I've got a few headings like this stashed in drafts; ideas that needed a bit of development and enough of F's time and attention for us to have a proper discussion of the topic and hash out a digestible precis of our thoughts.
Recent events surrounding kittens 'falling' into our backyard have caused this one to bloat and bob to the surface of our blog-ideas scum.
To begin with we'll clear up a definition of our use of the word 'domestication'. We will be using it to describe associations between humans and other species that are formed for the benefit of both. Our definition can include species that are either plant or animal. (Where it benefits only one species, it is exploitation.)
Humans tell themselves a story that the first animal to join forces with them was a dog. While even a cat might acknowledge that humans and dogs have social structures in common (packs, hierarchies) that enable them to understand one another and fit together so that it looks like the symbiosis was created by nature, human archaeology, and analysis of very old DNA suggests this association of humans and dogs is about 11,000 years old. It has been traced to the end of the last Ice Age
Cats might not have been sleeping on your beds at the end of the last Ice Age, but around the same time we were keeping the rodent population under control around your grain stores; the first attempts by humans to make such stores having been traced back - you guessed it - about 11,000 years to the end of the last Ice Age. (see footnote 1)
Just as with dogs walking into your lives, it didn't take humans long to work out this was a 'win win' as you say (humans catch on eventually) and put out some supplementary food to keep us around in the 'off seasons' when the grain stores are empty.
And let's face it you are all suckers for cute kittens.
In fact it is not hard to imagine a situation in which your hunting companion, the dog, is catching the game from which our supplementary meals were carved.
The bond is different, the social structures don't mesh in the same ways as humans and dogs, but I bet you have never had to take your cat to behaviour school and been told you need to be the 'master' of the relationship. Of course not - we're equals in this. We have negotiated those terms.
What do we, the cats, get out of it? Food, good beds, health care, a degree of safety, and we have been spread around the world, far beyond our natural range, and given expression to our genetic diversity because humans have been our vector. We've trained you well, but more to the point we saw an opportunity and adapted to take advantage of it.
Corn: you know, that stuff you eat. The plant is so adapted to using humans as its vector that it can't distribute its seeds and generate the next crop/new plants on its own, unaided by humans. Yet it is one of the most widely distributed and densely grown plants on the planet. (see footnote 2)
Is corn successful?
Humans tell themselves they have 'domesticated' various plants and animals but the question we wanted to address was whether said plants and animals had exercised choice in the matter; chosen to take advantage of what humans have to offer.
Some species that could be food, companions, co-workers with humans have not chosen to become 'domestic'; voted against joining forces. Their natural ranges are shrinking. Their populations are under threat. Their genetic contribution to diversity could be lost completely.
I'm not saying domestication will fix these things. I am merely pointing out that in the evolve and survive race, forming associations between species seems to be a strength that has advantages for both, and those who have recognized that have generally thrived.
Footnote 1: Cat Sense (the feline enigma revealed) by John Bradshaw. Allen Lane, published by Penguin Group 2013. Honestly it reads like an academic thesis, but there is some interesting stuff in there as well.
Footnote 2: The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan first published 2006 He describes the domestication of corn (among other things). And because it's a really good read, we recommend its investigation of the environmental and animal welfare impacts of the various food choices we make.
Like zebras, some animals refuse domestication. Could you imagine a village trying to domesticate a rhinoceros? Alligators ~ yet another example!
ReplyDeleteDon't be silly ~ corn can't agree to be genetically altered to create larger ears. I could go on and on about how important corn was to the native Americans of the Southwest. In fact, it became too important, and contributed to the abandonment of the great houses, like Chaco Canyon.
Hari OM
ReplyDelete...oooh, Tigger... The fact that cats (and rats and certain plant species) have followed migratory/invasion patterns of hyoomans is not necessarily an environmental pawsitive... although I understand that what you are getting at is the mutual interest, teamwork thing for survival of species. Which is fine for the individual species who are surviving. However it has often been at the cost of some which actually have no power of choice to combine in this fashion.
Plants make no choice. They have natural adaptation factors which are hard-wired and involves no level of thought whatsoever. In terms of it being manipulated and tortured into all sorts of nonsense - MPollan's basic interest... (as a nutritionist that book was compulsory reading!) within the last hundred years - because of 'science' - corn has been transformed into an almost toxic food. Whole environments were destroyed in the pursuit of growing the stuff. Nowadays, we know this has happened also with palms which produce the requied nuts to make the oil that is in just about ever food that involves processing. The oil palm could now be considered a 'successful' species. It is being nurtured and enslaved by hyoomans at the cost of rainforest and orangutans and soooo many other critters and plants...
I DO understand you are talking community cooperation, Mr T. However, plants and animals generally do not make the choices in their relationship with hyoomans. Mankind alone holds the power - and even within its own species it has taken very questionable decisions. Unlike cats, the hyooman species seems unable to hold itself aloof and 'just be'... Despite all the brain power provided, very poor choices are made.
Well done Tigger - you gave us something to chew on!!! &*> Hugs and whiskeries, YAM-aunty xxx
Okay I think you might have gone deeper on this subject than even yam can. I see she left a really long comment. I read every word and when all is said and done when I got to the photo at the bottom my best thought was Tigger you are definitely domesticated and so is your mom. I'm not sure how this fits in under domestication but Bo has moved into our house and he is now the canine in charge and he has domesticated both his dad and his mom
ReplyDeleteMaybe 'choice' and 'choosing' was the wrong concept, but some species have presented a variety of genetic adaptations, shall we say, that got them chosen (perhaps that is a better way to see it) and enabled to them to spread their genes around the world in ways they would not otherwise have been able to do - more of them, more genetic variations, more adaptations, more to choose from .... more successful. And selecting from the variety or characteristics available is not genetic modification in the modern sense - they haven't been engineered, just chosen from what was presented.
ReplyDeleteHere's an example: can Beau do that eyebrow thing that dogs do that makes them look like they are asking a question? Dog ancestors didn't have the muscles that enabled them to do that. Varieties of dogs that have never 'domesticated' (African Painted Dogs for eg) can't do it. It is something that some dog somewhere could do a little bit and it got him or her chosen and it developed from there. Now dogs seem to instinctively know that this endears them to humans. Dogs don't express to each other with their eyebrows, but eyebrows are the most important part of how we humans recognize each other and read complex emotions. It's probably not surprising therefore that we like dogs that have active eyebrows. And it shouldn't be surprising that they have learned to watch our faces to read us in return.