Animal Domestication

The animal domestication probably might have started about 12,000 years ago. Certain animals had the nature to stay close to the humans, getting benefits like a more secure food supply and protection.

Hunters and herders view animals in very different ways. Hunters are interested in acquiring dead animals and their primary products—meat, hides, smew, and bone. Herders, on the other hand, are interested in live animals and their off­spring. The shift from acquiring dead animals to maintaining flocks of live ani­mals marks the beginning of animal domestication (Meadow 1989:81). While this represents a useful behavioral definition of animal domestication, the prob­lem that has vexed archaeologists for over half a century is how to recognize evidence for early animal domestication in the archaeological record.

Most of the evidence for early animal domestication comes from butchered animal bones that were discarded at archaeological sites. These fragmentary remains represent refuse from meat consumption. They are therefore an indirect reflection of animal production strategic. Zooarchaeologists have used a number of criteria to identify early animal domestication in the archaeological record. These criteria include the appearance of an animal outside its natural range, morphological changes in the animal bones themselves, and changes in the demographic profiles or age and sex distribution of the animals that were selected for slaughter. While all these criteria have been used success­fully to identify early animal domestication, each criterion has its limitations.

The appearance of animals outside their natural ranges is an obvious indica­tion that animals arc under some form of human control. Since wild goats and wild sheep are not native to Europe, the appearance of sheep and goats in south­eastern Europe beginning about 9,000 years ago indicates the beginnings of pastoralism in that region. However, experiments with animal domestication are most likely to have occurred in regions where the wild ancestors of early domestic animals arc found, so this criterion cannot be used to identify the earliest attempts to domesticate animals.

Morphological changes that have been used to identify animal domestication include overall body size reduction, changes in the form of the horn cores (the bones that underlie the horns), reduction in the size of the teeth and jaws, and evidence for pathological changes that may be the result of penning or tethering. The most commonly used of these criteria is overall size reduction since measure­ments can be taken on a wide variety of anatomical elements).

Questionnaire:

• Explain about the Animal Domestication.