Details of early domestications remain unclear. One must assume a process of mutual accommodation between… — William H. McNeill
Details of early domestications remain unclear. One must assume a process of mutual accommodation between humanity and various domesticable species. This involved rapid and sometimes far-reaching change in the biological character of domesticated plants and animals as a result of both accidental and deliberate selection for particular traits. Conversely, one can assume that a radical, if rarely deliberate, selection among human beings occurred as well. Individuals who refused to submit to laborious routines of farming, for instance, must often have failed to survive, and those who could not or would not save seed for next year's planting, and instead ate all they had, were quickly eliminated from communities that become dependent upon annual crops.
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