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Animal Domestication

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Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures

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Animal domestication is the process by which humans exert direct or indirect, partial or total, conscious or unconscious influence over the reproduction and evolution of animals that they own or otherwise manage (Rodrigue, 1987, p. 1). There is quite an extensive continuum between wild species utilized as resources by humans and fully domesticated species (Russell, 2002; Terrell et al., 2003; Marshall et al., 2014). The question of “origins” depends on a choice of where to draw the line between “wild” and “domesticated” along this continuum, and that choice is often the basis of arguments about the earliest domestication of many species.

A fully domesticated animal exhibits significant genotypic and phenotypic differences in both appearance and behavior from its nearest wild relatives due to its evolution under conditions dominated by humans. The domestication of animals and plants is one of the most significant impacts that humans have had on their natural environments, ultimately the...

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  1. Department of Geography, California State University, Long Beach, CA, USA

    Christine M. Rodrigue

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  1. Christine M. Rodrigue
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Correspondence to Christine M. Rodrigue .

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  1. Hampshire College, Amherst, Massachusetts, USA

    Helaine Selin

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Rodrigue, C.M. (2015). Animal Domestication. In: Selin, H. (eds) Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-3934-5_8437-2

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