A Time to Sow, a Time to Reap: Modifications to Biological and Economic Rhythms in Southwest Asian Plant and Animal Domestication

Abstract

This paper reviews changes to lifecycle temporality in Southwest Asian plant and animal domestication, exploring their relationship to long-term processes associated with ancient and contemporary globalization. We survey changes under domestication to the timing of seed dispersal, germination, vegetative growth, flowering and maturation in wheat and barley and to birth, reproduction, lactation, wool production and death in sheep, goats and cattle. Changes in biological temporality among domesticates are ultimately related to globally increasing production intensity, geographic diffusion, and agricultural diversity associated with cultivar/breed evolution. Recently, however, increasing crop production intensity and geographic diffusion are accompanied by declining agricultural diversity worldwide. Similar processes are apparent in contemporary economic and cultural globalization, suggesting that long-term agricultural developments might be viewed as a subset of globalization. Moreover, the origin of certain features of contemporary globalization may be traced back to the beginnings of plant and animal domestication. Thus, while biologists since Darwin considered domestication as a model for the study of evolution, we suggest that domestication may also offer a model for the study of globalization.

Early Dalmatian farmers specialized in sheep husbandry

“…The lambing period involves a lot of work for the herders, since they have to guarantee the survival of the lambs 84 . Moreover, this possible livestock calendar could be well articulated with the agricultural calendar, taking into account that the main crops of both sites are cereals 27 , 29 that would be grown in winter and harvested in spring 85 . Finally, the anticipated mobility strategy proposed above would also be favoured by the birth of lambs in a short period of time.…”

Impact of harvesting timing and drying methods on yield attributes of wheat variety tj-83

“…Mode and timing to harvest are likely to be controllable factors that regulate the overall yield of cereal crops. Harvesting starts at different stages of maturity in different regions of the world, depending on the degree of mechanization [5]. Hand harvesting is common in Pakistan due to certain socio-economic reasons, such as small enterprises, expensive mechaniza tio n and the fact that wheat straw is mainly needed as animal feed [6].…”