The Wild Side of Animal Domestication

Nerissa Russell

ABSTRACT
This paper examines not the process but the concept of nonhuman animal domestication. Domestication involves both biological and cultural components. Creating a category of domestic animals means constructing and crossing the boundaries between human and animal, culture and nature. The concept of domestication thus structures the thinking both of researchers in the present and of domesticators and herders in the past. Some have argued for abandoning the notion of domestication in favor of a continuum of human-nonhuman animal relationships. Although many human-animal relationships cannot be neatly pigeonholed as wild or domestic, this paper contends that the concept of domestication retains its utility. There is a critical distinction between animals as a resource and animals as property. Domestication itself had profound consequences for the societies and worldview of the domesticators and their descendents. In addition to the material effects of animal wealth, domestic animals provide both a rich source of metaphor and a model of domination that can be extended to humans.

Nonhuman animal domestication is surely the most profound transformation that has occurred in human-animal relationships, setting the stage for later transformations that include factory farming, genetic engineering, and transplants of animal parts into human bodies. Animal domestication also has created, or at least is implicated in, some profound transformations in human-human relationships. For well over a century, archaeologists, zoologists, and animal scientists have studied the process of domestication has from various points of view. My purpose here is not to review this voluminous literature (Armitage, 1986, Benecke, 1994, Clutton-Brock, 1999, Crabtree, 1993; Gautier, 1992; Helmer, 1992; Wing, 1986). Rather, I will focus on the concept of domestication and its implications both for those who study it in the present and for those who have enacted it through the years.

Definitions

It has proven remarkably difficult to formulate a satisfactory definition of animal domestication. This results both from the wide range of human-nonhuman animal relationships that do not fit neatly into dichotomous wild/domestic categories and from the hybrid nature of animal domestication that involves both biological and social components (Clutton-Brock, 1992, p. 79; Crabtree, 1993, p. 205; Meadow, 1989, p. 81). Although most scholars recognize these dual aspects, they usually have stressed either the biological or the social side in their definitions, often according to their disciplinary background and goals. This duality maps onto the hoary nature/culture dichotomy. As a zooarchaeologist seeking to understand the process of domestication from the ancient animal bones and other material remains, I consider it critical to consider both components. Animal domestication serves as a particularly good example of the value of approaching this in terms of nature and culture rather than nature or culture or nature versus culture.

Most definitions of animal domestication make a distinction between taming and domestication, although the boundary may not be precisely the same for all writers. Taming is a prerequisite for domestication, necessary but not sufficient. Once established, however, a separate population of domestic animals may be herded in ways that do not involve taming, as in ranching (Ingold, 1980). Taming is a relationship between a particular person and a particular animal without long-term effects beyond the lifetime of that animal. Domestication is a relationship with a population of animals that often leads to morphological and behavioral changes in that population (Bökönyi, 1969, 1989; Clutton-Brock, 1994; Harris, 1996; Hesse, 1984; Ingold, 1980, p. 82, 1984; Reitz and Wing, 1999, pp. 279-305). Many hunting peoples occasionally tame animals as pets or decoys, but this does not fundamentally alter human-animal relationships or social and economic relationships among humans. Nor does it lead to biological changes in the animal, as long as the tamed animal does not breed and establish a population in captivity.

Biological Definitions

Those who emphasize the biological side of animal domestication generally stress either human control of breeding or human-animal symbiosis. These two approaches have quite different implications for human agency and intentionality.

Control of Breeding

Definitions of domestication that privilege control of breeding are particularly associated with scholars whose backgrounds are in animal science, as was true of many of the early faunal analysts in the Old World. Thus, Bökönyi (1969, p. 219) offers what most would regard as the classic definition of animal domestication: “…the capture and taming by man of animals of a species with particular behavioral characteristics, their removal from their natural living area and breeding community, and their maintenance under controlled breeding conditions for profit.” The critical elements in this definition are the control of movement and of breeding, which separate the domestic animals from the wild breeding population. Only under these circumstances can the genetic changes of domestication take place. Although Bökönyi surely meant it in a general sense, the capitalistic tone of “for profit” seems out of place in a Neolithic context. Bökönyi presumably included it to exclude companion animals or pets from the category of domesticates.

Profit is retained, although softened, in a more recent definition by Clutton-Brock (1994, p. 26) in which a domesticated animal is “…one that has been bred in captivity, for purposes of subsistence or profit, in a human community that maintains complete mastery over its breeding, organization of territory, and food supply.” Here, the stress on control is even stronger. This is the end point of what both Clutton-Brock and Bökönyi (1969) regard as a long and gradual process, not an event. Thus, animals subject to less than complete mastery must be only partially domesticated. Bökönyi (pp. 219-220) identifies two stages in the process of animal domestication: animal keeping in which only the movements and breeding of animals are controlled; and animal breeding, where the herders practice both artificial selection and control of feeding. In the Old World, people are animal keepers from the Neolithic but become animal breeders only in the Classical period. This perhaps is too neat a dichotomy; one can easily imagine that people could control animals’ movements but not their breeding or that they might control their feeding long before artificial selection. However, it gives some sense of how the process of domestication might proceed.

Clutton-Brock (1994) sees behavioral modification as perhaps even more important than genetic change. In an unusual twist, she argues that as well as controlling their movement, feeding and breeding, people control domestic animals’ transmission of culture. This rests on a somewhat eccentric definition of culture another concept that is notoriously difficult to define (Borofsky,Barth, Shweder, Rodseth, & Stolzenberg, 2001) as “…a way of life imposed over successive generations on a society of humans or animals by its elders” (Clutton-Brock, p. 29). Thus, by usurping the position of the dominant animals, widely regarded as an essential part of domestication or even taming, humans become “elders” to their domestic animals and impose a different culture on them. Although Clutton-Brock couches this in cozy familial terms, overthrowing the native leaders and forcing the adoption of a foreign culture is much more like imperialism. Indeed, the definition of domestication in terms of control models the human-animal relations of domestication as powerful, active humans dominating subordinate, passive animals. Bökönyi (1969) and Clutton-Brock both think that people domesticated animals (other than dogs) to provide a steady meat supply. Thus, they cast the humans as acting consciously and deliberately, for profit.

Symbiosis

The focus on control of breeding arises from the desire to explain how an animal population can be isolated from the wild genetic pool. The champions of this classic definition are interested in the biological effects of domestication in the animals, but they seek the cause in the cultural sphere of deliberate human behavior. They thus implicitly invoke a nature/culture dichotomy, with humans outside of nature. An alternative approach denies culture and places humans firmly back into nature. This school interprets the relationship of domestication itself in biological terms as a symbiotic relationship no different from that between ants and aphids. Proponents such as Zeuner (1963) explicitly deny human intentionality, at least initially, in domestication. Although Zeuner sees early domestication as deriving from tolerated scavenging (dogs, pigs, ducks), human parasitism on animal herds (reindeer, sheep, goat), or control of crop robbers (cattle, water buffalo, elephant, rabbit, goose), he does allow that people later deliberately domesticated additional animals (cat, chicken, horse, camel).

O’Connor (1997) prefers the symbiotic model because it acknowledges animals as equal partners in the relationship. He argues that it is wrong to see domestication as human exploitation of animals. Rather, it is a mutualistic relationship benefiting both. Clutton-Brock (1994, p. 27) rejects this view, because humans benefit more and have modified animals in ways that are maladaptive for them. However, it all depends on the definition of “benefit.” Although such modifications would act to the detriment of domestic animals returned to the wild and may well impair their quality of life, it is undeniable that the populations and ranges of domestic animals have expanded dramatically, usually at the expense of their wild counterparts. So in terms of reproductive success, domestic animals have benefited from the relationship.

Approaching domestication as a symbiotic relationship erases human intentionality and seemingly empowers animals while drawing attention away from the issue of exploitation. O'Connor (1997, p. 54) proposes that instead of asking why people chose to control animals, we should ask why humans became particularly attractive to certain animals at certain times and places. This model renders it unnecessary to include phrases such as “for profit” in definitions of domestication or to distinguish between pets and domestic animals. In fact, domestication ceases to have any real meaning. Rather, both parties adapt to a variety of human-animal relationships.

It is useful to be reminded that animals participate actively in domestication and other human-animal relationships. Although this approach has its advantages, we should not forget the human end of the human-animal relationship. Thus, it also is productive to examine the social aspects of domestication.

Social Definitions

Those who give more weight to the social aspect of domestication emphasize changes in human-animal and human-human relationships. These changes are conceptualized not in terms of symbiosis but of bringing animals into the human sphere.

Property

O’Connor (1997) prefers to treat domestication as symbiosis partly because the relationships between humans and animals conventionally regarded as domestic are so variable in terms of control (cattle, cats, elephants, honeybees). Ducos (1978, 1989) recognizes these difficulties and finds classic definitions such as Bökönyi’s (1969) inadequate.
It is not obvious, however, that there does exist a single common criterion for all the man/animal relationships we call domestication. In fact it is possible that our intuition of what is domestication corresponds to modern situations, not to ancient ones. (Ducos, 1978, p. 53)

He also rejects domestication as symbiosis, because domestication is not a relationship among equals but something that humans impose on animals. Ducos casts his definition in social terms: “…domestication can be said to exist when living animals are integrated as objects into the socioeconomic organization of the human group, in the sense that, while living, those animals are objects for ownership, inheritance, exchange, trade, etc.…” (p. 54). That is, the essence of domestication is converting animals into property. This may or may not involve control of movement and breeding, but for Ducos it implies a major conceptual shift from relating to animals as species to relating to them as individuals. Perhaps this is better expressed as a change in focus from the dead to the living animal (Meadow 1984, 1993). Although not all forms of herding involve relationships with individual animals, it is striking that one of the effects of domestication has been greater morphological variation, which makes it easier to distinguish individual animals.

Ducos (1978) acknowledges that domestication has both biological and social aspects and proposes labeling animals who are integrated into the human sphere “domesticated” and those exhibiting morphological signs of domestication “domestic.” Ingold (1980, p. 82) makes essentially the same distinction but unfortunately uses exactly the opposite terminology (“domestic” for animals incorporated into the human household, “domesticated” for those showing morphological change). Ingold breaks down domestication into three elements that do not necessarily co-occur: taming, herding, and breeding. “Taming” means bringing the animal into the household, not necessarily as property (so pets would be included). “Herding” involves keeping groups of animals as property these animals are not necessarily either domestic or domesticated. “Breeding” naturally refers to control of reproduction. Although this is likely to lead to morphological domestication, such animals may not be socially domestic if, as in ranching, they may run wild.

When animals become property, human-human relationships are also transformed. For Ingold (1984, p. 4), domestication means “…the social incorporation or appropriation of successive generations of animals” by humans. Although living wild animals are not directly engaged in human social relations, tame animals have personal relations with individual humans; domestic animals are the objects or vehicles of relations between human individuals and households. This locates the key change in animal domestication not in the animals’ bodies, nor even in human-animal relations, but in the social definition of animals as a resource. It is a change in human social relations. People share wild animals; they husband domestic ones. It is ownership that makes this husbanding possible (Alvard & Kuznar, 2001).

Digard (1990) takes perhaps the broadest view of domestication, seeking a definition that will include not only pets but also animals captured from the wild for human use who do not breed in captivity. Thus, he rejects the usual distinction between taming and domestication as well as that between domestic and domesticated animals. Instead, although he sees possession and domination as the key features of domestication, he conceives of domestication as a process that essentially is the same in all cases. The degree of domestication varies according to the inherent suitability of the animal species and the technological and social features of the human society. Rather than think in terms of a state of domestication, Digard argues that we should focus on domesticatory action that people exert on animals in the context of a particular, culturally variable, domesticatory system. He sees no value in defining a particular threshold at which we consider animals to be domesticated or fully domesticated.

Rejecting Domestication

From both the biological and the social perspective, then, some define domestication so broadly as to render the concept of limited utility. Others have advocated the abandonment of the concept of domestication, which they feel obscures, rather than enlightens, in that it creates a false dichotomy. For them, human-animal relations form a continuum along which there are only differences of degree. In fact, we are indebted to the palaeoeconomy school for introducing the concept of human-animal relations (or “man-animal relations,” as they put it), as an alternative to the wild/domestic dichotomy (Higgs & Jarman, 1972; Jarman, 1972, 1977; Jarman & Wilkinson, 1972). Jarman and his fellow palaeoeconomists felt that domestication by the standard definition was a biological concept based on morphological change that did not address the kinds of human-animal relationships involved in hunting or herding. They preferred to study “animal husbandry”: the control of animals’ lives that is present to varying degrees along the continuum of human-animal relations.

Hecker (1982) likewise rejects the dichotomous concept of domestication, preferring to focus on human-animal relations by replacing it with the term “cultural control.” His objection is different from the palaeoeconomists. It is not that he sees the transition from hunting to herding as unimportant but that morphological change may not correspond to the behavioral changes of interest to anthropologists. The elements of Hecker’s “cultural control” are remarkably similar to the defining features of domestication for Bökönyi (1969) and Clutton-Brock (1994): deliberate interference with movement, breeding, or population structure that is of long enough duration to require active care, affecting a whole group of animals (not just individual pets), and rendering this group more accessible for future human use (p. 219). Intentionality is explicitly a key element, in contrast to the alaeoeconomists for whom it is just noise (Higgs & Jarman 1975).

Thus, many who have rejected the concept of domestication are objecting less to the concept than to the methods used to recognize it archaeologically in the early years of zooarchaeology, which relied mainly on morphological change. In contrast to the symbiotic view, they stress human agency, but their concern is with its effect on the structure of animal populations and the organization of human subsistence rather than the incorporation of animals into human society and its effect on human social relations.

Summary

In reviewing these various approaches to animal domestication, it is not my intention to judge which ones are valid and which are not. They focus on different aspects of a complex phenomenon and are suited to different purposes, depending, in part, on whether one is more interested in the changes in the humans or the changes in the animals. As an archaeologist, I am primarily concerned with the human social context of domestication, but the biological changes provide crucial information about herding practices.

If we try to formulate a holistic approach to animal domestication, each of these definitions has something to offer. The biological definitions, in particular, bring out the importance of viewing domestication as a process (Clutton-Brock, 1992). Not only do morphological changes happen gradually, but herding systems change. Digard’s (1990) notion of “domesticatory action” seems useful here and also helps to avoid the sense of an inevitable progression from one step of the process to the next. We should ask not simply whether the animals are domestic but inquire into the specific practices of domestication.

The point at which animals become property is critical in terms of both human-human and human-animal relations and is the point at which we should begin to see alterations in human and animal behavior. Morphological change, to the extent that it is genetic, can occur only when domestic populations are isolated from wild ancestors. Unless this is a result of transport of the domestic animals outside their wild range (demonstrating at least control of movement) or of the extirpation of local wild populations, it indicates closer human control of the animals. Artificial selection, usually marked by the appearance of breeds, is a further intensification of this process. Modeling the domesticatory process as symbiosis reminds us that it is not simply a matter of human control but of interaction among species. The human side of this mutual adaptation, at least in most instances, has a larger component of intentionality than is normally implied by symbiosis. A good case can be made that dogs and cats initially “domesticated themselves” by entering into a commensal relationship with humans, although later both have been subject to extensive control of breeding and movement.

Jarman (1972) and his colleagues have done us a great service by introducing the idea of a continuum of human-animal relationships. I do not agree, however, that domestication in the social sense is simply a point of no particular significance along this continuum. The transformation of animals from shared resource to property is a major and critical transition that is not adequately modeled as sliding along a continuum. There is a real difference between managing wild animals through conservation measures and appropriating domestic animals as property. The distinction lies not so much in the practices of animal control as in the human social relations. This is a quantum shift in human-animal relations that we cannot ignore, a difference not only of degree but also of kind. However, it is unlikely to correspond with the appearance of morphological change in animals, so we must rely on other lines of evidence to detect it. This is not the place for a discussion of the methods of studying animal domestication. I will observe only that as well as reconstructing the demographics of the animals killed, it would be useful to examine how the meat is distributed among households and to consider the contexts of consumption (feasting vs. daily household meals), as these are likely to alter with changing property relations.

Implications of Domestication

We have seen that the way domestication is defined is related to the definers’ view of the relationship between nature and culture and the place of humans with respect to nature. Casting the issue in terms of a dichotomy between the wild and the domestic leads to many problems. However, it is the wild, not domestication, that is problematic. When the wild is implicitly defined as everything that is not domestic, we are left with a grab bag of different human-animal relationships that includes pets, totems, game, animals captured and kept for some length of time before ritual sacrifice, animals transported to islands and released to live and breed on their own, and animal populations managed in various ways.

Changing the dichotomy to a continuum is not enough. For example, pets can be either wild or domestic, and totemic and shamanic relationships with animals have little to do with domestication, although such animals usually are not domesticated. If we view human-animal relations not as a continuum but as a spectrum, with domestication as one human-animal relationship among many, we can retain a sense of its importance without dismissing other kinds of human-animal relationships. This helps to resolve some of the difficulties in defining domestication, such as whether and how to include pets.

Similarly, when ancient peoples domesticated plants and animals, among other things they created a category of the Wild. The Wild cannot exist until there is a Domestic. The creation of this dichotomy has had profound consequences for human thought and perhaps for human societies. At the least, it has been a rich source of metaphor. We do not have to look far for this in our own society, whether it is the nobility and ferocity of wild animals invoked as team mascots or the denigration of other humans as living like wild animals. The classic works of Leach (1964) and Tambiah (1969) demonstrate that other cultures have made similar symbolic use of the wild and domestic.

This is not to say that the Wild has everywhere the same meaning. In particular, we should avoid equating wild/domestic with nature/culture. Although this may hold in contemporary western society, it is certainly not universally the case (Strathern 1980). A large body of recent scholarship has revealed the socially constructed and historically contingent character of nature (Barry, 1999; Cartmill, 1993; Oelschlaeger, 1991; Thomas, 1983). Similarly, the Wild in general and wild animals in particular hold rather different connotations among and within cultures and according to context. The metaphor of the Wild and its potential domestication is one that can be manipulated to many ends in social negotiations.

Although I am discussing the domestication of animals, I also should add that animal domestication is hardly the only and in most societies probably not the first way to create the Domestic, and hence the Wild. Leaving aside dogs, who may have entered domestication through a different route from most animals, the domestication of herd and barnyard animals took place in the context of plant agriculture, that is, subsequent to plant domestication. We may have to rethink this blanket statement if claims of pig domestication in the context of a foraging economy at Hallan Çemi in eastern Turkey withstand scrutiny (Rosenberg, Nesbitt, Redding, & Peasnall, 1998. It can be argued, hearkening back to the root meaning of domestication, that the domestic/wild distinction was created by the construction of solid houses (Hodder, 1990; Wilson, 1988). These developments very likely made animal domestication thinkable.

I would argue, though, that animal domestication gave the wild/domestic distinction new force. Animal metaphors are particularly powerful and particularly prone to being applied to human beings (Tilley, 1999, pp. 49-51). Animal domestication creates a new set of possibilities. Although not every society may stress the wild/domestic distinction, most with domestic animals regard this as important. Among the Mafulu of New Guinea, wild and domestic pigs are genetically and presumably phenotypically identical. Wild and domestic pigs interbreed freely, and domestic pigs go feral. Wild pigs are captured and raised as domestic. Nevertheless, specific ceremonies require the consumption of either wild or domestic pigs, and one cannot be substituted for the other (Rosman & Rubel, 1989 pp. 30-31).

Most often, domestic animals are regarded as inferior to their wild counterparts, perhaps lacking the souls possessed by wild animals (Ingold, 1987). The relations of animal domestication are inherently unequal, and this has provided both a metaphor and a model for domination. This metaphor has been applied to subordinate humans at least from Sumerian times (Algaze, 2001, p. 212). Tani (1996) even argues that the practice of creating human eunuchs may have been inspired by the gelding of bell-wethers. Such models have clearly flowed the other way as well, with human domination of other humans shaping modes of animal exploitation (Tapper, 1988).

It is a difficult, if fascinating, question whether human inequality inspired animal domestication or vice versa. Certainly in the Old World, animal domestication precedes detectable hierarchy in the archaeological record. In the New World, the situation is more complicated, because states developed in Mesoamerica and complex societies in parts of North America without domestic herd animals. Some Mesoamerican societies did treat dogs as a minor herd animal, but this probably postdates the appearance of human hierarchies. However, while domestic herd animals more or less necessitate property relations, even dogs, which were present throughout the New World, are likely to be seen as belonging to particular people. Dogs attach themselves to individual people, adopt a position of subordination, and in many cases were valued for their labor. Thus even in the New World, domestic animals may have provided a mental template for domination.

On the other hand, Ingold (1987, p. 254) argues that animal domestication is modeled on relations of inequality within the human household, although it seems to me that domestic animals occupy a position more like that of children than of wife. If indeed domestic animals initially enter the household as “children,” the permanence of that position alters the relationship. This new model can then be projected onto humans, as in metaphors of leaders (or gods) paternalistically caring for their “flocks” (Brotherston, 1989).

Conclusion

In this brief paper, I have painted with a very broad brush in an effort to convey a sense of the power of the concept of animal domestication in both past and present. A full understanding of how this has played out must derive from careful studies of particular societies. I simply suggest that the idea of domestication, and particularly animal domestication, provides an important tool in power negotiations among humans as well as between humans and animals.

Although I have not discussed it here, I do not intend to minimize the material effects of animal domestication on human societies. Clearly, the appropriation of animals as property creates not only a new source of wealth and base for power but also one with particular properties that have crucial social implications (Ingold, 1980; Schneider, 1979; Russell, 1998). From the scholarly perspective, I believe that one of the difficulties of studying animal domestication, its simultaneously biological and social character, also is one of its virtues. Domestication is a concept that can bridge disciplines as well as mediating or even negating the nature/culture dichotomy.


* Nerissa Russell, Cornell University

References

Algaze, G. (2001). Initial social complexity in southwestern Asia: The Mesopotamian advantage. Current Anthropology, 42, 199-233.

Alvard, M. S., and Kuznar, L. A. (2001). Deferred harvests: The transition from hunting to animal husbandry. American Anthropologist, 103, 295-311.

Armitage, P. L. (1986). Domestication of animals. In D. J. A Cole, & G. C. Brander (Eds.), Bioindustrial ecosystems (pp. 5-30 ) Amsterdam: Elsevier.

Barry, J. (1999). Environment and social theory. London: Routledge.

Brotherston, G. (1989). Andean pastoralism and Inca ideology. In J. Clutton-Brock (Ed.), The walking larder: Patterns of domestication, pastoralism, and predation (pp. 240-255). London: Unwin Hyman.

Cartmill, M. (1993). A view to a death in the morning: Hunting and nature through history., Cambridge: Harvard University Press,

Clutton-Brock, J. (1992). The process of domestication. Mammal Review, 22, 79-85.

Clutton-Brock, J. (1994). The unnatural world: Behavioural aspects of humans and animals in the process of domestication. In A.

Manning & J. A. Serpell (Eds.), Animals and human society: Changing perspectives (pp. 23-35) London: Routledge

Clutton-Brock, J. (1999). A natural history of domesticated mammals. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Crabtree, P. J. (1993). Early animal domestication in the Middle East and Europe. In B. Schiffer (Ed.), Archaeological method and theory: Vol. 5 (pp. 201-245). Tucson: University of Arizona Press.

Digard, J.-P. (1990). L'Homme et les animaux domestiques: Anthropologie d'une passion [Man and domestic animals: The anthropology of a passion]. Paris: Fayard.

Ducos, P. (1978). Domestication defined and methodological approaches to its recognition in faunal assemblages. In R. H. Meadow & M. A. Zeder (Eds.), Approaches to faunal analysis in the Middle East ( pp. 53-56). Peabody museum bulletins No. 2. Cambridge:
Peabody Museum,

Ducos, P. (1989). Defining domestication: A clarification. In J. Clutton-Brock (Ed.), The walking larder: Patterns of domestication, pastoralism, and predation (pp. 28-30). London: Unwin Hyman.

Gautier, A. (1992). La domestication, editions [Domestication]. Paris: Errance.

Harris, D. R. (1996). Domesticatory relationships of people, plants and animals. In R. F. Ellen & K. Fukui (Eds.), Redefining nature: Ecology, culture and domestication (pp. 437-463). Oxford: Berg.

Hecker, H. M. (1982). Domestication revisited: Its implications for faunal analysis. Journal of Field Archaeology, 9, 217-236.

Helmer, D. (1992). La domestication des animaux par les hommes préhistoriques [Prehistoric animal domestication]. Paris: Masson.

Hesse, B. C. (1984). These are our goats: The origins of herding in west central Iran. In J. Clutton-Brock, & C. Grigson (Eds.), Animals and archaeology: 3. Early herders and their flocks (pp. 243-264). (British Archaeological Reports, International Series, No. 202) Oxford: British Archaeological Reports.

Higgs, E. S., & Jarman, M. R. (1972). The origins of animal and plant husbandry. In E. S. Higgs (Ed.), Papers in economic prehistory: Studies by members and associates of the British Academy major research project in the early history of agriculture (pp. 3-13). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Higgs, E. S., & Jarman, M. R (1975). Palaeoeconomy. In E. S. Higgs (Ed.), Palaeoeconomy (pp. 1-7). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Hodder, I. (1990). The domestication of Europe: Structure and contingency in neolithic societies. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Ingold, T. (1980). Hunters, pastoralists, and ranchers: Reindeer economies and their transformations. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.

Ingold, T. (1984). Time, social relationships and the exploitation of animals: Anthropological reflections on prehistory. In J. Clutton-Brock & C. Grigson (Eds.), Animals and archaeology: 3. Early herders and their flocks (pp. 3-12). (British Archaeological Reports,
International Series, No. 202). Oxford: British Archaeological Reports.

Ingold, T. (1987). The appropriation of nature: Essays on human ecology and social relations, Iowa City: University of Iowa Press.

Jarman, M. R. (1972). European deer economies and the advent of the Neolithic. In E. S. Higgs (Ed.), Papers in economic prehistory: Studies by members and associates of the British Academy major research project in the early history of agriculture (pp. 125-147).Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

M. R. Jarman (1977). Early animal husbandry. In J. Hutchinson, J. G. D. Clark, E. M. Jope, & R. Riley (Eds.), The early history of agriculture (pp. 85-94). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Jarman, M. R., & Wilkinson, P. F. (1972). Criteria of animal domestication. In E. S. Higgs (Ed.), Papers in economic prehistory: Studies by members and associates of the British Academy major research project in the early history of agriculture (pp. 83-96). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Leach, E. R. (1964). Anthropological aspects of language: Animal categories and verbal abuse. In E. H Lenneberg (Ed.), New directions in the study of language (pp. 23-63). Cambridge: MIT Press.

Meadow, R. H. (1984). Animal domestication in the Middle East: A view from the eastern margin. In J. Clutton-Brock & C. Grigson (Eds.), Animals and archaeology: 3. Early herders and their flocks (pp. 309-337). (British Archaeological Reports, International Series, No. 202) .Oxford: British Archaeological Reports.

Meadow, R. H (1989). Osteological evidence for the process of animal domestication. In J. Clutton-Brock (Ed.), The walking larder: Patterns of domestication, pastoralism, and predation (pp. 80-90). London: Unwin Hyman

Meadow, R. H. (1993). Animal domestication in the Middle East: A revised view from the eastern margin. In G. L Possehl (Ed.), Harappan civilization (pp. 295-320). New Delhi: Oxford & IBH.

O'Connor, T. P. (1997). Working at relationships: Another look at animal domestication. Antiquity, 71, 149-156.
Oelschlaeger, M. (1991). The idea of wilderness: From prehistory to the age of ecology. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Reitz, E. J. & Wing, E. S. (1999). Zooarchaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Rosenberg, M., Nesbitt, R. M., Redding, R. W., & Peasnall, B. L. (1998). Hallan Ùemi, pig husbandry, and post-Pleistocene adaptations along the Taurus-Zagros arc (Turkey). Paléorient, 24, 25-41.

Rosman, A., & Rubel, P. G. (1989). Stalking the wild pig: Hunting and horticulture in Papua New Guinea. In S. Kent (Ed.), Farmers as hunters: The implications of sedentism (pp. 27-36). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

Russell, N. (1998). Cattle as wealth in Neolithic Europe: Where's the beef? In D. W. Bailey (Ed.), The archaeology of value: Essays on prestige and the processes of valuation (pp. 42-54). (British Archaeological Reports, International Series, No. 730). Oxford: British Archaeological Reports.

Schneider, H. K. (1979). Livestock and equality in East Africa: The economic basis for social structure. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Strathern, M. (1980). No nature, no culture: The Hagen case. In C. P. MacCormack & M. Strathern (Eds.), Nature, culture and gender (pp. 174-222). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Tambiah, S. J. (1969). Animals are good to think and good to prohibit. Ethnology, 8, 423-459.

Tani, Y. (1996). Domestic animal as serf: Ideologies of nature in the Mediterranean and the Middle East. In R. F. Ellen, & K. Fukui (Eds.), Redefining nature: Ecology, culture and domestication (pp. 387-415). Oxford: Berg.

Tapper, R. (1988). Animality, humanity, morality, society. In T. Ingold (Ed.), What is an animal? (pp. 47-62). London: Unwin Hyman.

Thomas, K. (1983). Man and the natural world: A history of the modern sensibility. New York: Pantheon.

Tilley, C. (1999). Metaphor and material culture. Oxford: Blackwell.

Wilson, P. J. (1988). The domestication of the human species. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Wing, E. S. (1986). Domestication of Andean mammals. In F. Vuilleumier, F. & M. Monasterio (Eds.), High altitude Tropical biogeography (pp. 246-264). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Zeuner, F. E. (1963). A history of domesticated animals. New York: Harper & Row.
 

For Abstracts of all issues, including the most current, click Article Abstracts

To order Society & Animals Journal, go to our secure online ordering page

You can Search the online issues of Society & Animals, as well as the entire Society & Animals Forum (formerly PSYETA) website,
for topics and keywords of your interest: