Centers of Domestication

Centers of domestication refer to areas of agricultural origins and innovations. Cultural geographers emphasize that particular local groupings of domesticated plants constituted the basic cultivated species for each regional agricultural development zone, or “center” of domestication. These hearths of domestication were located mostly in tropical or subtropical regions in areas of marked diversity of useful plants or animals and diverse topography, where the first sedentary societies developed. Regions of domestication could be quite large. One of the primary regions of crop domestication, the southwestern Asia area (which includes Mesopotamia) stretches from northwest India to the Caucasus Mountains and into Turkey, reaching over 40° N.

Plant domestication refers to the process of artificial selection by humans, whereby plants with desirable traits are selected and cultivated for ...