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Paper Abstract: An in depth analysis of the domestication of cattle in Africa that demonstrates that African cattle are a unique domestication and that this domestication occured prior to the domestication of plants. Geographical and genetic reasons for early domestication of animals. Paper Introduction: Most anthropologists believe that the roots of civilization occurredwith the discovery of agriculture By agriculture however they typicallyrefer to the activity of planting fields raising crops and reaping aharvest Indeed the effect that agriculture has had on human society isprofound and includes higher population densities and urban stratifiedsocial systems Indeed some scholars even posit that the globaldistribution of wealth and power today may descend from variations in thecharacteristics and timing of early food production Marshall Whenscholars refer to early food production however Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. The Journal of African History 25: 1-24.Hugot, H.J.1968 The Origins of Agriculture: Sahara. Other bones found at Bir Kiseiba date back to8,84 BP. This is likelydue to the fact that the earliest African food producers were not sedentaryfarmers but rather mobile herders. What this means is that the "chronology of domestic cattle atNabta Playa is older than in the Near East and, therefore, corroborates anindependent domestication of cattle in northern Africa, as also biologicaland genetic data indicate" (Garcea, 117). This herding activity probablydeveloped in the marginal areas of Africa, spreading haphazardly across theexpanses of the Sahara and toward to the South as climactic conditions inAfrica became increasingly hostile. In Africa, for example, itis likely that thepredictability of the inhabitants' resources could have become a majorconcern in the areas where large populations of humans were trying tosettle. In areas such as Africa, sedentism was unable to take root in anykind of systematic form due to the prevailing environmental conditions.Instead, a herding culture developed whereby groups domesticated animalsand traveled with them seeking out stable sources of pasture and water.There is considerable evidence that North Africa is emerging as an earlycenter for the domestication of cattle, which occurred there around 1 , BP and likely predated (or at the very least occurred concurrently to) thedomestication of cattle in other parts of the world (Rodrigue). So the answer remains, why did cattle domestication occur beforeplant domestication in Africa? The position of the hump and the proportion ofmuscle and fat that it contains are variable; this has led a great deal ofconfusion concerning theevolution of cattle in Africa and the Indian sub-continent (Grigson, 125).However, recent genetic analyses have begun to turn up more conclusiveevidence that the Sanga cattle strain is likely to be of direct Africanorigin. 93-1: 46-69.Wendorf, Fred, Angela Close and Romuald Schild1987 Recent Work on the Middle Paleolithic of Saharan Africa. From thatarea, the wild cattle migrated westward and southward. This paper will analyze the roots ofcattle domestication in Africa, focusing on the geographical and geneticreasons underpinning the phenomenon. There is a growing body of evidence that the Sangas arethe descendants of cattle that developed uniquely in Africa.[pic]Source: Grigson, p. This analysis was done bysampling the genes of fifty different kinds of indigenous cattle breeds intwenty-three nations distributed throughout Africa. Indeed, some scholars even posit that the globaldistribution of wealth and power today may descend from variations in thecharacteristics and timing of early food production (Marshall, 1 ). The genetic analysis also showed a small influx ofEurasian cattle into the continent, and a large influx of zebu type Bosindicus cattle from South Asia (Bradley). Figure 1 shows the three different kinds of cattle andtheir definingcharacteristics. 121.The three types of cattle that can be found in the world today are thecommon unhumped taurine, or Bos taurus, which is also known as the Eurasiancattle, the zebu, or Bos indicus, which is also known as the Indian cattle,and the Sanga, or Bos africanus, which archaeologists increasingly maintaindescended from a unique domestication of African cattle. One main reason is the link between theneed for a predictable supply of food and the specific geographic andcultural contexts in which that need occurred. Allof these modern-day bovines descend from the wild ox, or the auroch. Africa appears tobe the only major region of the world where the domestication of animalsoccurred well before the domestication of plants. Within the geographical distribution of cattle genes today,molecular biologists have identified that there were two such big stones,"corresponding to separate domestications of the two divergent kinds ofwild ox...1 , years ago" (Bradley). American Anthropologist. Using a techniquecalled principal-component analysis, the geneticists were able to lookbeyond the various overlays of genetic variation that were the result ofinterbreeding in order to expose new patterns of variation. For the early inhabitants of Africa,their animals were in fact their farms and they used every part of theanimal in their day-to-day live, from its meat for their dinners to itsmilk for their alcohol to its dung for their campfires. Most domesticatedanimals, interestingly even including recently domesticated fish speciessuch as trout, have smaller brains and duller sense organs than theirantecedents-certainly due to the fact that "good brains and keen eyes areessential to survival in the wild, but represent a quantitatively importantwaste of energy in the barnyard, as far as humans are concerned" (Diamond,7 1). Indeed, the effect that agriculture has had on human society isprofound and includes higher population densities and urban, stratifiedsocial systems. The African continentfeatured three distinct components to its agricultural attainment: theearly domestication of cattle in the northeast of the continent,the patchy spread of food production, and the late domestication of plants. Mitochondrial variants suggest a predomesticseparation of the ancestors of African and European bovines" (Garcea, 117). For these earlyancestors of current day Africa, their charges must have been their mostsacred possessions, and their way of life certainly revolved around them. Thereis overwhelming archaeological and genetic data that shows that a distinctbreed of cattle emerged in Africa over 1 , years ago. In this analysis,it is the day-to-day access to food that is important as opposed to theseasonal analysis that has most often been conducted. Archaeological evidence points to the fact that meteorologicalconditions in North Africa were hyperarid for tens of thousands of years.The area gradually became moister from the period between 2 , to 12,5 BP, culminating in an oscillating pattern of wet and dry conditions thatmarks the area to this day. Because cattleneed to drink every day, they would not have been able to cross thedistances between basins as the water in a given basin dried up withouthuman intervention; their very presence in the Saharan desert is thuseloquent proof that man brought them there. One of the main problems with the typology of cattle today involvesthe placement of the hump. Current Anthropology 9-5: 483- 488.McCorriston, Joy and Frank Hole1991 The Ecology of Seasonal Stress and the Origins of Agriculture in the Near East. But where does this kind of sedentism arise? These two main stones wereidentified by geneticists as Bos taurus in Europe, Northern Asia, and mostof Africa and Bos indicus (or zebu) in India (Hill). Much of the evidence shows that whilecomplex strategies for the use of plants developed relatively early inAfrica compared to the rest of the world (Around 17, BP), thedomestication of plants in the African continent occurred relatively late(after 4, BP). This led thehunter-gatherer groups to begin to broaden their concepts of acceptablefoods. Some Archaeological Evidence. Thus, on one side are thosewho believe that the earliest cattle domestication occurred in Asia, andthat these cattle were brought to Africa and raised there. Indeed, "diffusion of cattle breeds fromwestern Asia into Africa is now also contradicted on both molecular andmorphological bases. Genetic variation patternscan be conceived of as the ripples in a pond that occur when a stone isthrow into the water and which linger long after the stone has sunk to thebottom. The genetic map of an animal can be analyzed by collecting bloodsamples and hair follicles from individual cattle. In asense, using genetic techniques allows researchers to peer deep intohistory by analyzing how today's cattle came to be. Over the passing generations, selectivebreeding created traits in thefoodstuffs that were more desirable for human consumption (Diamond, 7 1). The pathways to foodproduction in Africa are thus very distinctive and unique, and genetic datarecently presented support the notion that domestication of cattle innortheast Africa was occurring in the early Holocene era. Instead, it seems clear from the current research that cattle werethe earliest domesticated form of life in Africa. Theremaining part of this paper will analyze the facts in order to ascertainwhat the truth is. Generallyspeaking, sedentism has been thought to arise in areas were key foodresources are abundant and concentrated. Before we can understand why Africa developed the domestication ofanimals before the domestication of plants, we must understand why humanbeings developed agriculture at all. The African Archaeological Review 9: 119-144.Hill, Emmeline, David MacHugh, and Daniel Bradley2 1 Inter-relationships among African livestock genotypes and characterisation of their adaptation with special reference to disease resistance. And all therecent syntheses of research in these areas have focused on the post-Pleistocene climactic change the regions underwent, the domestication ofplants before animals that characterized food production, and the role thatsettled hunter-gatherers played in developing these early methods of foodproduction (Marshall, 1 ). One of the main supports for theidea that these cattle were domesticated is the fact that cattle, needing asteady supply of water, were unlikely to survive without active management: "Without permanent water it is highly unlikely that Bos could exist thereexcept under human control...That the cattle were brought to thedesert under human control is also strongly supported by the composition ofthe other fauna that occurs with them" (Schild, 1 1-1 2). What this means for anthropology, however, is that the domesticationof animals can be traced using sophisticated genetic analyses; we willexplore this in greater detail subsequently. By far the most conclusive proof that African cattle did not descendfrom Eurasian cattle but are instead unique to the continent comes from thegenetic analyses that have been done. This selective breeding created the foods that we eat today; fromrice to cattle, from potatoes to chicken. What does this tell us about the domestication of plants and animalsin Africa? Journal of World Prehistory 18-2: 1 7-155.Grigson, Caroline1991 An African Origin for African Cattle? The same kind of activityoccurred with the smaller game. However, there is littledoubt remaining that the latest comprehensive surveys of African cattlethat have analyzed mitochondrial DNA "andmicrosatellites support the model that they might have originated from thelocal domestication of African wildoxen" (Bruford). Today, there are three types of cattle in Africa: unhumped taurines(Bos Taurus); humped zebu (Bos Indicus), and Sangas (sometimes referred toas Bos Africanus). In sum, we have seen that the story of the domestication of animalsis somewhat more complex than had been previously thought. However, the settled lifestyle also involved someunpleasant experiences, including "witnessing the full range ofenvironmental variation possible at a single location in the variable andchanging environments of the early Holocene" (Rodrigue). The traits that were selectedfor in animals varied in relation to their desirability to humans. However, further analysis has shown that African cattle in reality"originated neither from Indian humped cattle nor from Near Easterncattle." Instead, genetic analysis has confirmed "that African cattle stemfrom the domestication of a Bos taurus type of wild ox that inhabitednorthern Africa when the Sahara region was much less than it is today"(Bradley). Indeed, the analysis of African cattle shows that theirdomestication "could pre-date the capture of cattle and development ofmilking in the Fertile Crescent" (Bradley). Thus, genetic analysis of African cattle support the archaeologicalevidence that a distinct breed of African cattle emerged sometime around1 , BP and probably predating the domestication of cattle in Eurasia andIndia. In this way,"geneticists can verify and amplify archaeological findings, thereby givinga more detailed view of domestication and its history" (Bradley). The best evidence to datesuggests that the last common ancestor for the two continental strains ofcattle occurred 22, BP. AntipodeSchild, Romuald and Fred Wendorf1998 Nabta Playa and its Role in Northern African Prehistory. The mobility of prey is also linked toenvironmental factors; generally speaking low levels of rainfall, and thelack of plants associated with this phenomenon, increase the mobility ofprey (Marshall, 1 5). Whilethe archaeological proof to date has been circumstantial, genetic analysespromise a far more detailed account of how cattle were domesticated. In these dry conditions, agriculture as itdeveloped in other parts of the world was not as quick to develop. Journal of World Prehistory 16-2:99-146.Rodrigue, Christine2 5 James Blaut's Critique of Diffusionism through a Neolithic Lens: Animal Domestication in the Near East. This is likely due to the fact that the mostextensively researched areas of the world were food-producing economiesdeveloped are Southwest Asia, Mesoamerica, and North America. Sometime later, however, a massive influx of Indian cattle and asmaller influx of Eurasian cattle entered the African continent and createda genetic mйlange that persists to this day. Within the archaeological community it has generallybeen thought that cattle were first domesticated either in southwest Asiaor southeast Europe. There has been a livelydebate in the anthropological community concerning the exact timing oftheir domestication. The new data shows that the domestication of cattleoccurred between these two dates, proving that Africa did not lag as farbehind the rest of the world in food production mechanisms as hadpreviously been thought (Marshall, 1 -1 1). Casting some doubt on this has been thediscovery, in several small sites in Africa, of large bovine bones thathave been identified as domesticated cattle and whose radiocarbon dates areearlier than those found in Europe and Asia by 5 to 1, years. In order to decrease the risks associated with anunpredictable variation in their food supply, human beings developed waysto broaden their diets in order to include second and third choice foods-including smaller game and plant foods that required increasing levels ofpreparation, such as grinding, leaching, and soaking (Diamond, 7 -7 1).Agriculture began when people transported some of the wild plants that grewin their natural habitats to other, more fertile and productive habitatsand began intentionally cultivating them. Increasingpopulation levels and settling make distant resources difficult to collect;as access to food resources becomes unpredictable human beings tried toreplace the resources through transplantation, sowing, or domestication ofthe resources-in essence, "moving the resource to the locus of humanoccupation restores the compromised predictability of that resource"(Marshall, 1 5). Works CitedBradley, Daniel2 3 Genetic hoofprints. In areas where sedentism took hold,agriculture flourished. The genes that can be found in the1.3 billion cattle currently grazing the Earth can be viewed as the outcomeof a long stream of inheritance that stretches back some 1 , years. Thishas raised the possibility that there was a separate, wholly differentstrain of cattle that originated in an "independent center for cattledomestication in northeast Africa" (Wendorf). Whenscholars refer to early food production, however, they are typicallyreferring to farming. According to recent studies, hundreds ofthousands of years ago two distinct kinds of wild cattle emerged-wellbefore any kind of domestication took place. Theinhabitants of the African continent were predominantly tribal groups whonever settled into the same kind of sedentism that was occurring in otherparts of the world (Marshall, 1 5-1 9). While there is also little doubt that those originalAfrican cattle were genetically similar their European and Near Easterncounterparts, they "have left a genetic legacy that is sufficientlydistinct to support archaeology that indicates a North Africandomestication" (Bruford). Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 17: 97-123.Wendorf, Fred and Romuald Shild1994 Are the early Holocene cattle in the Eastern Sahara domestic or wild? In these areas, the remains of domesticated cattlehave been discovered in several sites that have been dated to sometimebetween 9, and 8, BP. For reasons that are not well known,hunter-gatherer behavior changed towards the end of the Pleistocene era.Most anthropologists believe that these changes were due to the changingclimate, which rendered the weather far more unpredictable than it hadbeen, the decreases in the populations of mega-fauna that had been thehunters' favorite prey, and the increase in the population of humans thatresulted in a concomitant increase in the occupation of available habitats(Diamond, 7 ). Because mutations inDNA sequences accumulate at a relatively constant pace over time, the knownmutation rates of common DNA sequences can serve as "molecular clocks,which enable molecular biologists to estimate when ancestral lines branchedaway from each other" (Bradley). Works ReferencedClose, AngelaCurrent Research and Recent Radiocarbon Dates from Northern Africa, II. This would seem tosuggest that African cattle descended from Eurasian and Indian cattle,proof that those who believe African cattle are the descendants ofmigrations from Eurasia and India are correct in their suppositions. Newsletter on Integrated Control of Pathogenic Trypanosomes and their Vectors 4: 17-18Marshall, Fiona, and Elisabeth Hildebrand2 2 Cattle before Crops. The earliest putative domesticated cattle bones found in Africa werediscovered in Egypt's Western Desert, at Nabta Playa. This wild cattlewas morphologically and genetically different from the Bos Taurus and theZebu that originated in Eurasia. Quite simply that African environmentalconditions were, generally speaking, not ideal for the domestication ofplants. As we have shown, thisis primarily due to the unique environmental and cultural aspects of theAfrican continent that led to the creation of herding communities prior tothe creation of farming communities. There is littledoubt that domestication of plants and animals occurred as hunter-gatherersattempted to consolidate their food supplies to create a less hap-hazardform of feeding themselves. The African Archaeological Review 5: 49-63. While this is almost certainly the case inmost of the world, in certain parts of the world-and most notably in Africa-there is growing evidence that the domestication of animals occurred beforeprior to the domestication of plants. Most anthropologists believe that the roots of civilization occurredwith the discovery of agriculture. Acolonization process from a center of origin has been postulated, with theeastern Sahara appearing to be the most likely region of origin. In these areas, plant abundance would begin to decrease while themobility of prey would have increased (Marshall, 1 5). Natural History 112-1: 36Diamond, Jared2 2 Evolution, consequences and future of plant and animal domestication. The decreased or patchydistribution of plants can be due to a variety of factors, generallyenvironmentally related. What thisanalysis showed is that the indigenous African cattle originated somewherein the Sahara region and spread to the forests of Western Africa and downto the southern cape. Forexample, domesticated chicken and cattle are larger than their wildcounterparts, and sheep have been bred to lose their bristly outer hairwhile not shedding their soft inner hair (the wool). What is known and uncontested is that the North African Aurochs (BosPrimigenius) was the endemic wild cattle of the African continent. In other words, there is strong evidence that the dichotomy betweenAfrican and Eurasian cattle occurred prior to domestication-a fact thatpoints to separate strains of wild cattle as the primogenitures fordifferent strains of domesticated cattle. Thus, we seen that modern day science has comeup with definitive proof that the theories posited by archaeologistsconcerning the domestication of African cattle are, in fact true. These samples are usedto identify certain genes, most often including the mitochondrion genes.The DNA sequences of these genes are then compared. Nature 418: 7 -7 8.Garcea, Elena2 4 An Alternative Way Towards Food Production: The Perspective from the Libyan Sahara. Africa does not fit into the broad pattern of agricultural attainmentthat is seen in much of the rest of the world. This paper has sought to dispel the notion that any real debatecontinues to exist concerning the domestication of cattle in Africa. This is at least 12, years prior to thefirst evidence for domesticated cattle anywhere in the world (Garcea, 117). Evolutionary Anthropology 3-4. By agriculture, however, they typicallyrefer to the activity of planting fields, raising crops, and reaping aharvest. These bones dateback as early as 9,5 BP. On the otherside are those who argue that there is a distinct African cattle strainthatdeveloped concurrently or even prior to the Asian strain (Wendorf). If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.