Domestication has mutually tamed both plants and humans

Evidence

The exchange between plants and people has shaped the evolutionary history of both. Farms, orchards, and vineyards are stocked with species we have domesticated. Our appetite for their fruits leads us to till, prune, irrigate, fertilize, and weed on their behalf. Perhaps they have domesticated us. Wild plants have changed to stand in well-behaved rows and wild humans have changed to settle alongside the fields and care for the plants—a kind of mutual taming. — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 430

Categorization

• XREF: Hinge-worthy: reverses the standard one-directional domestication story and connects to ch5 plant communication, ch7 gift circulation — a braided-evolution concept the polyad courses can all cite. — connects to: Food plants and humans shape each other’s evolution toward mutual thriving — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom,…, 431; Plants who take care of us provide models humans adopt for survival — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom,…, 823
• SEED: Essay angle: ‘Who domesticated whom’ as a lens for reading the reciprocal evolution of human-food-plant relationships.

Broader Connections

• Food plants and humans shape each other’s evolution toward mutual thriving #expands (0.95) — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 431
• Plants who take care of us provide models humans adopt for survival #corroborates (0.78) — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 823