Lecture 11 - World Of Discovery Flashcards
What lifestyle did most of human prehistory involve?
Hunter gatherers
Most ancestors lived in bands.
What significant environmental change occurred circa 10,000 - 4,000 BP?
Sea levels rose
This change influenced domestication in some regions.
What is an ecological niche?
How a population has adapted within a community of organisms in order to survive.
Example: burning grasslands.
What does an evolutionary niche take into account?
Selective pressures placed on a population
Example: sorghum in drought-stricken areas.
What defines plant domestication?
Human influence on the reproduction of another species
Girls and women likely played a key role.
What activities are involved in cultivation?
Preparing fields, sowing, weeding, harvesting, storing products
Cultivation is a careful modification of the environment.
What is agriculture?
Systematically modifying the environment for crops and animals
Ensures usefulness and productivity.
Define agroecology.
Systematically modified environment for domesticated plants.
It becomes the only environment within which they can grow.
Define Sedentism.
Humans inhabiting a single location rather than moving from place to place.
Involves accessing resources in a fixed location.
Name the 4 food getting strategies.
- Wild plant food procurement
- Wild plant food production
- Cultivation
- Agriculture
These strategies classify human food acquisition methods.
What does animal domestication involve?
Active human intervention by capturing and taming wild animals
Animals are removed from their natural habitat and bred for human benefit.
Which animal was likely the first to be domesticated?
The dog which was bred from the wolf.
What influenced the beginnings of domestication around 12,000 BP?
Environmental pressures
Glaciers melted, sea levels rose, and large mammals died out. Shifted hominin subsistence from large mammals to foraging for food.
True or False: Increasing demands for food and resources may have influenced domestication.
True
This is one of the theories regarding the start of domestication.
