Origins Of Domestication
The main attempts at domestication of creatures and plants evidently were made in the Old World amid the Mesolithic Period. Pooches were first tamed in Central Asia by no less than 15,000 years back by individuals who occupied with chasing and assembling wild consumable plants. The main effective training of plants, and goats, dairy cattle, and different creatures—which …show more content…
Dogs probably accompanied hunters and helped them hunt wild animals; they probably also guarded human settlements and warned the inhabitants of possible danger. At the same time, they were eaten by humans, which was probably their main importance during the first stages of domestication.
Sheep and goats were also eaten in the initial stages of domestication but later became valuable for producing the commodities of milk and wool.
The principal aim of cattle breeding in ancient times was to obtain meat and skin and to produce work animals, which greatly contributed to the development of agriculture. Cattle, at the initial stages of domestication, produced a small amount of milk, sufficient only to rear their calves. The development of high milk yield in cows with their breeding especially for milk production is a later event in the history of domestication.
The first domesticated horses were also used for meat and skin. Later the horse played an enormous role in the waging of war. Peoples inhabiting the Middle East in the 2nd millennium BCE used horses in chariot battles. With time the horse began to be used as transportation. In the 1st millennium BCE carts appeared, and the horses were harnessed to them; other riding equipment, including the saddle and the bit, seems to have appeared in later …show more content…
Cockfighting was instrumental in bringing about the selection of these birds for larger size. Cocks later acquired religious significance. In Zoroastrianism the cock was associated with protection of good against evil and was a symbol of light. In ancient Greece it was also an object of sacrifice to gods. It is probable that egg production of the first domesticated hens was no more than five to ten eggs a year; high egg yield and improved meat qualities of hens developed at later stages of domestication.
Early domestication of the cat was probably the result of the pleasure experienced from keeping this animal. The cat’s ability to catch mice and rats was surely another reason that impelled people to keep cats at home. In ancient Egypt the cat was considered a sacred animal.
Some animals were domesticated for utilitarian purposes from the very beginning. Here belongs, first of all, the rabbit, whose real domestication was carried out from the 6th to the 10th century CE by French monks. The monks considered new-born rabbits “fish” and ate them when the church calendar indicated abstinence from