The Beginning | Human Domestication
Ancient History
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25m
What if the transition from wild humanity to civilization was not simply a natural progression?
In 1959, a groundbreaking experiment in Siberia demonstrated that selecting for reduced aggression in wild foxes produced rapid physical and behavioral changes associated with domestication. Within generations, biology shifted.
Modern humans display many of the same markers.
Anthropologists describe this as self-domestication, the process by which social selection reshaped our species as we moved toward agriculture, cities, and complex societies.
But ancient Mesopotamian texts offer a different perspective.
Drawing on the Epic of Gilgamesh, Atrahasis, and early cuneiform traditions, this film explores whether humanity’s transformation was entirely self-directed, or whether the origins of civilization were remembered differently in the oldest surviving records. Featuring Paul Wallis.
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