ABSTRACT
Archaeologists have tended to overlook the spatial and temporal factors of domestication, particularly the use of permanent construction materials, in favor of the beginnings of agriculture. The accepted dogma is that architecture developed subsequent to agriculture because of the need for storage of domesticated crops and animals. The technology of protection and separation associated with the domestication of plants and animals has become problematic again with the difficulties of keeping genetically engineered (GE) crops separate from non-GE crops—a new form of domestication. Animal and plant domestication was, technically, a consequence of human domestication. The creation of place by architecture in the Neolithic together with the proliferation of relics and remains of objects such as figurines, statuettes of numerous subjects including animals and people, ornaments, and, later in the Near East, of pottery, is a tangible hint of the rise of institutions.
