Emerging evidence of plant domestication as a landscape-level process

The evidence from ancient crops over the past decade challenges some of our most basic assumptions about the process of domestication. The emergence of crops has been viewed as a technologically progressive process in which single or multiple localized populations adapt to human environments in response to cultivation. By contrast, new genetic and archaeological evidence reveals a slow process that involved large populations over wide areas with unexpectedly sustained cultural connections in deep time. We review evidence that calls for a new landscape framework of crop origins. Evolutionary processes operate across vast distances of landscape and time, and the origins of domesticates are complex. The domestication bottleneck is a redundant concept and the progressive nature of domestication is in doubt.

Automated summary

Evidence from ancient crops challenges our assumptions about the domestication process. Instead of being a technologically progressive process, it is now revealed as a slow and complex process that involves large populations over wide areas and sustained cultural connections. This calls for a new understanding of crop origins and questions the concept of domestication bottleneck and its progressive nature.