首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
The Origins of Plant and Animal Domestication P1: Plant and animal domestication is the most monumental development to have take
The Origins of Plant and Animal Domestication P1: Plant and animal domestication is the most monumental development to have take
admin
2019-03-10
58
问题
The Origins of Plant and Animal Domestication
P1: Plant and animal domestication is the most monumental development to have taken place in the past 13,000 years of human history. It’s relevant to all of us, scientists and non-scientists alike, because it provides most of our food today, it was prerequisite to the rise of civilization, and it transformed global demography. The development of agriculture was accompanied by fundamental changes in the organization on human society: disparities in wealth, hierarchies of power, and urbanization.
P2: Phrases like "plant and animal domestication" and "the invention of agriculture" create the impression that the transition was the discovery of a brilliant sage made in a flash of insight—that if you sow seeds, the crop will grow, and that a dependable food source could be easily grown rather than collected from the wild. Most scholars don’t think so. It seems more likely a gradual cultural evolution that humans used and manipulated wild plants and animals for many hundreds of thousands of years. The transition to gardens, fields, and pastures was probably gradual, as the natural outgrowth of a long familiarity with the environmental requirements, growth cycles, and reproductive mechanisms of whatever plants and animals humans liked to eat, ride, or wear.
P3: For years, scholars argued that cultivation and animal domestication were invented in one or two locations on Earth and then diffused from those centers of innovation. Genetic studies are now showing that many different groups of people in many different places around the globe learned independently to create especially useful plants and animals through selective breeding. In fact, both patterns played a role in agriculture innovation. Worldwide, approximately 11 regions are believed to be centers of origin of agriculture, identified as the location in which native plant and some animal species were domesticated independently of each other In contrast, in other regions the origin of agriculture is based, at least in large part, on crops and livestock that were introduced to those regions and originally come from the centers of origin.
P4: Scholars used to assume that people turned to cultivating instead of gathering their food either because they there was a shortage of food resources, or because agriculture provided such obviously better nutrition. Reasons for such preconditions include an increase in human population density in combination with decreases in big-game species because of overhunting. Accordingly, the transition to agriculture was not a voluntary act, but rather occurred as a result of the need to find alternative sources of food. By no means did this present advantages over hunting and gathering, as it was more labor and time-intensive and was, in addition, associated with the risk of crop failures and thus with hunger. A varied diet based on gathered (and occasionally hunted) food probably provided a wider, more secure range of nutrients than an early agriculturally based diet of only one or two cultivated crops. It is more likely that populations expanded after agricultural successes, and not before.
P5: Richard MacNeish, an archaeologist who studied plant domestication in Mexico and Central America, suggested that the chance to trade was at the heart of agricultural origins worldwide. Many of the known locations of agricultural innovation lie near early trade centers. The several centers of domestication were almost contemporaneous and developments were very rapid. However, over time these specialized food foragers built up larger populations per unit of land area and were forced to begin exploiting lower quality resources over larger areas. This, as MacNeish suggested, served in part as a motive for early food gatherers to pursue cultivation and animal-raising. Perhaps eventually, because of market demand, it grew into the primary source of sustenance.
P6: E. N. Anderson, writing about the beginnings of agriculture in China, suggests that agricultural production for trade may have been the impetus for several global situations now regarded as problems: rapid population growth, social inequalities, environmental degradation, and famine. As more labor was required to supply the trade, humans produced more children, then more resources were put into producing food for subsistence and for trade. Gradually, hunting and gathering technology was abandoned as populations, with their demands for space, destroyed natural habitats. Meanwhile, a minority elite of hunters or food foragers quit doing what kept them alive and took to trade exclusively. Yet as ever larger populations depended solely on agriculture, when some large scale natural disaster took place, famine became more common.
P3: For years, scholars argued that this transitional stage lasted in some location until resource stress or environmental change led to a diffusion from those centers of innovation. ■ Genetic studies are now showing that many different groups of people in many different places around the globe learned independently to create especially useful plants and animals through selective breeding. ■ In fact, both patterns played a role in agriculture innovation. Worldwide, approximately 11 regions are believed to be centers of origin of agriculture, identified as the location in which native plant and some animal species were domesticated independently of each other. ■ In contrast, in other regions the origin of agriculture is based, at least in large part, on crops and livestock that were introduced to those regions and originally come from the centers of origin. ■
The word "pursue" in the passage is closest in meaning to
选项
A、practice
B、encourage
C、prefer
D、combine
答案
A
解析
【词汇题】pursue意为“从事”。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/IcfO777K
0
托福(TOEFL)
相关试题推荐
Completethetablebelow.WriteNOMORETHANTWOWORDSAND/ORANUMBERforeachanswer.
Completethenotesbelow.WriteNOMORETHANTWOWORDSforeachanswer.CLIMATEANDARCHITECTURECasesandexamplesarefrompra
Completethenotesbelow.WriteONEWORDONLYforeachanswer.EffectsofurbanenvironmentsonanimalsIntroductionRecenturba
ChooseTWOletters,A-E.WhichTWOsubjectsdidMartinalikebestbeforegoingtouniversity?AArtBHistoryCFrenchDEnglish
ChooseTWOletters,A-E.WhichTWOsubjectsdidMartinalikebestbeforegoingtouniversity?AArtBHistoryCFrenchDEnglish
7:45定位句为“…ifyoucouldbeginyourreturningjourneybefore5intheafternoonorlaterthan7:45(aquarter。toeight)intheeveni
Whatdoesthepassagemainlydiscuss?Theword"others"inline24refersto
Theseahorseuses______toclingtotheseaweedandotherplants.
Twentythousandyearsagoasheetof(ice)athousandmeters(thick)coveredthecoastalregion(which)thecitiesofVancouver
ScienceFiction?NotAnyMoreSciencefictionhasoftenbeenthesourceofinspirationfornewtechnologies.Theexoskeleton
随机试题
简述公共政策变动的原因。
电子产品的遥控器出现控制距离缩短,角度偏小时,通常可能是()
A.DNA错配修复系统的基因发生突变B.DNA链上产生胸腺嘧啶二聚体C.两者皆有D.两者皆无人类遗传性非息肉性结肠直肠癌(HPCC)的病因是
正常腹部可触到哪些包块
会计软件是专门用于会计核算、财务管理的计算机软件、软件系统或者其他功能模块。()
地陪李先生陪同一个内宾团在H市旅游。期间恰逢当地举办民俗庙会,十分热闹。在离开H市的前一天上午,游客M女士在观看民俗歌舞表演时突然发现手袋不见了,手袋里有她的身份证,而第二天离站时安排的交通方式是乘飞机离开。M女士慌慌张张地找到李先生告知此事,请求帮助。
《唐睢不辱使命》原文秦王使人谓安陵君曰:“寡人欲以五百里之地易安陵,安陵君其许寡人!”安陵君曰:“大王加惠,以大易小,甚善;虽然,受地于先王,愿终守之,弗敢易!”秦王不说。安陵君因使唐雎使于秦。秦王谓唐雎曰:“寡人以五百里之地易安陵,安
根据以下资料,回答116~120题2004年云南省规模以上工业增加值中重工业占的比重是多少?()
夜晚点燃艾叶驱蚊曾是龙泉山区引起家庭火灾的重要原因。近年来,尽管使用艾叶驱蚊的人家显著减少。但是,家庭火灾所导致的死亡人数并没有呈现减少的趋势。以下各项如果为真,能够解释上述情况,除了:
在考生文件夹下,打开文档Word.docx,按照要求完成下列操作并以该文件名Word.docx保存文档。将文中最后4行文字转换成一个4行3列的表格;在第2列与第3列之间添加一列,并依次输入该列内容“缓冲器”、“4"、“40”、“80”;设置表格列宽为2
最新回复
(
0
)