How Did Humans Domesticate Wild Plants and Animals Around 12,000 Years Ago, and How Did It Lead to Farming? — Here’s What Researchers Discovered

For most of human history, our ancestors did not plant crops and take care of livestock. Instead, they scavenged, hunted, foraged, and gathered edible resources for millions of years. However, around 12,000 years ago, humans around the world began to shift to another lifestyle, one that would eventually lay down the foundation for modern civilization.

Rather than just taking and collecting what nature has to offer, early humans actively managed the plants and animals around them to be more suitable for their use and survival. This process is called domestication, and after a long period of time, it evolved even further and gave rise to farming and agriculture. However, how exactly did this process unfold, and how could it lead to farming? Let’s dive deeper into these ideas and find out how they affected our evolution as a species.

Early Experiments and the Slow Start

Long before humanity started the actual practice of farming, they were already collecting different seeds and crops. They chose the plants that have larger seeds and are easier to harvest. In some regions, they watered and then protected wild plants from weeds and animal harm.

Over a long time, they gradually learned that planting those seeds could also produce new plants that would provide more food sources for them. Although these probably happened unintentionally at first, the hunter-gatherers still dropped the wild plant seeds around their usual camping sites. Then they saved those with larger seeds, faster growth, and more edible materials, leading to domestication.

Similarly, in the case of animals, they also began to live around the early humans’ campsite. This is because they were attracted by the carcasses and other leftover food. Over many generations, they began to develop a relationship with humans, basically because they could obtain a reliable food source around these campsites instead of hunting and scavenging in the wild for themselves.

This is also the process that was theorized to explain how wolves became dogs and the closest friends of humans more than 12,000 years ago. The wolves that kept approaching humans and were friendlier to them than the rest were able to get reliable food sources, which over time developed to be friendlier and closer to humans, because they also helped in hunting and alarming the group, creating a coevolutionary relationship.

In other words, domestication for both wild plants and animals did not happen intentionally at first. It most likely is a result of an unintentional action that benefited the species and slowly changed them, to the point that they evolved together with humans. But, these are just the general concepts; let’s dive even deeper into how it affected humans and eventually led to the farming and agricultural practices we do today.

Read more: Science Direct

How Wild Plants Became Crops

Did We Domesticate Plants--or Did They Domesticate Us? The Answer Might Not be so Clear.

One of the major changes in the lifestyle of humans was the domestication of wild plants until they became crops. Certain plant species were first unintentionally selected, but over time, humans were able to intentionally choose the best plants that were more suited for human use.

Some of the key traits that they looked for were larger seeds because it has a higher yield, and plants that dropped fewer seeds so humans could harvest them themselves, and store them for future use. Over time, the plants changed and coevolved with humans.

As our early ancestors kept on choosing larger seeds, they were able to dramatically increase the size of the yield over a long period. Examples include the domestication of Maize. As humans selected the plants with larger kernels to store and plant later, it developed to be much larger corn and more kernels after many generations.

These changes genetically accumulated over time. Humans and these plant species became dependent on each other. The gradual increase in the yield of the plants gave early humans a more reliable and surplus food supply, allowing them to support an increase in their population. Then, as the group became larger, they systematized and intensified the cultivation of these plants until they gradually developed into farming.

How Wild Animals Became Livestock

From Hunters to Farmers: How Animals Transformed Civilization | Full Documentary

The path of animals becoming livestock or being domesticated is a little bit more complicated. The leading theory was the commensal relationship between these animals and early humans. It states that some animals adapted to live near humans and benefit from their leftover food. Then, over time, humans began to be able to influence their diet, breeding, and eventually their behavior, as those with more favorable and helpful traits are preferred.

There is also another pathway where humans hunted some animals as their prey, but over time learned how to control themselves to still allow and manage these animals’ reproduction. This made sure that they would not exhaust their resources and have a meat food supply in the long run.

Then there is a more deliberate pathway where humans purposely capture the wild animals to breed them. They also learned how to selectively breed and choose the best characteristics from these species. Humans favored the animals that do not pose a great danger to their lives, have good social temperament, have a flexible diet, and provide utilitarian value, such as transportation, like horses.

Over time, the domesticated animals were given the safety to reproduce and have a reliable food source, and in return, they provided meat, milk, hunting assistance, and even companionship.

Read more: PubMed Central

Transition to Farming Communities

The Day Humans First Domesticated Animals: The Dawn of Domestication | Early Humans Documentary

Once enough species of wild plants and animals were domesticated, more groups of early humans transitioned into farming, although this process was gradual and occurred over thousands of years. It also happened around the end of the last great ice age, around 12,000 years ago, with some animal domestication occurring years before that. This environmental shift made some habitats abundant and the climate warmer and more predictable, which allowed humans to experiment and have sedentary lifestyles.

Since farming required staying in the field and the animals, people began to settle down and build permanent homes. Instead of constantly moving to find food and resources as hunter-gatherers, they created villages and communities near their new and reliable food sources.

With the settled lifestyle and the development of farming, early humans began to have a surplus of food supply. This meant that they would be able to support a larger group, and the less movement also allowed for frequent and safer birth, ultimately causing their population to rise.

With more people and a surplus of food, it meant that not everyone needs to be involved in the food production. So, different new jobs and responsibilities came up, such as those artisans who create pottery for storing the crops, or builders who create agricultural tools and their houses.

Over many generations, the farming technique improved, and the domestication of wild plants and animals became the trigger for the Neolithic revolution or the widespread transition to farming and agriculture.

Author's Final Thoughts

The transition from hunter-gatherers into farmers was one of the most significant milestones in human history, but it probably would not have happened without the prior domestication of wild plants and animals.

When our ancestors were unknowingly and unintentionally choosing the best and most suitable plants for their use, such as those species with larger seeds and easier to harvest, they were already practicing selective breeding that would prove to be very beneficial during the transition to agriculture. Similarly to the wild animals that coevolved with them as they grew more dependent on each other.

In other words, with the successful domestication of wild plants and animals, we may still be hunters and gatherers today. But, because of it, we were able to transition into farming, which gave rise to villages, then cities, and ultimately to the great civilizations in our history and all the changes that come with them.

Read next: Why Did Early Humans Transition From Hunting and Gathering to Agriculture Around 12,000 Years Ago? — Here’s What Scientists Found

References & Further Reading

Zeder, M. A. (2008). Domestication and early agriculture in the Mediterranean Basin: Origins, diffusion, and impact. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0801317105

Purugganan, M. D., & Fuller, D. Q. (2009). The nature of selection during plant domestication. Nature. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature07895

Larson, G., & Fuller, D. Q. (2014). The evolution of animal domestication. Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-ecolsys-110512-135813

Asouti, E., & Fuller, D. Q. (2013). A contextual approach to the emergence of agriculture in Southwest Asia: Reconstructing Early Neolithic plant-food production. Current Anthropology. https://doi.org/10.1086/670679

Tanno, K.-I., & Willcox, G. (2006). How fast was wild wheat domesticated? Science. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1124635

Larson, G., Piperno, D. R., Allaby, R. G., Purugganan, M. D., Andersson, L., Arroyo-Kalin, M., et al. (2014). Current perspectives and the future of domestication studies. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1323964111