1. Melinda A. Zeder
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http://www.pnas.org/search?author1=Melinda+A.++Zeder&sortspec=date&submit=Submit> *
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http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2008/08/11/0801317105.abstract#corresp-1>
+ <
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2008/08/11/0801317105.abstract>
Author Affiliations
1. Archaeobiology Program, National Museum of Natural History,
Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20013
1. Edited by Jeremy A. Sabloff, University of Pennsylvania Museum of
Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia, PA, and approved May 27,
2008 (received for review March 20, 2008)
Abstract
The past decade has witnessed a quantum leap in our understanding of the
origins, diffusion, and impact of early agriculture in the Mediterranean
Basin. In large measure these advances are attributable to new methods
for documenting domestication in plants and animals. The initial steps
toward plant and animal domestication in the Eastern Mediterranean can
now be pushed back to the 12th millennium cal B.P. Evidence for herd
management and crop cultivation appears at least 1,000 years earlier
than the morphological changes traditionally used to document
domestication. Different species seem to have been domesticated in
different parts of the Fertile Crescent, with genetic analyses detecting
multiple domestic lineages for each species. Recent evidence suggests
that the expansion of domesticates and agricultural economies across the
Mediterranean was accomplished by several waves of seafaring colonists
who established coastal farming enclaves around the Mediterranean Basin.
This process also involved the adoption of domesticates and domestic
technologies by indigenous populations and the local domestication of
some endemic species. Human environmental impacts are seen in the
complete replacement of endemic island faunas by imported mainland fauna
and in today's anthropogenic, but threatened, Mediterranean landscapes
where sustainable agricultural practices have helped maintain high
biodiversity since the Neolithic.
*archaeology
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http://www.pnas.org/search?fulltext=archaeology&sortspec=date&submit=Submit>
*livestock
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http://www.pnas.org/search?fulltext=livestock&sortspec=date&submit=Submit>
Footnotes
<mailto:
zederm@si.edu>
*Author contributions: M.A.Z. designed research, performed
research, synthesized research in referenced publications, and wrote the
paper.
*The authors declare no conflict of interest.
*This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.
*(c) 2008 by The National Academy of Science
