Glossary of Key Terms

Chapter 11: Cultivation and Domestication

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

A

Affluent forager
Also known as complex hunter-gatherers, are non-agricultural, substatntially sedentary people with hierarchical social organization and food storage.

Anthropogenesis
"The process whereby humans modify their environment, consciously or not."

Archaic cultures
Term used to refer to Mesolithic cultures in the Americas.

D

Domestication
An evolutionary process whereby humans modify, either intentionally or unintentionally, the genetic makeup of a population of plants or animals, sometimes to the extent that members of the population are unable to survive and/or reproduce without human assistance.

E

Epipaleolithic
Cultures at the end of the Paleolithic that survived into early post-glacial times. They are usually marked by the manufacture and use of small blades and cores. Mesolithic normally refers to these cultures in Europe while Epipaleolithic is normally specific to the Near East. Sometimes both terms are used with reference to the Old World in general.

H

Horticulture
Cultivation of crops using hand tools such as digging sticks or hoes.

I

Intensive agriculture
Intensive farming of large plots of land, employing fertilizers, plows, and/or extensive irrigation.

L

Low-level food producers
People with cultural adaptations along a continuum between foraging and balanced agriculture in which a few cultigens are used. These adaptations may also include plant management.

M

Maritime Archaic culture
An Archaic culture of northeastern North America, centered on the Gulf of St. Lawrence, that emphasized the utilization of marine resources.

Mesolithic
Cultures at the end of the Paleolithic that survived into early post-glacial times. They are usually marked by the manufacture and use of small blades and cores. Mesolithic normally refers to these cultures in Europe while Epipaleolithic is normally specific to the Near East. Sometimes both terms are used with reference to the Old World in general.

N

Natufian culture
An Epipaleolithic culture of Israel, Lebanon, and western Syria, between about 12 500 and 10 200 years ago.

Neolithic period
when the first domesticated plants appear; in East Asia the period refers to the time when pottery was used and begins 17 000 to 15 000 years ago.

P

Pastoralist
Member of a society in which the herding of grazing animals is regarded as the ideal way of making a living, and in which movement of all or part of the society is considered a normal and natural way of life.

Primary origins
When hunters and gatherers transform organisms from wild to domesticated and take up agriculture.

S

Secondary origins
When agriculture expands from its region of origin by migration of farmers or by the adoption of an agricultural way of life by hunter- gatherers who are in contact with farmers.

Shellmound
An extensive deposit of refuse including quantities of shell left behind by people. These deposits include artifacts and it is not unusual to find burials in them.

Subsistence strategy
Decisions and actions that affect food and raw material procurement of a society.]

T

Transhumance
Among pastoralists, the grazing of sheep and goats in low steppe lands in the winter and then moving to high pastures on the plateaus in the summer.

U

Unconscious selection
The preservation of valued variants of a plant or animal species and the destruction of less valued ones, with no thought as to the long-range consequences.