Homegarden-based Indigenous Fruit Tree Production in Peninsular India - Indigenous Fruit Trees in the Tropics: Domestication, Utilization and Commercialization - page 85

started as a spontaneous growth of plants from the remnants of products
brought to the camps by the hunter-gatherers. Anderson (1952) described it as
the 'dump-heap' or incidental route to domestication. In this route, the seeds or
vegetative propagules of edible fruit trees and other useful species collected
from the forest by early man were discarded near the dwellings, where they
germinated and grew. The sites around habitations provided an environment
conducive to the survival of such regenerants. Apparently, fruit-tree
domestication in South Asia followed this pattern, although little documented
information exists. The recognition and management of such 'volunteers'
would have been the next step along the road to domestication. The
domestication of fruit trees may also have coincided with that of root crops, as
the hunter-gatherers used to collect both fruits and tubers from the wild.
Slowly, however, the unintentional dissemination of seeds became more
purposeful, with important species being planted to ensure their utilization
(Wiersum, 2006). The prehistoric people may also have instinctively selected
trees with larger fruit size, better quality or other desirable features from
the wild, besides supporting their regeneration. This, in turn, resulted in
the cultivated populations becoming genetically distinct from their wild
progenitors (Ladizinsky, 1998). However, only a few studies have addressed
the question of genetic diversity of fruit trees in the South and South-east Asian
homegardens.
5.2.1 Archaeological and literary evidence available from India
Although scientific evidence for homegarden-based tree domestication in
Peninsular India is hard to find, the ancient literature and evidence from
archaeological excavations provide some indications about the diversity of such
plants around the homesteads. In general, they corroborate the idea that fruit-
tree domestication started around the settlements in the prehistoric period. The
earliest evidence on this probably dates back to the Mesolithic period (between
10,000 and 4000 years ago), when fruits of 63 plants including Aegle
marmelos , Buchanania lanzan , Emblica officinalis , Mangifera indica , Ficus spp.,
Madhuca spp. and Ziziphus spp. were reportedly eaten raw, roasted or pickled
by the inhabitants of Madhya Pradesh in central India (Randhawa, 1980).
Subsequently, Emperor Ashoka, a great Indian ruler (273-232 BC ), encouraged
a system of arbori-horticulture of plantains ( Musa spp.), mango ( Mangifera
indica ), jackfruit ( Artocarpus heterophyllus ) and grapes ( Vitis spp.). Confirming
the predominance of homegardens in ancient India, Vatsyayana wrote in his
great topic of Hindu aesthetics, the Kama Sutra (composed between AD 300
and AD 400), that the housegardens were a significant source of fruits and
vegetables (cf. Randhawa, 1980). The travelogue of Ibn Battuta, a Persian
traveller ( AD 1325-1354), provides the earliest literary evidence from
Peninsular India; it mentions that in the densely populated and intensively
cultivated landscapes of the Malabar Coast of Kerala, coconut ( Cocos nucifera )
and black pepper ( Piper nigrum ) were prominent around the houses
(Randhawa, 1980).