13. How Self-Domestication is Different from Traditional Domestication
In traditional models of domestication, such as those of cattle, pigs, or sheep, humans capture and confine wild animals, then breed them for desirable traits. Such models involve plenty of human control and deliberate goal-oriented action. In contrast, the self-domestication hypothesis views early domestication as symbiotic and ad hoc, not a process that was deliberately engineered by humans. Our ancestors did not initially set out to domesticate wolves.
Instead, a mutually beneficial relationship gradually developed. Wolves that hung around near human settlements gained access to a stable food supply, and humans benefited from their presence through pest control, alarm barking, and eventual assistance in hunting. That mutually beneficial relationship could have gradually intensified into co-evolution, in which both species adapted to each other’s presence over the millennia.
