23 Dec 2017

The ten species that changed our world

From This Way Up, 12:40 pm on 23 December 2017

In her book Tamed, writer, broadcaster and anthropologist Alice Roberts explores ten familiar species with wild pasts.

Dog walking

Photo: (Matt Nelson)

Alice Roberts

Photo: (Photographer Dave Stevens)

Over many thousands of years, our hunting-gathering ancestors foraged and tracked down a whole host of plants and animals.

Then people learned that you could derive more value from nature by taming and domesticating it, and farming and civilisation as we know it began.

From dogs, apples and wheat to rice, horses and maize, she discusses how we shaped these species to our wants and needs and how the science of genetics is revealing surprising stories about the plants and animals we've domesticated... starting with the origin and evolution of our best friend, the dog.