THOUGHT PROBLEM 1

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Anthropology

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Oct 30, 2023

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Darwin’s Views on Domestication and Its Correspondence to Evolution Harsukhman Soor | 210211250 | September 24, 2023 In my view, I believe Darwin was correct about domestication, as his key beliefs centred on it being a form of artificial selection, dependent on gradual change and common ancestry. Referencing Darwin’s book "The Origin of Species”, he mentions that artificial selection plays a crucial role in selectively breeding animals and plants to produce varieties that are useful to humans and their needs. For instance, artificial selection has helped develop plants and animals that play a key part in agriculture and other human activities today. As stated by Bergström et al. (2020), "during the next 10,000 years, diversified dog lineages interbred frequently over wide geographical areas.” This demonstrates that gradual change is a key part of domestication, involving changes in a species since artificial selection favours traits that benefit a species in its given environment. It is through that environment, that the species itself adapts and facilitates domestication in the following generations. In terms of common ancestry, the genetic history of dogs has at least five major ancestry lineages. The study found evidence of limited gene flow from wolves since domestication, but substantial dog-to-wolf gene flow. According to Bergström et al (2020), "First, using Procrustes rotation to align f4 PCA results obtained on dog and human genomes matched in time and space (Fig. 3A) (30), we find that the population structures of the two species resemble each other (Procrustes correlation = 0.48, P = 0.043).” After analyzing dog genomes with human genomes, it revealed that aspects of dog population history mirrors humans, including Levant-related ancestry in Africa and early agricultural Europe. Therefore, Darwin’s beliefs and thoughts about domestication were correct and act as a strong base for the topic. After the in-tutorial discussion, my initial position remains the same: Darwin was correct

about domestication. Furthermore, an additional source to support his views being correct about domestication and the relationship between dogs and humans is, “When you take away the selective breeding done by humans, a number of these unique traits disappear. But feral dogs don't just become wolves again - their behaviours and even looks depend greatly on the ecological pressures that surround them. Our centuries of selective breeding have opened a wide variety of traits, both physical and behavioural, that may help a stray dog survive and breed (Wilcox, 2011).” This displays that there’s a direct correspondence between the evolution of dogs with the actions of humans, traits such as breed, size, general behaviour such as being feral, coloration, etc. Conclusively, it can be deemed that Darwin was on the correct path for creating the basis of domestication to go further into research.

References: Bergström A, Frantz L, Schmidt R et al. 2020. Origins and genetic legacy of prehistoric dogs. Science 370: 557 – 564. Brown, A. H. D. 2010. Variation under domestication in plants: 1859 and today. National Library of Medicine. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2935096/ Darwin C. 1859. The Origin of Species. First Edition. John Murray, London. Pavlidis P, Somel M. 2020. Of dogs and men: ancient genomes reveal the common history of human and dog. Science 370: 522 – 523. Wilcox, C. 2011. Observations Evolution: The Curious Case of Dogs. Scientific American. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/science-sushi/observations- evolution-the-curious-case-of-dogs/

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