all right welcome back and to 74. what is on for this lecture well we're going to continue with this very broad series of topics that we can Loosely link to using animals exploring the animal human economies and this particular lecture we're going to explore domestication here is a story on your screen that Darwin Charles Darwin if you remember we talked about Darwin in a few of the last lectures that Darwin told about dogs in 18 71. our domestic dogs are descended from wolves and jackals and though they may not have gained in cunning and may have lost in wariness and suspicion yet they have progressed in certain moral qualities such as affection trustworthiness temper and probably in general intelligence a lot of what Darwin said in that quote in the last slide is fairly accurate and we'll come back and we'll look at that from an ethology perspective later on in the term but here is a different story about the domestication of dogs at a remote time in the past the Earth was inhabited by different peoples other than those created by the sun god they were very bad and they fought among themselves all the time when the Sun God saw this that God decided to annihilate those people and to create another population in their Stead to destroy the bad people the Sun God sent torrential and continuous Reign the Springs opened up and the oceans overflowed in the deluge all humankind was Swept Away then the Sun God decided to create new people first the God made a man then a woman and finally made a dog to keep them company that story is a creation story from the telewachi native peoples from uh from this this area of the world there are many Native folk tales about how the dog became domesticated and in all stories that I've read whether the dog was manipulated into joining or created specifically for humans which is much more common or the dog voluntarily joins humans the result is basically the same the dog then chooses to stay with humans to give up its freedom in the wild give up the Wilderness for the privilege of helping humans before we jump into domestication I want to clear up what might be a misunderstanding about what we're going to be exploring domestication versus taming domestication first occurred with dogs and that is to say it was domestication not just taming a wild animal like say you have a squirrel or a monkey or a wolf pup right what we're talking about a very long process animals are considered to be domesticated when they are kept for human purposes when there is controlled breeding when they are dependent on humans for survival when there are rather when there is the development of unique traits including genetic traits that are not found in the wild counterparts those are important components to keep in mind and also make for a pretty easy test question let's briefly explore some aspects of our history of domestication starting with the very first domesticated species that was dogs before any other plant any other animal dogs were domesticated we find domesticated dog skulls in a cave site in Belgium with human remains as well at around 31 000 years ago which suggests that dogs were probably domesticated a bit before that a few thousand years after that we we have another cave site in France with a dog skeleton and many thousands of years after that we find the very first burial of a dog at around fifteen thousand years ago in Germany now we also have genetic evidence that supports the domestication of dogs at around 30 35 000 years ago some of those articles even suggest that the domestication of dogs might have occurred much much earlier and I personally like that idea I'm going to need more evidence but if dogs were domesticated much earlier then that means that anatomically modern humans had dogs when they were migrating across the old world and into the new world and that's an exciting prospect and that leads directly into why domesticate dogs at all well more than likely for hunting tools for hunting help dogs have hunting skills that humans simply lack smell the ability to run down and track animals in the wild we don't have that kind of sensitivity in our senses or ability in our physiology when you think about it the earliest breeds of dogs are hunting breeds pointers hounds retrievers and then dogs bred specifically for agricultural purposes herding dogs protecting livestock pulling loads from this perspective the benefits that dogs offer to humans likely contributed to our ability to expand around the world dogs actually allowed us to better adapt and to expand and this is only touching on some of those hypotheses that illustrate dogs probably allowed us to out compete other hominins such as the Neanderthals in addition to that many native peoples around the world use dogs for for hunting as beasts of Burden tying travois to them so they could carry you know hunted carcasses or belongings or firewood or whatever some people use them for protection and some people like the clalam natives uh just north of us here in Oregon in the Puget Sound kept dogs partly for their hair which they would then cut off and weave into blankets and clothing and there are many other uses as well the dog is somewhat of an exception and aside from the dog many of our domesticated plants and animals have their Origins within the Agricultural Revolution or just after that Revolution the Agricultural Revolution the domestication of plants and animals between around 15 and 10 000 years ago with this changed agriculture the primary economic activity of us our ancestors moved from food collection to food production and that change cannot be overestimated it is monumental not just for humans but for non-human animals there were many livestock animals domesticated during this time now we're not going to go over all of them but I just want to highlight a few one of the first livestock domesticates that we find are in the archaeological record are pigs now looking at the archaeological evidence and combining that with the genetic evidence suggests domestication possibly as early as 13 000 years ago so sometime around 13 000 years ago you'll notice in some of my slides I have Kya which stands for thousand years ago so 13 000 years ago where well in the same place where most of these domesticated animals and even plants were domesticated in the near East specifically the fertile present there appears to be separate centers of domestication with a second domestication of pigs in China shortly after their first domestication in the near East next are the Sheep there is archaeological evidence going back to about 9 000 years ago but combining that with the genetic evidence that would push it back another few thousand years um so between sometime between nine and eleven thousand years ago where also in the near East and why probably for their animal products first same with pigs for meat and blood and skin and for sheep milk but by about six thousand years ago we have evidence that they were being used for other purposes for wool which comes from guess where art depicting a woolly sheep in Iran goats have a very similar history of domestication to sheep evidence going back to about ten thousand years ago for goats again in the near East and very similar to the sheep used for milk for meat their feces can be used for fuel similar to the way that we use cattle feces today their migratory history around the world also very similar to sheep which brings us to cattle probably the species most of us here in the United States think about when we think about livestock due to that industry here cows were domesticated about ten and a half thousand years ago also in the near East although there were other areas of separate domestication several thousands of years after that in both the India subcontinent and in Africa we use cattle for their meat milk blood hides their feces for fuel their bones as tools and some archaeologists argue that along with grains cattle represent one of the earliest domesticate forms of money or barter and last are the chickens you know I had to talk about chickens with domestication coming directly from the Asian jungle fowl at around 8 000 years ago in the East and Southeast Asia now here is a very short list of a very long long list of other domesticated animals this isn't really important for you to know I just want to highlight how many domesticated animals there are again this is only a select few of a much longer list and people are probably wondering about cats cats we're not domesticated until around nine and a half thousand years ago or so um in the near East as well there is a grave site a burial of a person and a cat that comes from the archaeological evidence some of the genetic evidence suggests domestication at around nine and a half thousand years ago as well um but there it gets into a bit of a debate um because there might be multiple areas of domestication anyway guinea pigs five thousand years ago here in in South America Burrows and horses not until around four and a half to three thousand years ago in Africa and the near East llamas and honeybees and Yaks and turkeys uh here as well and the list goes on and on lots of different avenues for final projects but back to the history of domestication just adding a few new points to highlight some of the very broad patterns that we've talked about even though we haven't really talked specifically about them after the dog the first animals to be domesticated were livestock animals like sheep and pigs cows and goats the question is why for food and for for their product whether that was the meat but that would mean that you lose uh your you know your your animal and your product so it was generally for other things milk blood wool and then eventually things like meat and skin then there were animals that were domesticated for work the first true beasts of Burden were probably things like Burrows and horses at around you know three and a half to five thousand years ago being used to pull plows and farming communities these animals like horses and Burrows are tremendously important to humans they allowed us to to travel to trade they have been used in Warfare and work and later on used an entertainment horse racing Sports really their importance in our societies around the world only begins to decline with the development of internal combustion engines horses and many of many of the livestock that we just talked about in shades were also on cave paintings that we looked at um in one of the last lectures you know one of the earliest representations we have of mobile art the Vogel herd horse then you get a number of smaller animals like rabbits and mice and bees even turkeys that were domesticated only a few thousand years ago to be a domesticated animal again means that you are owned and controlled by humans in a human social cultural environment that means we're talking about something that is a profoundly different human animal relationship then what we talked about in terms of pre-agricultural societies where humans did not own animals and may not even have conceived of owning animals in this way domestication by the 21st century our time has moved broadly from natural selection to artificial selection shaped entirely by human hands and let's look at that in just a second but first what was the result of all of this domestication obviously it allowed humans to have a steady food supply new sources of Labor and new forms of companionship and protection it also provided for new forms of religious worship entire livelihoods are often dependent on these animals which become part of the economy of a society and part of the currency monetary value and of course animals and their products used for heat for transport for fertilizer Etc in pastoral societies animals allowed for peoples to live in unstable environments diverse climates like Siberia Mongolia the deserts of Africa and of Asia Etc in these pastoral cultures animals were and are used for various products milk and fur and blood and dung and skin and on rarer occasions of course meat this means that entire livelihoods can be dependent on those domesticate animals everything from food to clothing to heat they can also be valued for currency monetary value in pastoral subsistence systems used as gift exchanges or bride prices and and the status of people is often based entirely on animals if we compare this to agricultural subsistence systems in agricultural subsistence systems you have the domestication of large ruminants with the domestication alongside the domestication of plants now we're not going to go into plant domestication although ethnobotany is certainly related to our course but that means you have plants and animals being domesticated together and animals can be used to help to plow Fields their manure can be used for fertilizer they can be set to graze on the stubble of fields after a harvest and they can be used for transport of both people and products Goods food right in addition to that they were also used for trade to assist people in migration and warfare as people were migrating by allowing people to produce a surplus of food and all these factors combined allowed for the development of city states with all of their complex divisions of labor and their High degrees of uh inequality related to that city-states living in crowded areas resulted in an increase in human exposure to waste products including animal waste products which resulted in new diseases coming from non-human animals to people and from humans to non-human animals measles mumps the plague and recently we've had you know SARS E coli avian flu mad cow disease even AIDS new diseases entering our system our circulatory system this is called zoonosis and of course there are tremendous degrees of environmental degradation alongside of Agriculture which we'll look at a little later on now you'll notice something here all of this information on these last few slides has been about humans what about animals there are many consequences so this will just highlight a few one of the main consequences that we have had on animals that we've domesticated is neotany neotany is the retention of juvenile features and that can be physical it could also be behavioral but the retention of juvenile features in the adult animal it is through domestication that once wild animals are becoming increasingly dependent on humans this is because a handful of traits like curiosity lack of fear of humans willingness to try new things or to follow humans physically into new places that they would otherwise be uncomfortable another way of saying that is associating some sort of safety with another organism begging for food or begging for attention submissiveness Etc those traits are being selected for but these traits are found more commonly in juveniles of most species that have a juvenile stage of growth and development this leads to Modern domesticates that are behaviorally more like juveniles when they are adults and in some ways also physically more like juveniles we have also tended to select for juvenile or even infinite features in animals things like shorter faces larger eyes rounder skulls smaller teeth uh more fat on the body and other physical features that we just find attractive according to various times and places and cultures coloration variation of fur or hair or feather um whatever it happens to be ear appearance tail appearance etc etc so on this particular chart that you're looking at on the screen you can see different types of dog breeds and you can see what they look like as an infant and then what they look like as you know an adolescent and through through various stages of their growth and development and now at the very bottom you can see you know something like a coyote or a jackal the adult looks quite different than the infant and in in some breeds of our domesticated dogs which are again all one species but in some breeds like Huskies or Collies the adults do look you know somewhat different than the infants but in other breeds of our of our domesticate dogs like hounds and you know Bernards and Pyrenees Etc the adults look very infant like they retain those infant traits and this wouldn't be a science class if I couldn't at least talk sometimes about genetics right the result of of all of this on the genetic scale is not an increase in genetic variation which I think is is one of the misconceptions that some people have coming into some of my classes that domestication means that there is an increase in in genetic variation after all look at all of the different dog breeds but that's not the case when we look at the genetic scale there is significantly more genetic variation in Wild gray wolves canis lupus then in our entire dog population with all of these different breeds which are still the same species now dogs are not humans there is actually more variation in dogs and way more variation in gray wolves of course than we find in humans but the pattern is basically similar we find significantly more variation in chimpanzees or gorillas than in humans in fact in single group of chimpanzees or gorillas there can be more variation genetic variation from one individual to the next then in the entirety of the human species and in the same is the case for gray wolves and dogs you can see on this chart here we're looking at all of these different alleles and genes in the wild population domestication selecting and breeding for a purpose selecting for specific traits therefore you're you're weeding out a number of alleles and genes so the domesticate varieties have much less genetic variation I was asked a question way back when I first entered College by a professor in animal behavior and I got it wrong the question was are domesticate dogs smarter than wolves and I thought they were it turns out that all of these changes to the nature of what was once a wild animal are not always positive right there are often negative in some cases quite negative impacts to animals just to give you one quick example research has shown that through domestication dogs have actually lost their problem solving skills that they once had in the wild as wolves that wolves still have in behavioral settings pet dogs fail basic intelligence tests where as wolves and even wild dogs can pass with ease what you're looking at on the screen is an example of these single string double string tests in which a dog would have to pull a string through that's through the fence in order to move this uh this sliding block towards them and then they would be able to access food by pulling the string now if you make the string so that two dogs have to pull the string together that if one dog pulls the string then then it will actually move the string all the way around the back of the sliding wood structure and the the second dog wouldn't be able to grab the string before it disappeared behind the fence right and then that sliding block wouldn't move at all and then neither of those dogs or neither of those wolves would get any of the food so it it tests an understanding of the structure and of you know an understanding of a need to cooperate in order for both individuals to to receive Food dogs fail this uh not all the time but dogs fail this regularly whereas wolves again they don't always pass it that wolves much more consistently pass these kinds of tests