areas, the earliest well-established dates do not rival those for Southwest Asia, but too few early sites have been securely dated in those six other areas for us to be certain that they really lagged behind Southwest Asia and (if so) by how much. The next group of areas consists of ones that did domesticate at least a I O O • GUNS, GERMS, AND STEEL table 5.1 Examples of Species Domesticated in Each Area Area Domesticated Earliest Attested Date of Plants Animals Domestication Independent Origins of Domestication 1. Southwest Asia wheat, pea, olive sheep, goat 8500 b.c. 2. China rice, millet pig, silkworm by 7500 B.C. 3. Mesoamerica corn, beans, turkey by 3500 b.c. squash 4. Andes and potato, manioc llama, guinea by 3500 b.c. Amazonia pig 5. Eastern United sunflower, none 2500 B.C. States goosefoot ? 6. Sahel sorghum, Afri– guinea fowl by 5000 b.c. can rice ? 7. Tropical West African yams, none by 3000 b.c. Africa oil palm ? 8. Ethiopia coffee, teff none ? ? 9. New Guinea sugar cane, none 7000 b.c.? banana Local Domestication Following Arrival of Founder Crops from Elsewhere 10. Western Europe poppy, oat none 6000-3500 b.c. 11. Indus Valley sesame, eggplant humped cattle 7000 B.C. 12. Egypt sycamore fig, donkey, cat 6000 b.c. chufa couple of local plants or animals, but where food production depended mainly on crops and animals that were domesticated elsewhere. Those imported domesticates may be thought of as 'founder' crops and animals, because they founded local food production. The arrival of founder domesticates enabled local people to become sedentary, and thereby increased the likelihood of local crops' evolving from wild plants that were gathered, brought home and planted accidentally, and later planted intentionally. HISTORY'SHAVES AND HAVE- NOTS • I O I In three or four such areas, the arriving founder package came from Southwest Asia. One of them is western and central Europe, where food production arose with the arrival of Southwest Asian crops and animals between 6000 and 3500 b.c., but at least one plant (the poppy, and probably oats and some others) was then domesticated locally. Wild poppies are confined to coastal areas of the western Mediterranean. Poppy seeds are absent from excavated sites of the earliest farming communities in eastern Europe and Southwest Asia; they first appear in early farming sites in western Europe. In contrast, the wild ancestors of most Southwest Asian crops and animals were absent from western Europe. Thus, it seems clear that food production did not evolve independently in western Europe. Instead, it was triggered there by the arrival of Southwest Asian domesticates. The resulting western European farming societies domesticated the poppy, which subsequently spread eastward as a crop. Another area where local domestication appears to have followed the arrival of Southwest Asian founder crops is the Indus Valley region of the Indian subcontinent. The earliest farming communities there in the seventh millennium B.C. utilized wheat, barley, and other crops that had been previously domesticated in the Fertile Crescent and that evidently spread to the Indus Valley through Iran. Only later did domesticates derived from indigenous species of the Indian subcontinent, such as humped cattle and sesame, appear in Indus Valley farming communities. In Egypt as well, food production began in the sixth millennium b.c. with the arrival of Southwest Asian crops. Egyptians then domesticated the sycamore fig and a local vegetable called chufa. The same pattern perhaps applies to Ethiopia, where wheat, barley, and other Southwest Asian crops have been cultivated for a long time. Ethiopians also domesticated many locally available wild species to obtain crops most of which are still confined to Ethiopia, but one of them (the coffee bean) has now spread around the world. However, it is not yet known whether Ethiopians were cultivating these local plants before or only after the arrival of the Southwest Asian package. In these and other areas where food production depended on the arrival of founder crops from elsewhere, did local hunter-gatherers themselves adopt those founder crops from neighboring farming peoples and thereby become farmers themselves? Or was the founder package instead brought by invading farmers, who were thereby enabled to outbreed the local hunters and to kill, displace, or outnumber them? I O Z •GUNS,GERMS, AND STEEL In Egypt it seems likely that the former happened: local hunter-gatherers simply added Southwest Asian domesticates and farming and herding techniques to their own diet of wild plants and animals, then gradually phased out the wild foods. That is, what arrived to launch food production in Egypt was foreign crops and animals, not foreign peoples. The same may have been true on the Atlantic coast of Europe, where local hunter-gatherers apparently adopted Southwest Asian sheep and cereals over the course of many centuries. In the Cape of South Africa the local Khoi hunter-gatherers became herders (but not farmers) by acquiring sheep and cows from farther north in Africa (and ultimately from Southwest Asia). Similarly, Native American hunter-gatherers of the U.S. Southwest gradually became farmers by acquiring Mexican crops. In these four areas the onset of food production provides little or no evidence for the domestication of local plant or animal species, but also little or no evidence for the replacement of human population. At the opposite extreme are regions in which food production certainly began with an abrupt arrival of foreign people as well as of foreign crops and animals. The reason why we can be certain is that the arrivals took place in modern times and involved literate Europeans, who described in innumerable books what happened. Those areas include California, the Pacific Northwest of North America, the Argentine pampas, Australia, and Siberia. Until recent centuries, these areas were still occupied by hunter- gatherers—Native Americans in the first three cases and Aboriginal Australians or Native Siberians in the last two. Those hunter-gatherers were killed, infected, driven out, or largely replaced by arriving European farmers and herders who brought their own crops and did not domesticate any local wild species after their arrival (except for macadamia nuts in Australia). In the Cape of South Africa the arriving Europeans found not only Khoi hunter- gatherers but also Khoi herders who already possessed only domestic animals, not crops. The result was again the start of farming dependent on crops from elsewhere, a failure to domesticate local species, and a massive modern replacement of human population. Finally, the same pattern of an abrupt start of food production dependent on domesticates from elsewhere, and an abrupt and massive population replacement, seems to have
