced changes (behavioral, morphological, or physiological) in bot
partners (Schultz et al. 2005). Humans, on the other hand, have the capacity
spontaneously modify their behavioral repertoires, to invent new behaviors th
better suit certain goals and abandon old ones. Most importantly, humans do n
have to rely on sexual reproduction to pass on effective behaviors to the nex
generation. Instead humans are able to transmit adaptive new behaviors throug
social learning to their direct descendants, as well as to others in their immedi
social group and beyond (Boyd and Richerson 1985; Richerson and Boyd 2005
This capacity for the invention and transmission of learned behavior shifts
balance of power in the symbiosis between humans and emergent domesticat
affording humans the upper hand in the relationship as they choose amo
individuals in the target plant or animal population that best suit their needs
try out new ways to manipulate the behavior and life history of those individu
in ways that enhance the benefits humans are able to reap from these mana
plant and animal resources.
There is, then, an important element of intentionality that is a centr
distinguishing characteristic of human-mediated domestication (Zeder 2009a,
2009b). Humans could not have foreseen the adaptive responses target pla
or animals would make to their manipulations, nor were they, at least initia
working toward developing a domestic crop plant or livestock animal throug
their efforts. But they were able to evaluate how well their efforts at breedin
nurturing, and selectively harvesting certain individuals within the target pla
or animal population met their immediate needs; they could, on the basis of th
evaluation, continue, modify, or invent new ways of manipulating responsiv
individuals in order to further these goals. This essentially Lamarkian aspect
human cultural evolution is the reason why mutualistic relationships betwee
humans and domesticates are fundamentallydifferent from non-human symbio
relationships. The human capacity for inventing and transmitting new behavio
vastly accelerates the process and transforms the domesticate and the domes
relationship far beyond any mutualism in the natural world.
Following this line of argument, a recognition of both the biological and t
cultural components of the process might define domestication as: a sustaine
multigenerational, mutualistic relationship in which humans assume som
significant level of control over the reproduction and care of a plant/animal
order to secure a more predictable supply of a resource of interest and by wh

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the plant/animal is able to increase its reproductive success over individuals n

participating in this relationship, thereby enhancing the fitness of both human
and target domesticates.
The sustained, multigenerational nature of the relationship introduces the
plant or animal partner to a number of selective pressures that, over time, transfor
the genotype of the plant or the animal from that of the free-living wild progenit
to that of its descendent domesticate. When Darwin wrote his seminal work The
Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication (1868) he focused on the
impact of artificial or directed selection on domesticates as humans deliberately
bred plants and animals for specific desired traits. Directed selection certainly
plays a major role in determining the genotype of domesticates, especially, as
we will see later, in more recent domesticates. But other factors are involved in
shaping the transformation from the wild to the domestic genotype that, especially
early on in the process, likely played an even larger role in shaping the domestic
genotype (Price 1984, 1998, 1999,2002).
Among the most important of these is the relaxation of selective factors
operating on free-living individuals once humans take over the role of provisioning
and protecting managed plants and animals and, especially, once they begin to
select breeding partners. At this point a whole range of stochastic variation in
an organism's behavior or morphology, previously selected against, may find
expression. Equally important are new selective factors that arise through this
association with humans and human-altered environments—the new seed-bed
pressures which select for seeds able to sprout quickly and shade out competitors,
for example, or the selection for animals able to cope with the stress of coming
into close association with humans and other animals. Reproductive isolation is
another major factor shaping the domestic genotype once human-tended plant and
animal populations are prevented from interbreeding with free-living ones, as is
random genetic drift that occurs with the isolation or movement of small subsets
of tended plants and animals from larger populations.
In plants the new selective factors introduced under domestication tend to target
genes that control morphology and physiology, whereas in animals the primary
focus of selection under domestication tends to be on genes that control behavior
(Zeder 2006a, 2006b). This is why the initial and most profound phenotypic
changes in plants undergoing domestication are likely to be in morphology—seed
size, plant architecture, dispersal mechanisms—or in physiological functions such
as the timing of germination or ripening. In animals, in contrast, the initial and
sometimes the only impact is on their behavior, with physiological functions (i.e.,
the timing of estrus cycles, the duration and volume of lactation, and developmental
rates) also often affected by the ongoing domestic relationship with humans.
Genetically driven morphological change, especially early on in the domestication
process, seems to be a later side effect of domestication.
A number of different factors shape when and how these various selective
forces kick into action during the domestication and how the emergent domesticate
responds to them. These factors include the basic biological constraints of the
domesticate (morphological, physiological, and behavioral), the culture context

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in which the process takes place, and even accidental happenstance that brin
potential domesticates together with receptive human populations at particu
times and places. As a result, the pathways various plant and animal spe
followed into domestication are highly variable. The selective forces and the r
and course of the domestication of the same species of plant or animal unde
certain cultural and environmental circumstances, for example, may have be
very different from those that drove the independent domestication of anoth
population of the same species under different circumstances. Similarly, the
same social and economic pressures may set the stage for the domestication
a wide array of diverse species of plants and animals within a single cultural a
environmental context.
In addition to experiencing genetically driven changes in the domesticate's

phenotype, plants and animals undergoing domestication may also experience a
number of plastic responses to the developing relationship. Different nutritional
regimes of animals (foddering or early weaning) or different field conditions for
plants (irrigation or various crop-rotation schedules) may result in plastic epigenetic
changes detectable in the size, development rates, or even chemical components of
tended plants and animals that distinguish them from free-living forms.
Domestication also leaves its mark on the human side of the equation. There
is growing evidence that humans, like their domestic partners, have experienced
reciprocal genotypic responses to domestication (Laland and Brown 2002:101).
However, the most significant and distinctive impacts of domestication on
humans are cultural. The act of tending plants and animals, whose productive
capacity and output can be controlled, has played a major role in reshaping the
organization of human societies. Notions of ownership and access to resources are
transformed with the shift from free-living to managed plant and animal resources
and modes of production are altered. Even the ways in which humans rationalize
their existence within the natural world and the larger cosmos are changed.
Research on domestication, whether grounded in archaeology, genetics,
or agricultural sciences, requires reference to all of the different vectors that
shape this process, on both the domesticate and the human sides of the equation.
Documenting the process of domestication, either in antiquity or today, involves
understanding how this process causes the various genetic, phenotypic, plastic,
and cultural responses used to track its progress. It also requires acknowledging
that domestication is a fluid and nonlinear process that may start, stop, reverse
course, or go off on unexpected tangents, with no clear or universal threshold that
separates the wild from the domestic.
UNIVERSALS OF ANIMAL DOMESTICATION
Behavioral Preadaptations
Certain behavioral characteristics make certain animal taxa, and cer
individuals within taxa, better candidates for domestication than others (F
(Hale 1969; Price 1984,2002; Zeder 2012a). Grouped into five general categ
these behaviors include attributes that determine (1) social structure—es

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the size and organization of groups; (2) sexual behavior—particularly the d

of selectivity (or lack thereof) in the choice of mating partners and the e
replacing one preferred partner with another; (3) parent-young interactio
the ease and speed with which the parent bonds with young and the matu
and mobility of the young at birth; (4) feeding behavior and habitat choice
degree of flexibility in diet and habitat tolerance; and (5) responses to huma
new environments, including flight responses and reactivity to external stim
It is these final sets of behaviors—those dealing with the respons
animals to humans and new environments—that are particularly importan
animal domestication. Low reactivity to humans and other external stimu
key preadaptation for domestication. These behaviors are also the primary
of the selective pressures experienced by the animal undergoing domestic
The strong selection for reduced wariness and low reactivity is a universal f
that cuts across all animal domestication, including all domesticated mamm
carnivores (Coppinger and Coppinger 2001; Trut 1999), herbivores (Tennesse
Hudson 1981), and rodents (Murphy 1985), as well as domestic birds (Ande
et al. 2001) and fish (Waples 1991), and even domesticated invertebrate spe
(Marliave et al. 1993; Price 2002:27-29).
Brains and Behavior

The sustained and increasingly intensified selection for lowered reactivity among
animal domesticates has resulted in profound changes in brain form and function
that are clearly evident in all higher-order vertebrate domesticates. The most
dramatic manifestation of the impact of this process is a widely documented
reduction in brain size (Figure 2; Ebinger 1995; Ebinger and Rohrs 1995; Kruska
1988,1996; Plogmann and Kruska 1990; Rehkamper et al. 2008). Of the domestic
mammals for which comparative measures of brain size in domestic and wild
progenitor forms have been made, pigs seem to have experienced the most
profound reduction in the size of the brain. Corrected for body size, the brains of
domestic pigs are 33.6% smaller than those of wild boars. Carnivores also seem to
have experienced a quite severe reduction in brain size under domestication, with
dogs' brains being an estimated 30% smaller than gray wolves', the progenitors
of domestic dogs. Herbivore brain-size reduction is less marked, at between about
14% and 24%, while the brains of domestic rodents show proportionately little
brain-size reduction when compared with wild forms. As a general rule, the larger
the size of the brain to begin with and the greater its degree of "cerebralization"
(or folding), the greater the degree of brain-size reduction under domestication
(Kruska 1988). This pattern also seems to hold true in birds (Ebinger 1995;
Ebinger and Rohrs 1995; Rehkamper et al. 2008), and even in captive reared fish
(Marchetti and Nevitt 2003).
The degree of brain-size reduction does not seem to be correlated with
the length of time since initial domestication. Domesticates such as sheep,
domesticated more than 10,000 years ago, show only a 24% reduction in overall
brain size. Ferrets, in contrast, which were domesticated around 2,500 years ago,
have experienced a 30% reduction in brain size compared with wild polecats,

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and cage-reared mink, domesticated in the past 100 years, show a 20% reducti
in brain size compared with wild mink (Kruska 1996). Silver foxes, selectivel
bred for tameness over the past 40 years, have experienced a significant reduc
in cranial height and width, and by inference in brain size (Trut 1999).
remarkable experiments in domestication of foxes further buttress the hypoth
that brain-size reduction is an early response to the strong selective pressure
tameness and lowered reactivity that is a core, essentially universal, feature
animal domestication.
Not all parts of the brain are equally affected by brain-size reduction, however.
There is, in fact, a considerable amount of difference in the degree of reduction
seen in different parts of the brain that control different functions among different
animal domesticates (Kruska 1988, 1996; Plogmann and Kruska 1990). In pigs,
for example, areas of the brain that control olfactory and auditory functions are less
reduced than visual structures or motor functions (Plogmann and Kruska 1990);
the same holds true in sheep (Kruska 1988). In rats and mink, on the other hand,
areas of the brain that control motor functions show a greater degree of reduction
than areas of the brain that control visual or olfactory functions (Kruska 1988,
1996). The reduction in the size of parts of the brain that control motor functions
in cage-reared mink is nearly 10% greater (at 20%) than in mink raised in open
air enclosures (at 11%) (Kruska 1988, 1996; Price 2002:87)—an indication of
the targeted impact of the selection pressures introduced under domestication.
Some areas of the brain may experience an increase in size under domestication,
as evidenced by the increase in parts of the brain devoted to memory and learning
seen among racing and homing pigeons (Rehkamper et al. 2008).
But the most profoundly affected portion of the brain in domestic mammals is
the complex structures that belong to the limbic system, which in domestic pigs,
dogs, and sheep show a greater than 40% reduction in size compared with their wild
progenitors (Kruska 1988). Composed of the hippocampus, the hypothalamus, the
pituitary gland, and the amygdala, this portion of the brain regulates endocrine
function and the autonomic nervous system, which, in turn, influences behaviors
like aggression, wariness, and responses to environmentally induced stress. The
dramatic reduction in the size of this portion of the brain in domesticates can be
directly linked to an increase in the thresholds for the display of behaviors such
as aggression, fear, and flight that result in the overall reduction in reactivity—a
cornerstone attribute of domestic animals (Kruska 1988:221; Price 2002:89).
Although some researchers characterize these changes as a "decline of
environmental appreciation" (Hemmer 1990) or even more negatively as
"regressive evolution" (Rohrs 1985:547), the higher stress threshold of domestic
animals is actually a highly adaptive feature (Price 2002:89). Low-threshold
stress responses are advantageous in free-ranging animals that need to be alert to
sudden changes in their environment that might signal imminent danger. But they
are highly maladaptive in a domesticate in which a heightened stress response
to humans and other external stimuli can lead to lower reproductive success,
decline in health, or even death (Price 2002). The dampening of these responses
in domestic animals living in a human-mitigated, controlled environment enables

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them to turn their attention from escaping predation to engaging

thereby increasing their own fitness and making them much mor
their human keepers.
Pleiotropic Effects
A number of traits commonly seen in domestic animals are thought t
linked in some way to the intense selection for tameness and redu
animals undergoing domestication (Price 2002). These linked attr
changes in the timing of development—usually expressed as a re
rate of development in which the animal passes through fewe
stages than its ancestor so that as an adult it resembles a juvenil
ancestor (Goodwin et al. 1997). Pedomorphosis in development
result in a neotonization of morphology (often expressed in the ju
skull morphology), in an early onset of sexual maturity (clearly an
a domesticate), or in the retention of more juvenile behaviors in t
(again making the animal a more attractive and tractable domest
Other common morphological attributes in animal domesticat
tied to the initial selection for reduced wariness. These features in
which may be an artifact of neotonization that essentially freezes
ears in a more juvenile stage (Trut 1999). Piebald or spotted coat
another of the traits commonly seen in domesticates that may be the
linkage in the biochemical pathways of melanins, involved in coa
and neurotransmitters, such as dopamine, that help shape behavio
(Hemmer 1990; Keeler et al. 1968).
Rather than each of these traits arising from site mutations in
this entire "pleotropic cascade" of linked traits may arise from th
of gene expression during development caused by mutations
regulatory genes (Jensen 2006). Under such a scenario, mutations
regulatory genes can have a major impact on a network of linked
in major phenotypic changes without incurring large allelic differe
mechanism is increasingly thought to control at least some of th
plants to domestication (Piperno 2011).
Feralization—Domestication in Reverse
The lasting impact of these behavioral and linked morphological and physiological
attributes on domestic animals can be clearly seen in feral domesticates that
have reverted to a free-living state. Although feral animals may regain some
morphological attributes of wild animals (e.g., feral pigs on the Galapagos
seem to have the longer legs and snouts of wild pigs; Kruska and Rohrs 1974),
domestication-induced changes in brain size and function in domesticated animals
may well be permanent. Feral dogs, cats, goats, donkeys, pigs, and ferrets that
have lived outside of an association with humans for generations show little or
no sign of regaining the brain mass of their wild progenitors (Birks and Kitchener
1999; Kruska and Rohrs 1974). Even the brains of dingos, which have lived apart
from humans for thousands of years, are the same size as that of a domestic dog

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(Schultz 1969). Similarly, although the feralized descendants of sheep brought to

Mediterranean islands by Neolithic migrants around 7,000 years ago appear to be
morphologically wild, they still retain the smaller brains of their distant domestic
ancestors (Groves 1989).
The domestic imprint is especially evident in the behaviors of feral animals.
Feral cats, for example, have a generalized diet that includes a wide range of
easier-to-catch terrestrial animals—either smaller, less-mobile prey or the young
or sick of larger, fleeter animals, with as much as one-fifth of prey obtained near
human settlements. Wild cats, in contrast, specialize on particular species and
are more likely to include arboreal prey or adults of larger terrestrial prey that
may require more hunting skill to capture; they also tend to avoid anthropogenic
environments as a source of prey (Biro et al. 2005; Corbett 1979; Gil-Sanchez et
al. 1999). Fully feralized dogs that receive no food or shelter from humans and
actively avoid human contact are still dependent on the human niche for survival
and have not regained the self-sustaining behaviors of their wolf ancestors
(Boitania and Cuicci 1995).
Thus, while feral animals may have escaped the bonds of the domestic
partnership with humans, they nonetheless retain central morphological and
behavioral attributes of this relationship that continue to tie them to humans, even
indirectly. It would seem, then, that the imprint of domestication is not only strong
and lasting, but likely irreversible.
PATHWAYS TO ANIMAL DOMESTICATION
Beyond the universal features held in common by all domesticated animals

is remarkable variety in the ways in which animals respond to domestica
as well as in the ways in which domestic animals have become integrated
human society. It might even be argued that each instance of animal domest
is unique, shaped by diverse biological and social contingencies that have
and pulled animals and their human partners into domestic relationships. B
speaking, however, I think there are three general domestication scenari
three major pathways that most animal domesticates followed into domest
(Zeder 2012a).
The Commensal Pathway

The first of these general domestication scenarios might be labeled a "com
pathway." This pathway is traveled by animals that feed on refuse around
habitats, or by animals that prey on other animals drawn to anthrop
environments. These animals begin their journey into domestication by estab
a commensal relationship with humans—a relationship in which one p
benefits and the other reaps little if any benefit or harm. At some point
association with humans and anthropogenic environments, these animals d
closer social or economic bonds with their human hosts, who begin to de
some tangible benefit from the association. This new reciprocity sets the f
commensal and its human host on a pathway to a domestic relationship.

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The dog is a classic example of a domestic animal that lik

commensal pathway into domestication. It is widely thought that do
began when wolves were drawn to human settlements to scaven
refuse (Coppinger and Coppinger 2001; Morey 1994). Rather
alpha wolves, however, the wolves more likely drawn to human
subdominant pack members, less-aggressive animals that may a
wary around humans and human settlement. The initial commen
domestication pathway, then, likely serves as a kind of preselectio
with lowered flight response and higher stress thresholds—fea
them better candidates for domestication. In this regard, it is in
that one of the earliest morphological manifestations of domesti
a juvenilization in skull morphology (Morey 1992), which has be
to the strong selection for reduced aggression (Trut 1999). The
skull morphology manifests itself both in changes in the dimens
(Morey 1992; Trutt 1999, but see Wayne 1986) and in a shortening
which, in turn, results in tooth crowding, reduction in tooth size
in the number of teeth in dogs (Turnbull and Reed 1974). This pr
begun during the initial commensal stage of dog domesticat
humans began to be active partners in the process.
The most compelling evidence for initial dog domestication co
Pleistocene archaeological sites in the Near East dating to about
years ago (Dayan 1994; Davis and Valla 1978; Tchernov and Valla
and Reed 1974). Canid remains from these sites show clear ev
shortening and tooth crowding (Turnbull and Reed 1974). The plac
dogs in human burials at one site in the southern Levant suggests
a special social bond had been formed between human and dog (
1978; Tchernov and Valla 1997; Morey 2005).
A recent genetic analysis supports the Near East as an initial
domestication (vonHoldt et al. 2010), overturning an earlier argu
Asian origin (Savolainen et al. 2002). This study also identifies po
sources of variation in dogs arising from wolf populations in Eu
suggestion that is supported by fossil evidence for putative ear
Western and Eastern Europe into Central Asia in the Late and Ter
(e.g., Benecke 1987; Chaix 2000; Musil 2000; Pionnier-Capitan et
2005). If these remains are truly dogs and not simply smaller wolv
extinct canid species (Pionnier-Capitan et al. 2011), these early fo
either a rapid spread of dogs out of a single homeland or multiple or
dogs across Eurasia. Interestingly, these remains coincide with po
of increased residential permanence, if not year-round sedentism
providing further support for a commensal pathway into domesti
appearance of commensals such as the house mouse, spiny rat, an
in Levantine settlements at the same time as early dogs (Tcherno
buttresses the case for a commensal pathway into domestication.
Another commensal domesticate that likely arose in the s
the cat. As with dogs, genetic evidence also points to a Near

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for cat domestication (Driscoll et al. 2007). The presence of the rem
of morphologically wild cats among the diverse array of small carnivo
assemblages from the first sedentary settlements in the Near East (Rosenb
al. 1998; Starkovich and Stiner 2009; Yeshurun et al. 2009) suggests th
were among a group of commensal animals that took advantage of th
opportunities afforded by these early settlements. The placement of a ca
human burial on the island of Cyprus dating to 8,500 years ago suggests
domestic cats were among the managed animals and crop plants brought t
island by Neolithic migrants from the Near East (Vigne et al. 2004,2011). U
dogs, which quickly display morphological features linked to selection for r
aggression and wariness, cats were very slow to display any archaeolo
detectable markers of domestication—an indication, perhaps, of the diffe
pathway these aloof and far less social animals took into domestication an
different kind of partnership with humans that they maintain to this day.
Domesticated fowl also likely followed a commensal pathway int
domestication. These birds include chickens, likely domesticated thr
process of hybridization between several varieties of wild jungle fowl in Sou
Asia (Eriksson et al. 2008; Kanginakudru et al. 2008; Liu et al. 2006); Mu
ducks, posited to play a role in controlling insect populations in Centr
South American settlements (Angulo 1998); and possibly turkeys, independe
domesticated in both Mexico and the U.S. Southwest (Munro 2011; Speller
2009). In each case, the new food sources found in human settlements ma
been the lure that brought less wary individuals into initial contact with huma
is also likely that most early rodent domesticates followed a similar pathw
domestication. This is especially the case with the guinea pig, first domesti
in the highland Andes around 7,000 years ago (Spotorno et al. 2006).
Another possible commensal domesticate is the pig. Archaeological evid
from the Near East suggests that pigs began their relationship with hum
opportunistic scavengers feeding on human refuse in the initial year-
settlements in the more forested parts of the central Fertile Crescent (Ervnyc
2001; Redding 2005). As with dogs, the leading edge indicator of pig domesti
is a gradual reduction in molar length, thought to result from the neoteni
of skull morphology (Flannery 1983). Similarly, the early manifestation of
changes in skull morphology in pigs may also be the result of an extended "g
to-know-you" self-selection phase of a commensal pathway into domestic
Genetic evidence, however, points to multiple independent domestication ev
across the broad range of this widespread animal (Larson et al. 2005, 2007
certainly possible—perhaps even likely—that pigs and humans followed dif
pathways into domestication in these different instances of pig domesticati
The Prey Pathway

Most major livestock species entered into domestication through what mi
called a "prey pathway." Rather than initiating the relationship, these an
were focal prey species hunted by humans for their meat. Domestication of
prey species was likely initiated when, perhaps as a response to localized pr

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on the supply of the animal, humans began to experiment with hunting strateg
designed to increase prey availability. Over time and with responsive species (i.e
those with the behaviors that make them suitable candidates for domestication
listed in Figure 1), these game-management strategies developed into herd
management strategies that included the sustained multigenerational control over
the animals' movement, feeding, and reproduction characteristic of the domestic
relationship.
These conditions seem to have been in place in the central and eastern Fertile
Crescent at the end of the Younger Dryas climatic downturn and the beginning of
the Early Holocene (Zeder 2011). During this period of climate amelioration and
stabilization, beginning about 11,700 years ago, people in this region established
year-round settlements supported by broad-spectrum subsistence economies
composed of an array of plant and animal resources drawn from a wide range of
different ecozones (Zeder 2012b). Shifting prey profiles for animals such as sheep
and pigs (which may have wandered between a commensal and a prey pathway
in their initial domestication) have been attributed to localized pressure on wild
populations in territories surrounding these sedentary encampments (Redding
2005; Zeder 2011, 2012b). We see signs that these prey profiles developed over
time into management profiles typical of those employed by modern herders (i.e.,
culling of young males and delayed slaughter of females until after their peak
reproductive years; Zeder 2001, 2005, 2006c, 2008) so that by 10,500 years ago
there is good evidence that the relationship between humans and sheep, goats, and
pigs was well along the way to full domestication (Peters et al. 2005; Zeder 2011).
Shifts in prey profiles of wild cattle indicative of initial management seem to
occur somewhat later—ca. 10,000 years ago—in a region to the west and south of
the Taurus/Zagros arc that gave rise to caprine and swine domestication (Helmer
et al. 2005).
Since this process unfolded within the natural habitat of free-living progenitor
species, with likely frequent introgression between free-living and managed animals
and restocking of managed herds from wild ones, there is no archaeologically
detectable morphological change in these initial managed animals. Documentation
of this process, then, is best achieved through the construction of high-resolution
sex-specific mortality profiles—a technique that is only now beginning to be more
widely used by archaeozoologists working in the region (Helmer 2008; Helmer et
al. 2005; Monchot et al. 2005; Zeder 2005,2006c).
Genetic analysis by Naderi et al. (2008) has identified all six lineages of
domestic goat among populations of modern bezoar goats (the progenitor species
for domestic goats) from eastern Turkey to central Iran. Rather than being an
artifact of modern introgression between wild and domestic herds, the presence of
these domestic haplotypes among wild goat populations is instead argued to be an
artifact of quite ancient human-mitigated reproductive isolation and translocation
that dates back to a period of early human management of wild populations. The
authors present further evidence for the movement of two of the major domestic
goat lineages out of this natural habitat incubator zone of initial domestication
somewhere in southeastern Anatolia—a finding that fits well with recent

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archaeological data for early sheep and goat management in this region (Helm
2008; Peters et al. 2005; Zeder 2011). These results suggest, then, that althou
a prolonged period of human management of goats within their natural hab
had no archaeologically detectable morphological impact on these animals
nevertheless left a clear genetic imprint that can still be detected in the essenti
feralized descendants of these six founder lineages of domestic goats. Rather th
being the result of six independent "domestication events," the domestication
all of these lineages was more likely part of the same cultural process in wh
culturally related people in the rugged and highly dissected Taurus/Zagros reg
brought different wild populations under domestication. Genetic analysis als
points to the domestication of multiple lineages of sheep (Bruford and Townse
2006; Hiendleder et al. 2002; Pedrosa et al. 2005), pigs (Larson et al. 2005), and
cattle (Bradley and Magee 2006), which, following the example of goats, may
also have been brought into domestication within the same cultural context.
Domestication-induced morphological changes in these animals are n
archaeologically detectable until the animals leave the habitat where th
domestication journey began, cutting off the possibility for introgression a
restocking with free-living animals and exposing these managed animals
a range of new selective forces (i.e., genetic drift and pressures of their new
environments; Zeder 2011). In bovids, for example, the distinctive changes in
horn size and form once thought to be markers of domestication only begin
manifest themselves once managed animals leave the natural habitat where the
were initially brought under human control (Bokonyi 1977; Hole et al. 19
Reed 1983; Zeuner 1955). These changes likely arose from some combinat
of factors: (1) the relaxation of selective pressures for large horns that allow
for the expression of random mutations previously selected against in free-livi
animals, (2) selection against the high energetic costs of growing and carryi
large heavy horns no longer needed in mate competition, and (3) deliber
directed selection for more tractable males with smaller horns and less-aggress
natures. These same factors may also be responsible for a shift in the size of
domesticated animals. This is not, however, manifested as an overall reduction
body size in both male and female animals (another characteristic once thought
indicator of initial domestication; Meadow 1989; Uerpman 1978, 1979). Instea
the impact of domestication in bovid body size is targeted on males, primarily
the height of males, resulting in a reduction in the degree of sexual dimorphism
domestic animals such as cattle, sheep, goats, and pigs, most strongly expres
in the length of long bones (Zeder 2008).
In addition to livestock species domesticated in the Near East, it is likely
that a wide range of other common livestock species followed prey pathway
into domestication. These include humped cattle and water buffalo in South A
(Fuller 2006, 2011; Kumar et al. 2007), the yak in Tibet (Guo et al. 2006; Olsen
1990), and possibly other rather obscure cattle species such as the mithan in So
Asia and Bali cattle in Indonesia (Clutton-Brock 1981). The increasingly w
resolved archaeological and genetic data for the domestication of South Ameri
camelids (llama and alpaca) certainly suggest a prey pathway into domesticat

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for these animals as well (Mengoni-Gonalons and Yaccobacio 2006; W

al. 2006). Reindeer may be the most recent, and perhaps the last, spec
this pathway, serving in many ways as a good model for the initial s
domestication of other prey pathway domesticates (Baskin 1974, 20
2003; Ingold 1974; Mirov 1945; Reed et al. 2008,2011).
The Directed Pathway

The final pathway to domestication is a more deliberate and directe
process initiated by humans with the goal of domesticating a free-
to obtain a specific resource or set of resources of interest. Th
pathway" probably only came into being once people were familiar
commensal or prey-pathway domesticated animals. Animals d
through this intention-driven, directed process are likely not to poss
possibly even any) of the key behavioral characteristics that pre-ad
species to domestication. As a result, the domestication of these anim
more deliberate effort on the part of humans to work with (or aroun
antithetical to domestication, with increasing technological assistance
many of the species domesticated in this way.
This is likely the pathway that horses took into domestication. H
thought to have been brought into domestication multiple times in t
steppe by people who concentrated heavily on the hunting of wild h
2006; Vila et al. 2006), although they did have domestic livestock
sheep and goats). Thought to have been initially domesticated
hunting their free-living brethren (Levine 1999; Olsen 2006), manag
also provided humans with a wide array of other resources—includi
milk, bones for tool manufacture, and long-distance transportation
morphological markers can be used to distinguish wild from domesti
are demographic profiles much use in distinguishing management str
prey strategies—especially when dealing with assemblages made up
wild hunted horses and managed ones. Instead, archaeozoologists tend
multiple lines of circumstantial evidence to monitor this process (O
the presence of quantities of horse manure in human settlements,
corrals, wear patterns on teeth that indicate the use of rope or metal bi
signatures of horse milk on pots (Outram et al. 2009).
The donkey is another animal likely to have to have followed
pathway into domestication. Archaeological data suggest that do
domesticated as long as 6,000 years ago by Saharan pastoral popu
used them to transport people and belongings across arid regions (Ma
Marshall and Weissbrod 2011). Recent genetic data point to the dom
of two different lineages of wild ass, the Nubian and the Somali (B
et al. 2004; Kimura et al. 2010; Vila et al. 2006). The proximity of
populations of wild ass and, quite possibly, mating habits of wild asse
it easier to breed managed females with wild males than to keep
donkeys seems to have dramatically delayed the display of any mor
change in early domesticated donkeys (Marshall and Weissbrod 2011).

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archaeozoologists seeking to document the process of donkey domestication

those documenting horse domestication, have had to rely on indirect mar
to detect the presence of domestication in donkeys. Extreme pathologies
vertebra of Early Dynastic (ca. 5,000-year-old) donkeys buried in a ritual co
in Abydos, Egypt, for example, are the only indication that these animals,
cannot be morphologically distinguished from wild asses, were in fact us
transport heavy loads (Rossel et al. 2008).
Old World camels, the two-humped Bactrian camel of Central Asia
the one-humped dromedary of the Arabian Peninsula, are also almost cert
directed domesticates domesticated for a variety of resources, including m
milk, and, above all, their ability to carry goods and people across arid land
by people who already possessed domestic animals. As with horses and don
no clear-cut markers in the morphology or demographic profiles of these a
can be used to distinguish between wild and domestic varieties, so
evidence (the presence of dung or fiber from camels; figurative representa
are often the only way one can document this process (Compagnoni and T
1978; Peters and von den Driesch 1997). Some researchers have argue
both species of Old World camels were domesticated in the third millenn
bc (Compagnoni and Tosi 1978; Hoch 1979; Masson and Sarianidi 197
coinciding with the rise of a flourishing trade network that linked Centr
South Asia with the Arabian Peninsula, Mesopotamia, and Africa (Zeder et
2006). Counterarguments have been mounted, however, that the domestic
of both species came well after these trade routes had been in existen
more than a thousand years (Peters and von den Driesch 1997; Uerpmann
Uerpmann 2002). Future work will have to draw on multiple lines of cult
and biological evidence to resolve this issue.
Another category of animal brought under human control for spe
purposes are the "tame captives"—animals such as elephants, cheetah
falcons (Clutton-Brock 1981) that have been used to aid in hunting or for
labor. These animals are not bred in captivity, either because of barriers to c
breeding or, as with the elephant, because of their long life spans an
maturation rates. Instead, young animals are captured and trained to perfor
desired tasks (Baker and Manwell 1982). In some ways these animals qualif
domesticates in that they are engaged in a sustained, multigenerational relat
with humans, in which humans assume considerable control over their move
feeding, and protection to extract specific resources. And yet since they ar
bred in captivity, the normal array of selective factors responsible for cre
domestic genotypes in other animal domesticates never come into play. In
of passing on selected domestication traits to each new generation, the pr
of domestication begins anew with each animal tamed for these purposes.
unusual outlier case of directed animal use raises interesting questions
the nature of the domestic relationship and whether it should be viewed m
terms of the role of the animal in human society or the impact of this use
evolutionary trajectory of the animal.
All recently domesticated animals fit within this category of dir

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domestication. This includes the various carnivore species selectiv

their fur (e.g., minks and foxes) that have been domesticated in the
years. It also includes ongoing experiments in domestication with
bison, emu, red deer, Pere David's deer, fallow deer, blackbuck, e
and Barbary sheep (Clutton-Brock 1981 ).The most remarkable and
area of ongoing animal domestication, however, focuses on aquat
one account 97% of the nearly 450 managed aquatic species were
control in the past 100 years, with nearly a quarter of these speci
in the past decade or so (Duarte et al. 2007). Clearly this new fro
domestication has staggering implications—not only in terms of
potential, but also for the problems it raises in terms of the enviro
of large fishery operations and the potential evolutionary impact th
on free-living varieties (Kaiser 1997; Kaiser et al. 2000).
CONCLUSIONS AND QUESTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
The three different pathways into animal domestication identified here clearly
vary in how they are initiated, the direction they take, and the length of time
it takes to traverse them (Figure 3). Animals following a commensal pathway
into domestication began this journey on their own as the animal seeks out
new opportunities in an anthropogenic niche.The strength of the attraction of an
animal to this new niche was likely shaped by an assessment of the trade-offs
between exploiting these new opportunities and remaining aloof from humans.
The strength of the species' avoidance responses to humans was certainly
another factor that shaped this pathway, as was the degree to which humans
would tolerate the presence of the animal and the benefits they saw in forging
a closer relationship with them. Some animals entering into domestication
through this route, such as the cat, have arguably never reached the pathway's
final destination.
Whereas animals traveling the commensal pathway began the journey
on their own initiative, animals entering the domestic partnership through the
prey pathway were less willing fellow travelers. As with the commensal route,
however, progress down the prey pathway was also likely quite slow as generalized
hunting strategies evolved into game management strategies aimed at promoting
availability and sustainability of hunting before morphing into selective harvest
of managed animals and then to deliberate breeding of target animals for specific
resources. Not all animals embarking on this path reached its conclusion. Gazelle
may be one such example. While future livestock species such as sheep, goats,
pigs, and cattle were primary prey species in the central and eastern parts of the
Fertile Crescent, in the western part of this region people were intensively hunting
gazelle, the primary ungulate in the southern and northern Levant. And although
there is evidence that human hunting pressure may have had an impact on the
demographic structure of populations of these fleet-footed animals (Munro 2009),
and possibly some indications of tentative steps toward management (Cope 1991;
Davis 1983; Henry 1989; but see Sapir-Hen et al. 2009), gazelle have very well

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DOMESTICATION OF ANIMALS
Figure3.Pathwysodmesticaon:()Cmensalpthwy,(b)Preypathwy,(c)Diretdpahwy.

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developed flight responses and they are difficult to breed in captivity, ma

them poor candidates for domestication (Clutton-Brock 1981:172).
The final directed domestication pathway is much shorter and follo
more abrupt departure from the free-living animal to an animal under tig
human control, often involving deliberate selective breeding to enhanc
supply of targeted resources (Figure 3c). Most of these directed domesticat
have behavioral or other barriers that may, at least initially, have stood in
way of their domestication. Bringing these animals under human control,
has required a deep understanding of animal behavior and management
often, enhanced technology for breeding and tending animals. Entry onto
superhighway of domestication is increasingly dependent on the developmen
highly specialized techniques for breeding and controlling the animal that, m
and more, involves direct manipulation of its genetic makeup.
Thinking of domestication in terms of the different pathways animals
their human partners took raises a number of questions that help set the dire
of future research (Zeder 2012a). First, it would be interesting to know if th
are differences in the timing and nature of the behavioral, physiological,
morphological responses to the different selective pressures animals experien
they travel these different pathways, and whether there are genetic, morpholog
or cultural markers that can be used to reconstruct an animal's course down the
different paths. This question, in turn, raises a number of related questions:
1. Are animals that enter into domestication along a commensal pathway

with its long "getting to know you" phase, tamer and more tractable th
animals that traveled other pathways?
2. Is the neotonization of cranial form that appears to be a marker of in
domestication in dogs and pigs (but not in animals such as sheep
goats) an artifact of a more prolonged and perhaps intense selection f
association with humans?
3. Why is it that animals brought into the relationship through a directed route
often do not display much evidence of morphological change, at least in
terms of an archaeologically detectable change in skeletal structure?
4. Are there different genetic signatures that can be used to distinguish the
behavioral adaptations that grew out of a commensal relationship from
those that arose once humans began intervening in the breeding process
when game management transitioned into herd management?
5. Does the intensive, focused, artificial selection for specific traits that
drives the directed domestication pathway leave a distinctive genetic
signature distinguishable from the broader play of selective factors and
random events that shape both the commensal and prey pathways?
A second broad area for future research focuses on whether animals that
followed these different pathways into domestication have different capacities for
feralization. Here one might ask:

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1. Are the domestic animals that followed a commensal path more successful
as feral animals because they can revert to the behaviors that brought them
into the relationship in the first place?
2. How do feral commensals vary from commensal species that never traveled
further down the pathway into domestic relationships with humans?
Looking forward, one might ask whether thinking about the processes of
animal domestication in this way has anything to offer about on-going efforts at
breed improvement or at bringing new species under domestication.
1. Does this deeper understanding of the history of animal domestication

have bearing on the development of animal breeding and management
strategies that are more productive and/or more humane?
2. What does this understanding contribute to on-going and future efforts at
bringing different terrestrial and aquatic animals under domestication?
Finally, we can ask whether this perspective on animal domestication has

relevance for the care and welfare of captive animals.
1. Are there lessons to be learned from understanding the different pathways

into animal domestication that would help better understand and mitigate
the impact of captivity on zoo animals?
2. What are the implications of a deeper understanding of animal
domestication, and in particular the route domesticates take into
feralization, for efforts directed the conservation, breeding, and restoration
of endangered wild species?
Answering these questions will take the combined efforts of researchers

working in archaeology, genetics, and animal sciences. As this short review shows,
great insights into the process of animal domestication—past and present—have
already been gained from work in each of these areas. Future advances in the
study of animal domestication will require not only continued work in each
of these areas, but a commitment to cross-disciplinary collaborative work that
seeks to integrate the information gained in each field into a more coherent and
compelling understanding of this enduring and still-evolving area of human
animal interaction.
NOTE
I am very honored to have been chosen as the Fall 2010 Journal of Anthropological
Research Distinguished Lecturer and wish to thank everyone involved in planning my
trip to Albuquerque, especially JAR Business Manager Ann Braswell, who handled the
logistics. 1 am especially grateful to JAR Editor Lawrence Straus for his patience given the
long delay in my submission of this manuscript.

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THE DOMESTICATION OF ANIMALS

Author(s): Melinda A. Zeder

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23264664

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(Formerly Southwestern Journal of Anthropology)

VOLUME 68 • NUMBER 2 • SUMMER 2012

THE DOMESTICATION OF ANIMALS

Program in Human Ecology and Archaeobiology, National Museum of Natural History,

key words: Domestication, Animals, Behavior, Genetics, Animal sciences, Archaeology

Humans have brought a wide range of animals into domestic partnerships

over the past 11,000 years—as livestock, working animals, household p

Journal of Anthropological Research, vol. 68, 2012

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All definitions of domestication, whether dealing with plants or animals,

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the plant/animal is able to increase its reproductive success over individuals n

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In addition to experiencing genetically driven changes in the domesticate's

UNIVERSALS OF ANIMAL DOMESTICATION

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the size and organization of groups; (2) sexual behavior—particularly the d

Brains and Behavior

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them to turn their attention from escaping predation to engaging

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(Schultz 1969). Similarly, although the feralized descendants of sheep brought to

PATHWAYS TO ANIMAL DOMESTICATION

Beyond the universal features held in common by all domesticated animals

The Commensal Pathway

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The dog is a classic example of a domestic animal that lik

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The Prey Pathway

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for these animals as well (Mengoni-Gonalons and Yaccobacio 2006; W

The Directed Pathway

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archaeozoologists seeking to document the process of donkey domestication

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domestication. This includes the various carnivore species selectiv

CONCLUSIONS AND QUESTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH

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developed flight responses and they are difficult to breed in captivity, ma

1. Are animals that enter into domestication along a commensal pathway

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1. Does this deeper understanding of the history of animal domestication

Finally, we can ask whether this perspective on animal domestication has

1. Are there lessons to be learned from understanding the different pathways

Answering these questions will take the combined efforts of researchers

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