Humans as Self-Domesticating Animals

at the end of the Pleistocene, certain human groups and their animal associates began progressively to show parallel reductions in size and stature, cranial gracilization, changes in post-cranial robusticity, shortening of the face and jaws, tooth crowding and malocclusion, and tooth-size reduction and simplification. There has been no recent attempt to explain the parallelism, although numerous explanations exist for the changes as they affect one or other of the parties. Some of the explana...

 Attributes of Domesticated Animals

The study of domesticated animals since Darwin’s influential work (1868) has culminated in the formation of a set of changes that are claimed to distinguish domestic populations from wild species (for recent outlines of these see Price 1984, 1999; Hemmer 1990; Tchernov and Horwitz 1991; Hall 1993; Teichert 1993; Smith 1995; Zohary, Tchernov, and Horwitz 1998; Clutton-Brock 1999; Trut 1999). Although not uniformly present in all domesticated species, those affecting the skeleton may include ...

 Human Self-Domestication

...the hypothesis of human self-domestication has recently been revived as a possible explanation of changes of human physical traits since the late Pleistocene. These changes include the reduction of body size and decrease in skeletal robusticity, modifications in cranial and dental features including reduction in cranial capacity, shortening of the facial region of the skull and maleruption of teeth, and reduction in sexual dimorphism. In contrast to earlier biological writings, other domes...

 How Humans Living in Civilization are Like Domesticated A...

The first characteristic is living in an artificial environment. Humans established cities and converted the space we live in, to the utmost degree, into an artificial environment. We carry out our lives surrounded by houses, roads, water and sewer systems, automobiles, trains, and electricity. Waking up early, riding a train to one’s place of employment, and working in an air-conditioned office bears a certain resemblance to a chicken in a livestock factory. [7/8] The second characte...

 This is the Age of Insects

The mortal enemies of man are not his fellows of another continent or race; they are the aspects of the physical world which limit or challenge his control, the disease germs that attack him and his domesticated plants and animals, and the insects that carry many of these germs as well as working notable direct injury. This is not the age of man, however great his superiority in size and intelligence; it is literally the age of insects.