Just Finished Reading: Tamed – Ten Species that Changed Our World by Alice Roberts (FP: 2017) [332pp] 

It has long been thought that the great break, the great leap forward, in human existence was the move from hunter/gathering to farming. We moved, so it was assumed, from basically being nomads to being sedentary, and everything that followed made us what we are today. But was it that clear cut? Apparently not – not by a long way. Of course, we should know by now that not much in human history fits into neat little boxes. Things happen and are then lost or abandoned and then picked up again later, somewhere else. Sometimes a really good idea (in hindsight) just doesn’t take off and another, technically worse, idea lives on way beyond its ‘sell-by date’. Such is the convoluted and meandering story of domestication. Before the advent of detailed genetic analysis, it was assumed (admittedly for some good reasons) that farming began in the Fertile Crescent and was so successful it swept across the rest of Eurasia in an unstoppable wave of progress. A more detailed picture shows a patchwork of casual pastoralism where animals are sometimes hunted and sometimes ‘managed’ and where naturally occurring grasses are ‘harvested’ periodically during variable term semi-nomadic ‘lay-overs’. Farming, as we think of it today, took a long time to ‘bed in’ across Eurasia with some people’s never adopting the idea and others dipping in and out of the idea as circumstances allowed or dictated. It certainly wasn’t either a smooth or an inevitable process. Domestication of both plant and animal species across the world depended on the availability of suitable species – horses rather than zebras for example – opportunities for the process to begin (beneficial to both sides of the equation as shown by the numbers of chickens in the world following their domestication), population pressures, and even climate change. Looking at dogs, wheat, cattle, maize, potatoes, chickens, rice, horses and apples – plus our self-domestication – the author delves into the origins of the domestication process (as much as possible considering those origins sometimes greatly predate historical or archeological evidence – as with the transition from wolves to dogs), when and where it occurred and the consequent impact on both humanity and the domesticated creature or plant. 

I’ve been looking forward to reading this for a while now and was not disappointed. The author has a wonderful ‘voice’ and explains the genetic, archeological and anthropological aspects of domestication very well indeed. Needless to say, I learnt a LOT from this book. Some of it, she freely admits, is still speculative at this point but the speculation, where it does occur, is both highlighted as such and supported by what data we do have. It is interesting to know, as I’d read before, that horses (for example) evolved in North America but went extinct there – probably by human hand/spear - long before the Spanish reintroduced them after Columbus. It’s interest (as always) to speculate how the Spanish would have done if faced by something like the Apache on horseback in the 15th century. Equally it's interesting to speculate how history would’ve played out if horses had been pushed to total extinction in Eurasia too! If you’ve ever wondered where the staples of the planet’s diet come from (plus DOGS!) this is definitely the book for you. Highly recommended. 

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