The Intimate Bond by Brian Fagan Read Free Book Online Page B

Southwest Asia followed a strategy of herding goats and sheep for both meat and dairy products, often in landscapes outside the natural habitats of their larger wild ancestors. Surplus rams provided tender flesh, but goats survived longer, perhaps because of their much-valued hair.
    Changing Beasts
    Quite when the changes that distinguished domestic from wild goats and sheep began, we don’t know, but they were gradual and probably took hold around and after 9000 BCE , as flocks became larger. 10 The danger of predators receded dramatically. The need for camouflage, so important in the wild, would have vanished in founder herds. Colors would have become more variable. The shape and size of the animals changed asagility and large body size became less important. Short-limbed, smaller beasts would have had a much better chance of surviving when domesticated. Horns, once valued as defense weapons against attackers and in competition for mates, became smaller, more varied, and sometimes were absent altogether. Goats and sheep in the wild had a heightened awareness of danger and were more aggressive toward one another during mating season or when defending territory than were domestic beasts. The latter no longer needed the familiar defense mechanisms of the wild.
    Both goats and sheep had been seasonal feeders, moving to different locales in spring and fall. Now the pattern changed as their human masters preferred more open terrain, which had previously exposed the beasts to predators. Humans also restricted herd movement, which led to changes in limb size and proportions, such as a shortening of the extremities. Both animals became somewhat more sedentary and therefore more easily controlled. With a less mobile existence, the availability of food and water differed greatly from that in the wild. Richer, more stable environments may have resulted in less herd competition, and to automatic selection for accelerated sexual maturity, greater fertility, and increased fat storage. From the beginning the herders may have culled surplus males over and above those needed for breeding purposes. For one thing, rams were more aggressive and harder to control. The age and sex composition of herds changed dramatically, with major variations in reproduction patterns. Rams could now start reproducing much earlier, long before dominance competitions in the wild allowed. They became smaller; their horns changed and became reduced in size.
    Tracking the subtle changes that transformed wild into domestic beasts is extremely difficult. We have only fragmentary bones to document herding practices. It’s an ineluctable fact of biological life that many more males are born in domesticated herds of all kinds than are needed for breeding purposes. This means that there are always fairly compelling reasons to cull surplus males before maturity, or to castrate them. However, other factors come into play. Was the herd merely a source of meat, or were its owners interested in milk or wool? Did the landscape provide sufficient winter feed to nourish both breeding stock and an excess of males? These were important questions whenindividual ownership and animal management were transforming farming and herding societies in profound ways.
    The domestication of goats and sheep changed the dynamics of human life in fundamental ways from the beginning. Some values remained the same. Respect for animals endured, for flocks and herds were small. Every beast was valued, and each was recognized individually. These gregarious creatures became part of the family in a real sense. They were guarded carefully, driven to pasture daily, shorn for their hair and wool, with their surplus males culled for meat to control the size of the group, and their pens kept close to or even as part of human dwellings. There was a strong element of sustainability. Those who herded goats and sheep were well aware of the dangers of overgrazing, of stripping vegetation promiscuously from