The Origins of Plant and Animal Domestication
Paragraph 1: the rate at which Earth’s surface was modified and the rates of human population growth.
Paragraph 2: humans used and manipulated wild plants and animals for many hundreds of thousands of years
not abruptly
gradual
Paragraph 3: many different groups of people in many different places around the globe learned independently to create especially useful plants and animals through selective breeding
Paragraph 4: the reason that people tured to cultivating instead of gathering food
used to assume
not valid (why)
they had to in order to feed burgeoning populations
agriculture provided such obviously better nutrition
the risk attached to exploring new food sources when there were already too many mouths to feed would be too great
agriculture did not necessarily improve nutrition or supplies of food
populations expanded after agricultural successes, and not before
Paragraph 5: the chance to trade was at the heart of agricultural origins worldwide
pursue cultivation and animal raising
they would have had access to new information, plants, and animals brought in by traders
they would have had a need for something to trade with the people passing through
at first just a profitable hobby
grew into the primary source of sustenance
Paragraph 6: agricultural production for trade may have been the impetus for several global situations now regarded as problems
social inequalities
environmental degradation
rapid population growth
groups turned to raising animals and plants in order to reap the profits of trading them
a minority elite emerged
as ever larger populations depended solely on agriculture, famine became more common