Preemptive Domestication

In chapter 10 of Guns, Germs, and steel, Diamond introduces the topic of preemptive domestication, which describes the ease at which crops evolve in independent places around the globe. He further explains how if a crop was identified to be domesticated in more than one place around the world, it means that the spread of that crop was slow. If a crop was only domesticated once but shown to have spread, it means that specific crop has a higher rate at which it spreads.

I found this pretty interesting because one can learn a lot just from which crops were domesticated several times in the world versus the ones that were only domesticated once. I wondered what the effect the environment and surrounding environment has on the spread of a crop. In the case of Southwest Asia’s crops, they all preempted the domestication of any of their close relatives in western Eurasia. In addition, we can look specifically to the Fertile Crescent and observe the same pattern of not being domesticated after the first initial domestication of the crop (Kosciejew). One of the ways that we can tell which places were more suitable for agriculture is how fast a crop spread and to where it spread. This tells us a lot about the environment at the time and based off of the crop, we can also infer some of the properties of the environment that fostered the growth and spread of the domesticated crop. This could explain why there was not a fast spread of crops in the Americas. The environment and properties of the area were not suitable enough to support the mass growth of some crops without more technological advancements. I wonder if some of the crops that only had one domesticated version long ago, continue to only have one type that is suitable for us. I also wonder what effects this had on future cultures.


https://books.google.com/books?id=XYnqCgAAQBAJ&lpg=PT322&ots=dNGC9xHVYH&dq=preemptive%20domestication&pg=PT322#v=onepage&q=preemptive%20domestication&f=false

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