The Domestication and Exploitation of Plants and Animals

G. W. Dimbleby

I: Origins of domestication; 1: Environmental background; Agricultural systems, ecosystems and the origins of agriculture; The ecological background of plant domestication Introduction; Geological opportunism; Reflections on prehistoric environments in the Near East; The progenitors of wheat and barley in relation to domestication and agricultural dispersal in the Old World; 2: Patterns of exploitation; The silent millennia in the origin of agriculture; Origins and ecological effects of early domestication in Iran and the Near East; Wild mammals and their potential for new domestication; Evidence for vegetation changes associated with mesolithic man in Britain; II: Methods of investigation; 1: Domestication and exploitation of plants; The indirect evidence for domestication; A note on cereals in ancient Egypt; Pollen grains of Gramineae and Cerealia from Shanidar and Zawi Chemi; The archaeological evidence for the domestication of plants: methods and problems; Evidence from phylogenetic relationships of the types of bread wheat first cultivated; History and ethnography of some West Indian starches; Fruit size variability of Swiss prehistoric Malus sylvestris; 2: Domestication and exploitation of animals; The genetical implications of domestication in animals; Archaeological problems and methods of recognizing animal domestication; The use of non-morphological criteria in the study of animal domestication from bones found on archaeological sites; Animal husbandry; Methodology and results of the study of the earliest domesticated animals in the Near East (Palestine); The uses and limitations of differences in absolute size in the distinction between the bones of aurochs (Bos primigenius) and domestic cattle (Bos taurus); A metrical distinction between sheep and goat metacarpals; Animal domestication and animal cult in dynastic Egypt; III: Regional and local evidence for domestication; Early domestic animals in India and Pakistan; Early cultivated plants in India and Pakistan; The problem of the introduction of Adansonia digitata into India; Carnivore remains from the excavations of the Jericho Tell; Some difficulties of interpreting the metrical data derived from the remains of cattle at the Roman settlement of Corstopitum; Plant remains and early farming in Jericho 1; The pattern of animal domestication in the prehistoric Near East; Animal domestication in the Neolithic cultures of the south-west part of European U.S.S.R.; Early cereal cultivation in China; Early cereal cultivation in China; IV: Studies of particular taxonomic groups; 1: Plants; The origins of yam cultivation Introduction; The origin, variability and spread of the groundnut (Arachis hypogaea); The domestication of chili peppers; Evolution of American Phaseolus beans under domestication; Some domesticated lower plants in South-east Asian food technology; 2: Animals; The domestication of the horse; The exploitation of molluscs; The Mesopotamian onager as a draught animal; The domestication of the ferret; Changes in the fleece of sheep following domestication (with a note on the coat of cattle); V: Human nutrition; Human nutrition: evolutionary perspectives; Dietary variation and the biology of earlier human populations; Archaeology and the nutritionist; Conclusion; Conclusion