Table Of ContentHybrid Communities
Domestication challenges our understanding of human-environment relationships
because it blurs the dichotomy between what is artificial and what is natural.
In domestication, biological evolution, environmental change, techniques and
practices, anthropological trajectories and sociocultural choices are inextricably
interconnected. Domestication is essentially a hybrid phenomenon that needs to
be explored with hybrid scientific approaches.
Hybrid Communities: Biosocial Approaches to Domestication and Other Trans-
species Relationships attempts for the first time to explore domestication viewed
from across disciplines both in its origins and as an ongoing process. This edited
collection proposes new biosocial approaches and concepts which integrate the
methods of social sciences, archaeology and biology to shed new light on domestication
in diachrony and in synchrony.
This book will be of great interest to all scholars working on human-environment
relationships, and should also attract readers from the fields of social anthropology,
archaeology, genetics, ecology, botany, zoology, history and philosophy.
Charles Stépanoff is a social anthropologist (Laboratoire d’anthropologie sociale,
École pratique des hautes études, Sorbonne, France). His research interests include
human-animal relationships in hunting, herding and shamanism in North Asia.
Jean-Denis Vigne is an archaeologist (Centre national de la recherche scientifique,
Muséum national d’Histoire naturelles, Sorbonne Universités, France). His
research interests lie in archaeozoology, focused on interaction dynamics between
animals and human societies, namely domestication, since the last hunters to the
preindustrial farmer societies, mostly in the Mediterranean area, Southwest Asia
and Central Asia and China.
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Rosana Pinheiro-Machado
Culture as a System
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David B. Kronenfeld
Distortion
Social Processes Beyond the Structured and Systemic
Edited by Nigel Rapport
Critical Times in Greece
Anthropological Engagements with the Crisis
Edited by Dimitris Dalakoglou and Georgos Agelopoulos
An Ethnography of Global Environmentalism
Becoming Friends of the Earth
Caroline Gatt
Linguistic and Material Intimacies of Cell Phones
Edited by Joshua A. Bell and Joel C. Kuipers
Hybrid Communities
Biosocial Approaches to Domestication and Other Trans-species Relationships
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Orthodox Christian Material Culture
Of People and Things in the Making of Heaven
Timothy Carroll
For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/Routledge-
Studies-in-Anthropology/book-series/SE0724
Hybrid Communities
Biosocial Approaches to
Domestication and Other
Trans-species Relationships
Edited by Charles Stépanoff
and Jean-Denis Vigne
First published 2019
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2019 selection and editorial matter, Charles Stépanoff and Jean-Denis
Vigne; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Charles Stépanoff and Jean-Denis Vigne to be identified as
the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual
chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
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any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
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Trademark notice : Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Stépanoff, Charles, editor. | Vigne, Jean-Denis, editor.
Title: Hybrid communities : biosocial approaches to domestication and
other trans-species relationships / edited by Charles Stépanoff and
Jean-Denis Vigne.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2018. | Series:
Routledge studies in anthropology ; 46 | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017058517 (print) | LCCN 2018016153 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781315179988 (ebook) | ISBN 9781351717984 (web pdf) |
ISBN 9781351717977 (epub) | ISBN 9781351717960 (mobi/kindle) |
ISBN 9781138893993 (hardback : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Domestication. | Nature—Effect of human beings on. |
Human-animal relationships. | Human-plant relationships.
Classification: LCC SF41 (ebook) | LCC SF41 .H94 2018 (print) | DDC
636—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017058517
ISBN: 978-1-138-89399-3 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-17998-8 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Contents
List of figures ix
List of tables xi
List of contributors xiii
Introduction 1
CHARLES STÉPANOFF AND JEAN-DENIS VIGNE
PART I
Liminal processes: beyond the wild and the domestic 21
1 A genetic perspective on the domestication continuum 23
LAURENT A. F. FRANTZ AND GREGER LARSON
2 Self-domestication or human control? The Upper
Palaeolithic domestication of the wolf 39
MIETJE GERMONPRÉ, MARTINA LÁZNIČKOVÁ-GALETOVÁ,
MIKHAIL V. SABLIN AND HERVÉ BOCHERENS
3 Beyond wild and domestic: human complex relationships
with dogs, wolves, and wolf-dog hybrids 65
NICOLAS LESCUREUX
4 Wild game or farm animal? Tracking human-pig relationships
in ancient times through stable isotope analysis 81
MARIE BALASSE, THOMAS CUCCHI, ALLOWEN EVIN,
ADRIAN BĂLĂŞESCU, DELPHINE FRÉMONDEAU AND
MARIE-PIERRE HORARD-HERBIN
5 Arable weeds as a case study in plant-human relationships
beyond domestication 97
AMY BOGAARD, MOHAMMED ATER AND JOHN G. HODGSON
vi Contents
PART II
How domestication changes humans’ bodies and sociality 113
6 From fighting against to becoming with: viruses
as companion species 115
CHARLOTTE BRIVES
7 Milk as a pivotal medium in the domestication of cattle,
sheep and goats 127
MÉLANIE ROFFET-SALQUE, ROSALIND E. GILLIS,
RICHARD P. EVERSHED AND JEAN-DENIS VIGNE
8 Watching the horses: the impact of horses on early
pastoralists’ sociality and political ethos in Inner Asia 145
GALA ARGENT
PART III
Shared places, entangled lives 163
9 Growing a shared landscape: plants and humans over
generations among the Duupa farmers of northern Cameroon 165
ÉRIC GARINE, ADELINE BARNAUD AND CHRISTINE RAIMOND
10 Fig and olive domestication in the Rif, northern Morocco:
entangled human and tree lives and history 179
Y ILDIZ AUMEERUDDY-THOMAS A ND YOUNES HMIMSA
11 Cooperating with the wild: past and present auxiliary
animals assisting humans in their foraging activities 197
EDMOND DOUNIAS
12 Why did the Khamti not domesticate their elephants?
Building a hybrid sociality with tamed elephants 221
NICOLAS LAINÉ
13 Cognition and emotions in dog domestication 235
SARAH JEANNIN
Contents vii
PART IV
Ongoing transformations 249
14 Domestication and animal labour 251
JOCELYNE PORCHER AND SOPHIE NICOD
15 Human-dog-reindeer communities in the Siberian
Arctic and Subarctic 261
KONSTANTIN KLOKOV AND VLADIMIR DAVYDOV
16 Domesticating the machine? (Re)configuring domestication
practices in robotic dairy farming 275
SÉVERINE LAGNEAUX
17 From parasite to reared insect: humans and mosquitoes
in Réunion Island 289
SANDRINE DUPÉ
Index 302
Figures
0.1 Hybrid communities. 12
1.1 Schematic of various models of domestication and their effect
on genetic diversity. 25
2.1 Dorsal view of a Pleistocene wolf skull from the Gravettian
Předmostí site. 43
2.2 Dorsal view of the Palaeolithic dog skull from the Goyet cave. 44
4.1 Results from stable carbon (δ 13 C) and nitrogen (δ 15 N) analysis
of bone collagen from pigs, sheep and human remains from the
mediaeval city of York. 84
4.2 Reliance of pigs on domestic farmed food (millet, animal
protein scraps) in Dadiwan in ancient China, as evidenced
from stable isotope composition of bone collagen. 87
4.3 Gradual changes through time in pigs’ diet in Xiawanggang,
with an increasing contribution of millet and animal proteins. 89
4.4 A: Stable isotope ratios in bone collagen of the main species
from the Gumelniţa culture assemblages at Borduşani-Popină,
Hârşova-tell and Vităneşti-Măgurice. B : Stable isotope ratios in
bone collagen from suids with small ‘domestic’, large ‘wild’ and
large ‘domestic’ molars (from geometric morphometric analyses). 91
5.1 Display of gathered plants including weedy M alva spp., market,
Jeblia, Rif region, Morocco. 101
5.2 Vicia sativa subsp. nigra , growing as a weed of cereals in the
oasis of Imin-o-Iaouane on the southern slopes of the High Atlas,
Morocco. 102
5.3 Harvested décrue barley field, showing spiny weeds (E chinops
spinosus ), Guelmim province, Morocco. 103
7.1 Proportion of animal fat residues identified as milk fats, ruminant
and non-ruminant adipose fats and aquatic fats in archaeological
sherds from the Neolithic in Europe and the Near East. 133
7.2 Detail of a milking scene from rock art in a rockshelter at
Tasigmet, Oued Djerrat (Tassili-n-Ajjer). 135
7.3 Hypothetical cattle kill-off profiles. 136
8.1 Reconstruction of the Berel 11 burial mound. 147
