Barbara Bender and Brian Hayden both see cultivation as a way to increase social power. Archaeologists debate the question constantly. Most people today agree that not only are there probably multiple causes that combine environmental, social, and demographic factors, but that the causes may well be very different from region to region. In class, we discussed at length the question of intentionality . Certainly, these theories all include some level of human intent.
People can t accidentally plant seeds year after year, saving seed between growing seasons.
They have to intend to save seed, intend to till the earth, etc. Almost without question, the answer to that is no. How quickly people recognized differences between individual plants and began to consciously select which seeds to save for planting is a huge unknown in the discussion of plant domestication. Clearly, they eventually did recognize and take advantage of the natural range of variation in crop plants, but whether that was before or after the technical domestication is unknown. See the online hand-out for this lecture and the figures handed out in class for more detail on Hillman and Davies model of plant domestication.