Geography's Role in the Domestication of Plants
Domestication of wild plants and animals is extremely important to developing the Americas and other societies the way they are today. Because of the ability for people to begin to grow and domesticate their own plants and tribes that had previously been hunter-gatherers became sedentary. Farming arose and a wider variety of crops became available for people to grow and eat. People became more and more self-sustaining all over the world (not all at the same time of course) and as a result, began to grow more advanced societies. It was a little while after this farming and agriculture had become a little more developed, that these plants began to move location and spread further across the Americas. This was good for the plants to be able to spread, but it also had some downsides based on the climate in different parts of the continent. When plants from the far south would travel or be planted up in the north they would sprout at the time they normally would've only to find a different climate outside because of there geographical location. Plants have been able to adapt to this and spread more effectively across continents because of this.
Although it seems like a minor detail, geography was a key factor in what plants were domesticated where and in how easily they adapted to the climate and geography. In Asia, the first plants that were domesticated were wheat, peas olive, and rice, which is quite different from The United States where among the first were the sunflower. The first domestication of plants was very individual to where they first sprung up. It was a while before plants started to move location, some fairly quickly, while others took longer to travel. It was all based on geography what plants appeared in what places depending on there resistance to climate and other factors in the environment.
This was an interesting topic for me to go more in-depth about because a) it seemed like Jared Diamond had a lot to say about it and I wanted to figure out what made it such an interesting and important topic, and b) I have never thought about plant domestication thoroughly. I've never really thought about how it spread and changed especially based off of location and climate, this factors never occurred to me although I see now just how important they have been to building societies and other parts of civilizations.
In many cases, a particular food and its location were the cause of a great portion of the civilization living in that area. For example, the Mayans had a whole God devoted to Maize because this was a popular plant that grew in Mexico and Central America. It grew in abundance and they felt very blessed for it and ended up with there civilization devoted around it. Because this is where Maize commonly appeared it became an essential part of the Mayas society and something they worshipped and devoted a large portion of there time too. This was a popular theme occurring throughout history. Often it happened in different places, but the food was a continually a big part of civilizations. This was not only unique to food, however, once animals vegan to be domesticated the same thing happened with them, and people would praise and build civilizations around them.
https://academic.oup.com/aob/article/100/5/925/137339
http://www.pnas.org/content/103/33/12223
Although it seems like a minor detail, geography was a key factor in what plants were domesticated where and in how easily they adapted to the climate and geography. In Asia, the first plants that were domesticated were wheat, peas olive, and rice, which is quite different from The United States where among the first were the sunflower. The first domestication of plants was very individual to where they first sprung up. It was a while before plants started to move location, some fairly quickly, while others took longer to travel. It was all based on geography what plants appeared in what places depending on there resistance to climate and other factors in the environment.
This was an interesting topic for me to go more in-depth about because a) it seemed like Jared Diamond had a lot to say about it and I wanted to figure out what made it such an interesting and important topic, and b) I have never thought about plant domestication thoroughly. I've never really thought about how it spread and changed especially based off of location and climate, this factors never occurred to me although I see now just how important they have been to building societies and other parts of civilizations.
In many cases, a particular food and its location were the cause of a great portion of the civilization living in that area. For example, the Mayans had a whole God devoted to Maize because this was a popular plant that grew in Mexico and Central America. It grew in abundance and they felt very blessed for it and ended up with there civilization devoted around it. Because this is where Maize commonly appeared it became an essential part of the Mayas society and something they worshipped and devoted a large portion of there time too. This was a popular theme occurring throughout history. Often it happened in different places, but the food was a continually a big part of civilizations. This was not only unique to food, however, once animals vegan to be domesticated the same thing happened with them, and people would praise and build civilizations around them.
https://academic.oup.com/aob/article/100/5/925/137339
http://www.pnas.org/content/103/33/12223
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