Tracking domestication in the past: a biological and cultural matter

Allowen Evin
Institut des Sciences de l'Evolution - Montpellier, France

Allowen.evin@umontpellier.fr

The domestication of plants and animals marks a major transition in human history and a key element in the development of modern societies. On the other hand, domestication can be seen as the longest lasting experiment of artificial selection. Domestication studies are therefore at the cross-road between evolutionary biology and archaeology. I will present how modern and archaeological specimens can help understand the long, continuous and still ongoing history of domestic populations especially in pigs (Sus scrofa). I will demonstrate the benefits of integrative approaches combining phenotypic analyses using geometric morphometrics with other methodologies such as ancient DNA or isotopic analyses

1) Frantz, L. (+96 co-authors), Evin A, Girdland-Flink L,Lardon G. et al. (2019). Ancient pigs reveal a near-complete genomic turnover following their introduction to Europe. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(35), 201901169. doi:10.1073/pnas.1901169116.

2) Evin A., Owen J., Larson G., Debiais-Thibaud M., Cucchi T., Strand Vidarsdottir U., and Dobney K. 2017. A Test for Paedomorphism in Domestic Pig Cranial Morphology. Biology Letters 13: 20170321.

3) Price M. and Evin A. 2017. Long-Term Morphological Changes and Evolving Human-Pig Relations in the Northern Fertile Crescent from 11,000 to 2000 Cal. BC. Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences. doi:10.1007/s12520-017-0536-z.

4) Evin A., Dobney K., Schafberg R., Owen J., Vidarsdottir U., Larson G., Cucchi T. 2015. Phenotype and Animal Domestication: A Study of Dental Variation between Domestic, Wild, Captive, Hybrid and Insular Sus Scrofa. BMC Evolutionary Biology 15, 1:6.

5) Evin A., Girdland Flink L., Bălăşescu A., Popovici D., Andreescu R., Bailey D., Mirea P., Lazar C., Boroneant A., Bonsall C., Strand Vidarsdottir U., Brehard S., Tresset A., Cucchi T., Larson G., Dobney K. 2015. Unravelling the Complexity of Domestication: A Case Study Using Morphometrics and Ancient DNA Analyses of Archaeological Pigs from Romania. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 370(1660): 20130616–20130616.