VAE 311: Principles and Techniques of Veterinary and AH Extension (2+1)

DOMESTICATION OF ANIMALS 

• About 10,000 years ago the transition from hunting and foraging for foodto the domestication of plants and animals took place.
• It was a shift from foodquest or food procurement to food production. It was by no means a smooth transition and may have been spread over many centuries.
• At first people mayhave had to supplement the food they produced with food they procured byhunting and foraging, but gradually the dependence on wild food resources mayhave lessened as domesticated plants and animals increased in quantity andimproved in quality.
• Spatial mobility, a basic requisite of the nomadic way oflife, may also have given way to the process of sedentarisation, which is anecessary condition for the domestication of plants or cultivation. However,the domestication of animals or animal husbandry has different requirements.
• Spatial mobility, which may have temporarily been given up, became the basicrequisite for animal herding.
• The shift from food quest to food production occurred with the onset of the Neolithic period, and one of the first regions to undergo this transition was south-west Asia, as is shown by polynological and archaeo-zoological studies of there mains of domesticated plants and animals in Israel, Jordan, Syria, Turkey,Iraq and Iran, all from before 5000 bc.
• The first animals to be domesticated, before 6000 bc, were probably sheep and goats fromthe arid highlands of Persiaand Anatolia, to be followed by cattle (Bos) in the lowlands of Mesopotamia.
• Gradually diverse animals would have come under human control in other regions also. In the Indian subcontinent there isevidence from Mohenjo-Daro and Harappaindicating the domestication of sheep, cattle (even buffaloes) from the animal remains that have been found and studied.