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A review by d6y
Tamed: Ten Species That Changed Our World by Alice Roberts
3.0
Archaeology, biology, genetics, and climate clues brought together to tell the story of domestication.
Caution: To love this book you have to get into the back-and-forth debate about the dates of domestication, and single vs multiple origins. It turns out I'm not that interested in that. The first two chapters (dogs, wheat) in particular put me right off this book.
But the storytelling grew on me. Yes, there's lots of informed speculation, and the specifics of any story are going to be just reckoning ("surely...", "I'd imagine..."), but you get a feel for how domestication might have come about. It's fascinating stuff. In contrast to the first two chapters, the chapters on horses and apples were engrossing for me.
Common themes emerge over the chapters, and it all comes together in the last chapter (trying to avoid spoilers: the discussion of self-domestication of humans was eye-opening for me).
Caution: To love this book you have to get into the back-and-forth debate about the dates of domestication, and single vs multiple origins. It turns out I'm not that interested in that. The first two chapters (dogs, wheat) in particular put me right off this book.
But the storytelling grew on me. Yes, there's lots of informed speculation, and the specifics of any story are going to be just reckoning ("surely...", "I'd imagine..."), but you get a feel for how domestication might have come about. It's fascinating stuff. In contrast to the first two chapters, the chapters on horses and apples were engrossing for me.
Common themes emerge over the chapters, and it all comes together in the last chapter (trying to avoid spoilers: the discussion of self-domestication of humans was eye-opening for me).