Sustenance and Symbol: Anthropological Studies of Domesticated Animals

Abstract

For nearly as long as anything can be inferred about human cognition, paleoan­ thropologists and archaeologists believe humans have thought carefully about animals, about the "predominant characteristic" of each animal, and about those "contradictory elements" that make up humankind. This careful thought has had many outcomes, some scientific, others not . Among the scientific outcomes in the 19th century was evolutionary thinking about the causes and consequences of domestication, including Charles Dar­ win's study (32) of the mechanics of human (artificial) selection of domesti­ cated animal and plant population characteristics. In the 20th century, theoreti­ cal refinements and the painstaking collection of empirical data have led to studies of such disparate phenomena as the physical consequences of keeping pets (12); the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria as a result of feeding antibiotics to livestock (117); and the evolutionary consequences of milk­ drinking (99). Speculation about the origins of human-animal interaction is not the exclu­ sive province of scientists: religions and storytellers alike customarily try to account for the beginnings of human-animal interaction . Genesis does so