Bogaard, Amy; Robin Allaby; Benjamin S. Arbuckle; Robin Bendrey; Sarah Crowley; Thomas Cucchi; Tim Denham; Laurent Frantz; Dorian Fuller; Tom Gilbert; Elinor Karlsson; Aurelie Manin; Fiona Marshall; Natalie Mueller; Joris Peters; Charles Stepanoff; Alexander Weide and Gregor Larson
Process philosophy offers a metaphysical foundation for domestication studies. This grounding is especially important given the European colonialist origin of ‘domestication’ as a term and 19th century cultural project. We explore the potential of process archaeology for deep-time investigation of domestication relationships, drawing attention to the variable pace of domestication as an ongoing process within and across taxa; the nature of domestication ‘syndromes’ and ‘pathways’ as general hypotheses about process; the importance of cooperation as well as competition among humans and other organisms; the significance of non-human agency; and the ubiquity of hybrid communities that resist the simple wild/domestic dichotomy.