Cultural Motives of Plant Management and Domestication

Abstract

We analysed the diversity of forms in which human communities of the Tehuacan Valley manage their plant resource, as well as the motivations and factors influencing how such management forms are and how intensely held. We explored and identified ecological, sociocultural, economic and technological factors that influence how the management forms and their intensity are, as well as the causal relationships between these factors and management decisions. Particularly, the factors mentioned were analysed in the context of scarcity and uncertainty in the availability of edible plant resources, as well as individual and collective responses that implement human beings to ensure their use. It was analysed with particular depth how people perceive uncertainty in availability of edible resources and the various ways in which they face it, how they build their decisions and develop techniques to mitigate the effects of such uncertainty. Most management forms involve artificial selection at different intensity levels.