Animals as Domesticates: A World View through History

Conclusions

133 Conclusions For the past , years and more, the interaction between humans and animals has been evolving into an ever-closer relationship, which has moved away from that of predator and prey into a cooperative dependence from which neither can escape. Today, the majority of the world’s populations of humans could not survive without the resources supplied by their domestic animals, and the innumerable breeds of domestic animals could not survive without the care and nourishment provided by their human owners. The gradual spread of this interdependence has followed the course of human history, although at different rates in different parts of the world, as described in the preceding chapters. The long story that has led to monopoly of the living world by the humans and domesticates of today is summarized here in three progressive phases that began at the end of the last Ice Age. The first phase is tied to settlement and the emergence of human societies; the second follows the spread of worldwide livestock husbandry and the founding of ancient empires; we live in the third phase, with the huge global expansion in numbers of both humans and domesticates that has led to radically altered methods of farming. DOMESTICATES: THE EARLY PHASE At least in part, it probably all began with people’s affection for young animals, as suggested by Francis Galton, outlined in the Introduction, and backed up by the description of petkeeping by hunter-gatherers written by Nicholas Guppy in his account of the Wai-Wai of the Amazon Basin: With baby creatures attention, tenderness, and care were undoubtedly the important factors. Creatures scarcely emerged from the womb or egg—parakeets the size of a finger-tip, baby humming birds no bigger than peas—were taken back to the villages and reared to adulthood: newly born mammals were suckled by the women, birds fed with pre-chewed cassava bread forced into their beaks, or even directly from the women’s own mouths, in imitation of the mother birds, and if a creature were naturally shy or savage it was given to many people to handle, so that it became accustomed to human beings.1 As well as young animals, tamed in this early phase, wolves and many other wild animals that had a short flight distance,2 and were therefore not afraid to come close to human habitations, would have been gradually enfolded into the human environment. These species included all the major domestic livestock of today, but not the highly nervous species such as gazelles and deer that rely on speed for escape from predators and have a long flight distance. 134| Conclusions DOMESTICATES: THE PASTORAL PHASE With settlement and the cultivation of plant crops, ownership of herd animals spread and became part of the way of life of people all over the world except on the continents of Australasia and North America. And it is indeed puzzling why kangaroos were not domesticated in Australia and why the bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis) was not domesticated in North America. Another puzzle, which has received little attention from archaeozoologists and archaeologists , is the possible rate of expansion of the numbers of herd animals after their introduction to new regions. For example, after sheep were first introduced to northern Europe, was there an irruption in their numbers as has been described by Elinor Melville for the introduction of sheep into Mexico in the sixteenth century and horses and cattle in both North and South America?3 It could be envisaged that the early domesticated sheep, goats, cattle, pigs, and horses in Europe all bred successfully and produced huge, unmanageable populations in a remarkably short time. Yet there is little evidence for such irruptions in the archaeological record of the Neolithic. Perhaps the animals were too valuable, too well guarded, and their reproduction too well controlled, so there were few escapes and therefore no possibility for the establishment of feral populations. Or perhaps there were pockets of irruptions that have left no historical or living record apart from a few possible relics such as Britain’s Exmoor ponies. Following the establishment and spread of domestic livestock in the prehistoric periods, separate breeds evolved that were uniquely adapted to the biotope in which they lived; they were ecotypes that were as well adapted to their environment as the local wild fauna. The influence of these ancient breeds of domestic livestock is apparent in every part of the world, whether it be the Sahel, where herds of camels and...