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Plant domestication more rapid under optimizing behavior

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Abstract

We assume that early Neolithic cultivators had an optimizing behavior aiming yield maximization and labor efficiency. Then we conduct a hypothetical optimization exercise by examining which consequences such behavior would have if applied to the cultivation of Near-Eastern wild cereals, especially on their rate of domestication measured by the frequency of non-shattering seeds. Two stages of the cultivation process are analyzed, the harvest and the processing. The harvest stage requires two strategies, one about the state of ripeness at the harvest and the other about the harvesting method. We demonstrate that under an optimizing behavior most mature seeds are harvested—by combining two technologies, ground collection and sickling—and thus this stage leads to no selective pressure. On the contrary, the processing stage, from threshing to storage, leads to positive selection when the products of the two harvests are processed separately, a strategy resulting from labor efficiency and risk minimization. Therefore, and from a theoretical point of view, an optimizing behavior tends to support a rapid pathway toward plant domestication, even though the latter is an unconscious outcome of human behavior.

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Notes

  1. Of course foragers can also use tools, but the latter are not compulsory for foraging.

  2. More precisely, at least from the early Winter (time for sowing) to the Summer (time for harvesting) when winter cereals are cultivated. Moreover some work—such as weeding—is also necessary during the fallow period.

  3. Since the duration of the cultivation process is given and fix, i.e. defined by 'a season or a year' because crops can be sown only once a year, the maximization of the yield per unit of time becomes the maximization of the yield per season or per year, i.e. the difference between inputs and output.

  4. Labor efficiency is a measure of how efficiently a given workforce accomplishes a task, when compared to the standard in that industry or setting.

  5. Pictures of a clump of spikelets with upward-pointing awns being scarce, especially because wild cereals are hardly cultivated nowadays, the reader can refer to Kislev et al. (2004, p. 2693), Fig. 1.

  6. It is worth noting that while Tzarfati et al. (2013) aim to compare the threshing time and efficiency associated with domestic cereals and their wild progenitors, they do not include in their experiments these two pre-threshing activities. Their inclusion could contradict the conclusion of these authors and support the opposite idea that threshing (a growing number of) domestic phenotype implies a labor trap and therefore a negative selective pressure, as developed by Fuller et al. (2010).

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Acknowledgements

The author thanks an anonymous referee for his comments and suggestions. The usual caveat applies.

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  1. Faculté de Droit et d’Economie, Université de La Réunion, 15 Avenue René Cassin. CS 9003, 97744, Saint Denis, France

    Serge Svizzero

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Svizzero, S. Plant domestication more rapid under optimizing behavior. J Bioecon 20, 287–308 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10818-018-9272-4

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