Domestication, or domestication (from lat. domesticus- "domestic") - this is the name of the process of changing wild animals, during which these animals are subjected to artificial selection and kept isolated (for many generations) from their wild form. However, not all animals were able to get along with humans, as few of them were able to overcome their fear of him.

Geneticists have found that the first wolves were domesticated in South Asia. The oldest find, indicating the domestication of the wolf, is a skull found in the Goyet cave in Belgium, its age is 31,700 years, the age of the remains found in the Chauvet cave in France is somewhat less than 26 thousand years.

As soon as a person began to lead a sedentary lifestyle (about 10 thousand years ago) and took up farming, a cat appeared in his house, which protected his grain reserves stored in barns from rats and mice.

flickr/cat woman of 3

The first occurred in the Middle East, by domesticating a wild Nubian (Middle Eastern) cat. Millions of cats living in our time can "boast" of their Middle Eastern origins.

Almost as long (at least 10 thousand years) sheep and goats live next to humans. The ancestor of the domestic goat was a mountain sheep - which lives in Western Asia and Southern Europe. As a result of careful selection and crossing, more than 150 breeds appeared, remotely resembling their wild and ancient progenitor.

Around the same period, the first appeared, descended from a wild bezoar, or who lived in the same areas as the mouflon. There are not so many breeds of domestic goats, however, they are very diverse.

It is assumed that the horse was domesticated more than 6-7 thousand years ago (from other sources - about 9 thousand years ago). The ancestor of the modern horse is (lat. Equus ferus ferus) is an inhabitant of the forest-steppe and steppe zones of Eurasia.

Domestication took place, according to scientists, in several areas at once. This is justified by the fact that domestic horses do not have a common genetic root. The first domestic horses were kept by people for meat, milk and skins. We saddled the horse much later.

The first pigs were domesticated about 7 thousand years ago (from some sources - possibly earlier) and they originated from a wild pig (lat. Sus scrofa). It spread mainly in East Asia, in the countries of the West and in Oceania, where it became the main source of meat and fat.

The ancestor of the domestic cow (lat. Bos taurus taurus) was a wild bull (lat. Bos taurus).

In the early stages of domestication, cows spread from the Balkan Peninsula and from Southwest Asia to Africa (7 thousand years ago), and to Central Europe (approximately 5 thousand years ago). Since then, the cow has become a valuable source of milk and meat.

7.5 thousand years ago, the Asian buffalo was domesticated (lat. Bubalus bubalis) is a strong and dangerous beast, which is now called an ox. Now in hot Asian countries they have become the main source of meat and skins, as well as an indispensable draft force.

It was previously believed that the first domesticated chickens appeared in India around 2,000 years ago, but more recent studies have shown that the first chickens were domesticated in Southeast Asia and China around 6,000-8,000 years ago. And there was a domestic chicken from a wild banking chicken (lat. Gallus gallus) native to Asia.

The goose is considered one of the oldest poultry and was domesticated quite early (more than 3-4 thousand years ago) in ancient China. Its ancestor is the wild gray goose (lat. anser anser). New breeds of domestic goose were bred mainly in Europe.

They were domesticated in China and Europe at the same time as geese, then they spread to other countries. Domestic ducks originated from a wild common duck, or mallard (lat. Anas platyryncha). Domestication of ducks took place very quickly.

The bee was domesticated by humans about 5,000 years ago. Since those ancient times, people have been using bee products: honey, wax, poison, propolis, perga, etc. It was impossible to tame bees (in a certain sense), but people still learned to use them for their own purposes.

Silkworm

Silkworm (lat. bombyx mori) - a butterfly, thanks to which a person learned what silk is. It was domesticated by man in China around 3000 BC. Sericulture is the most important industry in China, breeding silkworms to produce silk.

Human activity has affected nature by changing the environment: where once there were steppes, forests and swamps, houses appeared, roads and agricultural lands spread. Man cultivated plants and tamed animals for food and other needs; for many people, animals became pets.

Domestication is the domestication of wild species. tamed for wool, milk, eggs and meat, or to work on farms. Today, there are a huge number of tamed animals that were domesticated at different times and for different purposes. Your attention is presented to tamed animals, which we used to consider as pets and have already forgotten that they were once wild.

Dogs: from 12000 liters. BC.

john malley

One of the first domesticated animals were their descendants of the dog. The earliest known evidence of a domesticated dog is its jawbone found in a cave in Iraq. It differs from the wolf in that it has smaller jaws and teeth. Selective breeding affects species fairly quickly, and it is a natural process for humans, but it is likely that the first cases of domestication occurred by accident, and not intentionally.

Images in Egyptian paintings and sculptures, Assyrian and Roman mosaics, prove that by that time, these civilizations had many dogs of various shapes and sizes. One Roman writer from the same period even gave advice on the color of the dog: shepherd dogs should be white (to distinguish them from wolves in the dark), but farm dogs should be black (to frighten thieves).

Sheep and goats, pigs and cows: 9000-7000l. BC.

Bibrak Qamar

Soon after dogs, among the domesticated animals, goats, sheep, cows and pigs appear. The first sheep were domesticated as a food source in the Middle East. Later, goats and sheep became the permanent animals of nomadic pastoralists - tribes who move throughout the year with their herds, guided by the availability of fresh grass.

Cows and pigs are more associated with settled communities. According to historical data, the pig was first domesticated in China. During their lifetime, these animals provided people with milk, meat and manure. When they died, the skin and wool were used for clothing; horns and bones for sharp objects (needles and arrows); fat for tallow candles; hooves for glue.

Ox and buffalo: from 4000 l. BC.

Jennifer McLeod

Of the four major agricultural animal groups, cattle represent the most significant development in village life. The brute strength of an ox is an excellent addition to the muscular strength of a man. At first they carried sledges, a little later, plows and wheeled carts (almost simultaneously in the Middle East and Europe). In India and Southeast Asia, buffalo were used as cargo animals.

Cats: from 3000 liters. BC.

Tambako The Jaguar

Cats have been kept away from people for a long time. Their solitary lifestyle (not herd or group) helped a lot in this. Cats were attracted to the food and shelter they could find in human settlements. Once domesticated, cats quickly spread and increased in number due to their high breeding rate. In many cultures and religions, cats were considered sacred. For example, in Egypt, where they were even mummified. In the folk stories of different peoples, the cat was a natural companion of man.

Horses: from 3000l. BC.

Moyan Brenn

Humans gained their most important ally in the animal kingdom when they domesticated the horse. Wild horses of various kinds had spread throughout much of the world by the time human history began. Their bones have been found among the remains of early human food, and they are depicted in cave paintings with other animals. Some of the earliest fossils were found in the Americas, but they have since become extinct on that continent.

The original purpose of domesticating horses, like cattle, was to obtain a reliable source of meat and milk, and later people realized that they had an excellent means of transportation at their disposal.

The first domesticated horses were pony-sized. All modern horses known to us are the result of human selection. Other wild breeds are now extinct.

Donkeys: 3000 l. BC.

Rinaldo R

Almost at the same time as the domestication of the wild horse comes the domestication of the donkey. They are often mentioned in such two ancient civilizations as Mesopotamia and Egypt.

Camels: 3000-1500 hp BC.

Renzo Ottaviano

As beasts of burden and transport, camels occupy an important place along with horses and donkeys. The two smallest members of the camel family, the llama and the alpaca, were domesticated primarily in South America. This saved both species from complete extinction. Neither the llama nor the alpaca currently exists in the wild.

In the scorched regions of North Africa and Asia, two different species of camel become the most important beasts of burden - the one-humped camel (North Africa, the Middle East, India) and the two-humped camel (Central Asia, Mongolia). Both are well adapted to desert conditions.

: from 2000 l. BC.

1967

About 2000 years ago, wild birds of the jungle began to be tamed in Asia. Almost at the same time, pigeons appeared in Egypt. At first, pigeons simply lived and bred in close proximity to humans. But some time later, people discovered their unusual talent - to fly home.

: 2000 l. BC.

Sumit Gupta

India is the region where elephants were tamed during the Indus civilization. It is not known exactly when elephants began to be trained for war, but there is a large amount of evidence that they were a valuable military force in India and North Africa. The ability to learn tricks also makes elephants popular animals in the Roman circus.

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Domestication or otherwise domestication is the process of changing wild animals or plants, in which for many generations they are kept by humans genetically isolated from their wild form and subjected to artificial selection.

The process of domestication of wild animals begins with the artificial selection of individuals to obtain offspring with certain traits necessary for man. Individuals are typically selected for certain desired characteristics, including reduced aggression towards humans and members of their own species. In this regard, it is customary to speak of the taming of the wild species. The purpose of domestication is the use of an animal in agriculture as a farm animal or as a pet. If this goal is achieved, we can talk about a domesticated animal. The domestication of an animal radically changes the conditions for the further development of the species. Natural evolutionary development is replaced by artificial selection according to breeding criteria. Thus, within the framework of domestication, the genetic properties of the species change.

One of the first animals domesticated by man was the dog. It happened according to some sources from 9 to 17 thousand years ago.

The study of the fossil remains of ancient dogs began in 1862, when skulls of the Neolithic period were found in Switzerland. This dog was called "peaty", and later its remains were found everywhere in Europe, including on Lake Ladoga, as well as in Egypt. Peat dog outwardly did not change during the entire Stone Age, its remains were found even in the deposits of the Roman era. The Spitz-shaped dog of the Samoyed is considered a direct descendant of the peat dog. A dog from Lake Ladoga, larger than a typical peat dog, is attributed to the ancestors of Great Danes, and sometimes Laikas. With the ancestors of the dog itself, there is less clarity. The following are named as such: 1) wolves - both our gray Tambov comrade and Indian (the most common hypothesis); 2) wolves and jackals; 3) the now extinct wild "great dog" - Carl Linnaeus, the creator of the first classification of living beings, thought so. According to the method of application, five main types of dogs are distinguished: mastiffs, wolf-like dogs, greyhounds, hunting pointer-like and shepherd dogs. Since ancient times, dogs have been drawn, carved in stone, minted on coins - this gives us the opportunity to trace the development of the "relationship" between a dog and a person. In ancient Egyptian tombs, images of the pharaoh dog, deified by the Egyptians, were found: thus, according to Herodotus, mourning was declared in connection with the death of a dog in Egyptian homes. On the bas-reliefs of Babylon and Assyria, we see mastiffs used for hunting and as fighting dogs. In Greece and Rome, there are many coins depicting dogs, the oldest of which date back to the 7th-6th centuries. BC e. Fighting dogs were in special demand. In the army of Alexander the Great, they occupied a place of honor. Assyro-Babylonian dogs, known as Epirus or Molossian dogs, were brought to Ancient Greece and Rome, where they were also used as fighting dogs. Dogs of hunting breeds, greyhounds and hounds were highly valued (the constellation of Hounds of Dogs, which remained in the sky with their master, Actaeon, is named after them).

In Rome, fighting dogs began to act as gladiators, competing alone with bulls, lions, elephants, and bears. Miniature decorative melites, which later became known as Maltese lapdogs, also became widespread there. The passion of matrons for dogs was so great that the emperors repeatedly condemned him, because, in their opinion, this prevented noble ladies from having children.

In the 1st century BC e. the first treatise on dogs known to us appears. In Marcus Terentius Varro's encyclopedic essay On Agriculture, he describes the different types of dogs, puppy selection, dog food, breeding, and dog training. However, even earlier in China and Japan, written references to the upbringing and breeding of dogs were preserved - they are about four thousand years old. A monument was erected to the dog that saved the ancient Greek city of Corinth. And in Pompeii, covered with ashes, a large dog was found covering the body of a child. The inscription on the silver collar said that the dog had already saved the life of his master twice...

The goat was apparently the next most domesticated. It happened from 9 to 12 thousand years ago on the territory of modern Iran, Iraq, Palestine. Her wild ancestors were bezoar and markhorn goats. The goat was respected as a nurse (according to legend, the goat Amalthea nursed the baby Zeus), and the goat skin refers to the divine attire of Pallas Athena. Images of goats are also on the frescoes of Ancient Egypt. Not all the consequences of friendship with goats were predictable. The domestication of goats gave humans high-quality milk, wool, and leather, but also harmed their habitat. Where herds of goats graze for a long time, all vegetation disappears, and a desert sets in on a flowering land. Goats not only completely destroy the shoots - they even get to shallow seeds that could germinate in the coming rainy season. The soil exposed by goats is subject to erosion. Such a fate befell the plateaus of Castile, and Asia Minor, and the once famous Moroccan and Lebanese cedar groves.

Around the same time - 10-11 thousand years ago - a sheep was domesticated on the territory of modern Iran. From there, domestic sheep - the descendants of wild argali and mouflon sheep - first came to Persia, then to Mesopotamia. Already in the twentieth century. BC in Mesopotamia there were various breeds of sheep, one of which - a fine-fleeced sheep with horns twisted in a spiral - was widely distributed: merino sheep then became the pride of Spain. 7-12 thousand years ago, a cat appeared next to a person. Cats that settled near human habitation of their own free will are an exception among domestic animals.

It is generally accepted that the North African and Western Asian steppe buckskin cat, domesticated in Nubia about four thousand years ago, is considered the single ancestor of the domestic murka. From here, the domestic cat came to Egypt, later crossing in Asia with the forest Bengal cat. In Europe, fluffy aliens met with a local, wild European forest cat. The result of crossings is the modern variety of breeds and colors. Fossil remains of cats have been found in the Neolithic and Bronze Age layers of Asia Minor and in the Caucasus, Jordan and the cities of Ancient India. On the paintings in the tombs of Sakkarakh (2750-2650 BC), the cat is depicted with a collar, and on the fresco from Beni Hassan, in the house, next to the mistress. In Egypt, cats were in a special position among other deified animals. Their corpses were embalmed and buried in magnificent tombs in special cemeteries. They were considered the incarnation of Bast, the goddess of the moon and fertility, in whose temple in Bubastis sometimes up to 700 thousand believers gathered for the holidays. Archaeologists have discovered about 300 thousand cat mummies dating back to the 4th millennium BC. e. In the 19th century, an enterprising merchant loaded a whole ship with them in Egypt and brought them to Manchester, thinking of selling them for fertilizer. The idea failed, and most of the mummies ended up in scientific collections. The law also protected the sacred animal: for the murder of a cat, severe punishment was threatened, up to the death penalty (Herodotus tells about the unfortunate Greek who unknowingly killed a cat). The export of cats abroad has long been banned. Only in the second millennium BC, domestic cats appeared in Babylon, then in India, China and Japan. From Egypt, the cat on the ships of the Phoenician merchants came to many parts of the Mediterranean, but until the beginning of AD. e. she was a rare and expensive animal. The demand for cats began to fall sharply only with the spread of Christianity, which took them sharply negatively. If in the era of early Christianity cats could still live at monasteries (in a number of nunneries they were generally the only animals that were allowed to be kept), then later cats (especially black ones) began to be perceived as accomplices of witches, sorcerers and the devil personally. Innocent animals became victims of the Inquisition, they were hanged and burned as heretics.

On all Christian holidays, unfortunate animals were burned alive and buried in the ground, fried on iron rods and in cages with ritual ceremonies in front of crowds of believers. In Flanders, in the city of Ipern, Wednesday in the second week of Lent was called "cat's" - on this day, cats were thrown from a high tower. The custom was introduced by Count Baldwin of Flanders in the 10th century and lasted until 1868. European cats would inevitably have been exterminated, but they were saved by the invasion of rats, which brought with them the "black death" - the plague, and the cats found a worthy use for themselves, and then the respect of the owners .

The "peers" of cats - by the time of taming - are geese. Geese were the first among birds to be domesticated: the wild gray species - in Europe, the Nile - in North Africa, the Siberian-Chinese - in China. Found drawings of the Nile goose, bred in Egypt in the 11th millennium BC. e.

In historical times, geese were kept in almost all countries of Europe, Asia and North Africa. In ancient Greece, geese were dedicated to Aphrodite; in Rome, they began to be treated with great respect after, according to legend, at the beginning of the 4th century. BC e. sensitive birds, raising the alarm, helped to repel the attack of the Gauls. Seven thousand years ago, ducks, descendants of the common mallard, were domesticated in Mesopotamia and China.

Chickens as poultry first appeared in South Asia. Their wild ancestor was the banking rooster. Chickens were bred both for eggs and meat, and for fights. Themistocles, going to war with the Persians, included cockfighting in the training program so that the soldiers, looking at the birds, learned from them stamina and courage. From the bold cocky birds the people of the Gauls got their name.

Buffaloes - the most valuable domestic animals in the countries of Southeast Asia - were tamed about 9 thousand years ago. Surprisingly unpretentious in food, tireless in work and immune to many diseases that are detrimental to other livestock, with the conquests of Islam, they were brought by the Arabs to Asia Minor and North Africa, from Egypt to East. The Arabs brought buffaloes to Sicily and northern Italy, and the Turks to the Balkans.

Approximately 8.5 thousand years ago, a cow was domesticated. This happened, according to different versions, on the territory of modern Turkey, in Spain, South Asia... Its wild ancestor tour was exterminated in the Middle Ages, and the cow, which spread around the world in antiquity, was everywhere elevated to the rank of a sacred animal. This status is still maintained in many Indian religious schools and in Africa. Sacred winged bulls carved from stone adorned the temples of Assyria and Persia. In Egypt, the bull Apis was the earthly incarnation of the patron god of Memphis, Ptah. In Crete, the birthplace of the bull-headed minotaur, bulls participated in the famous bull games - circus performances with religious overtones. And it is not for nothing that one of the epithets of the goddess Hera is “eyed”... Buffaloes and bulls were widely used not only as sources of milk, meat, skins, but also as draft animals. They dragged heavy carts and rallies behind them, helping a person to farm.

Their analogue in South America was the llama and alpaca, tamed five to seven thousand years ago in Peru. Before the arrival of the Spaniards, llamas were the only transport animal among the Indians. On mountain roads, a llama can carry a load of 50-60 kilograms, which is quite a lot, considering that she herself weighs about a hundred. Alpaca is bred for its fine wool.

Pigs were domesticated 9,000 years ago in China and Southeast Asia, bred for meat and skins. Somewhat later, their images appear on the frescoes of Ancient Egypt. The pigs of those times are not like the pigs we are used to, but the current boars: sinewy, agile, very thin by modern standards.

In Europe, pigs were grazed on peculiar lands - in oak groves. These artiodactyls love to feast on acorns, although they are able to digest almost any organic food. The ever-hungry pigs were a source of trouble in medieval cities. Their usual crime is infanticide. They were treated like criminals - they were arrested, kept in the city prison on an equal footing with people, tried, sentenced to hanging ... And the piglets were confiscated in favor of the court.

The first centers of domestication of the horse appeared 4 thousand years BC. e. Presumably, two types of wild horse were domesticated: small, broad-browed steppe horses, vaguely similar to tarpans (wild European horses that died out in the Middle Ages), and larger forest horses, with a narrow forehead, long facial part of the head and thin limbs. Domestic horses retained signs of wild ancestors for a long time. The peoples of the Ancient East were the first to improve horses. In the VII-VI centuries. BC e. The best in the world were the Nesean horses of the Persian kingdom.

The regions adjoining the Caspian Sea were famous for horse breeding. At the end of the first millennium BC. e. the glory of the Nesean horses was inherited by the horses of the Parthian kingdom, which was formed on the site of the northern provinces of Persia and Bactria. The Parthian horses of a golden-red color were stately and for those times high (one and a half meters), they became a desirable military prey of any state. Horse breeding in the forest belt of Eastern Europe was completely different in those days - here horses were used mainly for meat, their height was only 120-130 cm. In the 17th century BC. e. chariots appeared. Thanks to them, the Hyksos, alien tribes, conquered Egypt for a long time. Much later, cavalry appeared - armed horsemen in large military formations (individual riders were much earlier), this happened at the beginning of the 1st millennium BC. e. at the Assyrians. Interestingly, at the beginning, the equestrian warrior, as in chariots, had a right-handed driver: in battle, he controlled two horses (his and his warrior), and the fighter at the same time freed both hands for shooting and throwing darts.

The African wild donkey was domesticated 5-6 thousand years ago. Domestic donkeys have long been the main transport animal, especially in those countries where horses were not known or for some reason the use of donkeys was preferable. The donkey's hooves are much stronger than those of the horse, and they do not need horseshoes even on stony and uneven mountainous soil. Donkeys were widely used as riding and pack animals for many millennia, they were used in the construction of the Egyptian pyramids and even in battles. So, the Persian king Darius once, with the help of donkeys, dispersed the army of the Scythians, who had never seen these animals and were frightened.

In Europe and Asia, strong, tall breeds of domestic donkeys were bred, such as the Khomad ones in Iran, the Catalan ones in Spain, and the Bukhara ones in Central Asia. In Greece, the donkey was dedicated to the god of winemaking, Dionysius, and was part of his intoxicated retinue along with the sileni and satyrs.

Originating about five thousand years ago in India, falconry quickly conquered the world, and the "sport of kings" flourished in the early Middle Ages. In Europe, falconry was of a mass nature: it was a hobby for both feudal lords and commoners. There was a special table of ranks, prescribing who and with what bird to hunt. In England, stealing or killing someone else's falcon was punishable by death. Huge and majestic were the hunts of Genghis Khan, with the participation of hundreds of birds and thousands of dogs. Many hundreds of birds were kept under Ivan the Terrible - they even took the travel tax from merchants in pigeons for falcons.

Actually, people domesticated pigeons about 6.5 thousand years ago (in Mesopotamia). Doves were often depicted in Assyrian bas-reliefs. In many countries, doves were sacred animals dedicated to the goddesses of love - Astarte, Aphrodite.

In ancient Rome, pigeons were bred for meat in special columbariums. Pliny the Elder wrote that his contemporaries were "obsessed with roast pigeons." But the main purpose of the dove is different. This is the only bird that faithfully serves as air mail, thanks to its ability to find its way to its native places.

Camels were domesticated 5000-6000 years ago: in Arabia - one-humped (dromedary), in Central and Central Asia - two-humped (Bactrian). In Egypt, a figurine of a loaded dromedary was found, which is over 5,000 years old. Apparently, the drawings depicting one-humped camels on the rocks of Aswan and Sinai are of the same age. In the literature, both camels were mentioned from 700-600 BC. e. Herodotus wrote a lot about camels in connection with the great importance of these animals for wars. "Ships of the desert" were famous for their ability to go without water and food for a long time.

Not left without pets and the north. Reindeer breeding was born in Chukotka two or three thousand years ago. In the rather poor world of the tundra, the deer has become a real salvation for the northern peoples. The carcass of the animal was used in its entirety, and not just the meat and skin. Everything went into food, up to young horns, tendons, bone marrow and larvae of the subcutaneous gadfly!

The same salvation in the mountains, steppes and semi-deserts of Tibet was the yak, tamed in the first millennium BC. e. From fat - twice as fat as cow's - milk, in addition to ordinary butter and cheese, they make special cottage cheese, which does not deteriorate for a long time and weighs almost nothing (which is very convenient for travelers). Wool and yak skins keep out the cold, and dried dung is often the only available fuel in the mountains.

A little later - according to various estimates, from 2300 to 5000 years ago - people began to domesticate bees. The oldest image of a bee was found in the Aran cave (Spain) - a drawing of the Paleolithic period more than 15 thousand years old. The systematic breeding of bees was started by the ancient Egyptians, and beekeeping in Egypt was nomadic: hives on rafts, as the medonium of wasp plants bloomed in the northern provinces of Egypt, slowly moved down the Nile. From the second millennium BC, the custom appeared in Assyria to cover the bodies of the dead with wax and immerse them in honey. The custom lasted for a long time - until Alexander the Great, whose body was also transported in a coffin, filled to the top with honey, to the place of his burial in Egypt. Judging by the frequency of references in literature, bees were one of the most popular animals in antiquity: King Solomon and Democritus, Aristotle and Virgil, Aristophanes and Xenophon wrote about them. In 950, on the orders of Emperor Constantine VII, an encyclopedia on beekeeping, Geoponics, was compiled. Honey was practically the only raw material for the preparation of sweet dishes until the middle of the Middle Ages, and wax was used to make candles.

At the opposite end of Eurasia, they found a use for another insect - the silkworm butterfly. The first mention of silk is found in an ancient Chinese manuscript c. 2600 BC e. For more than twenty centuries, the Chinese have maintained a monopoly on silk production. According to legend, the first successful attempt to smuggle caterpillar cocoons was made in the 4th century BC. n. e. by a Chinese princess who married the king of Lesser Bukhara and brought him a gift of "silkworm eggs" hidden in her hair. It was not possible to breed silkworms outside of China. The second smuggling in 552 turned out to be more successful, when two monks carried cocoons in staffs and handed them to Emperor Justinian. Since that time, sericulture began to develop outside of China. True, then for some time it died out, but was revived after the Arab conquests.

The rabbit began to be domesticated in ancient Rome - there the animals were kept in special pens - leporaria. As everyone knows, a rabbit is "not only valuable fur." The Romans began to fatten them for meat (gourmets especially loved rabbit embryos and newborn rabbits). Rabbits were also valued in medieval Europe - for example, in England at the beginning of the 14th century. a rabbit cost as much as a pig. And already in ancient times, the rabbit began to cause a lot of trouble. In the Balearic archipelago, a pair of rabbits released into the wild produced such a large offspring that the locals began to ask Emperor Augustus to help them cope with the scourge and send soldiers to fight the voracious little animals. Judging by Australia, "eaten" by rabbits already in modern times, this story did not teach anyone anything.

Several thousand years BC. e in the New World began the domestication of guinea pigs. It is likely that these animals themselves came to the human dwelling in search of protection and warmth. Among the Incas, pigs were sacrificial animals, which were brought as a gift to the god of the Sun, and were also eaten on holidays. Particularly popular were pigs with motley brown or white color. They were brought to Europe in the 16th century. They are now called "marine" rather by mistake - it is much more correct to call them "overseas".

Ostrich, for the sake of feathers and eggs, was domesticated five thousand years ago by the ancient Egyptians. Birds were kept in flocks and guarded. Young animals were tamed, which, after reaching adulthood, were periodically plucked. Ostriches were also domesticated in eastern Sudan, where they were kept with herds of cattle and camels. In ancient Egypt, guinea fowls also began to be bred. For a long time, guinea fowl in Greece and Rome were only sacrificial birds. This continued until the emperor Caligula, who decided: as a sign of "divine majesty" to sacrifice guinea fowl to him - that is, to the table.

In the 5th century n. e. carp was bred from wild carp. In Europe, carps were bred mainly in monastery ponds. The first mention of them is in the orders sent by the minister Cassiodorus to the governors of the provinces: the minister demanded that carps be regularly supplied to the table of King Theodoric (456-526).

Since ancient times, there were also such pets, whose functions were reduced to purely decorative. In the tenth century BC e. in China, various breeds of goldfish were bred from carp, which quickly spread to Japan and Indonesia. And in the Middle Ages (XV century) the canary was domesticated. Today, we can hardly imagine as domestic animals such as thrushes, partridges, swans, storks, cranes, pelicans - in Egypt they were fattened for meat and used as laying hens. For the sake of meat, hyenas were also bred (!), They were also used as guard animals. In ancient Rome, dormouse (small rodents) were kept in special pots (doles), where they were fattened with nuts. Their meat was valued as a great delicacy. It has long been the custom to put scales on the table at feasts, weigh the dormouse on them in the presence of a notary and record its weight in the minutes. Serve the most well-fed dormouse was a matter of prestige and pride of the rich. And in ancient Roman ponds, moray eels were bred to the delight of gourmets.

In the Ancient East, leopards and lions were kept as sacred and sacrificial animals (and also for the prestige of the ruler). They even hunted with lions, although cheetahs were much more popular as hunters. In some places, with them, as well as with tamed much later - 1000-2000 years ago - caracals (large wild cats) are hunted now. The use of tamed cormorants dates back hundreds of years - in China and Japan they are used as "live fishing rods": an iron ring is put on the bird's neck, which does not allow swallowing the fish, after which the cormorant is released for fishing. In the last two centuries, attempts have been made to domesticate several more animals: elks, musk oxen, antelope; as well as decorative animals - Syrian hamsters and many aquarium fish.

In the process of domestication, under the influence of new environmental conditions and arts, selection, animals developed signs that distinguish them from wild ones, and the more significant, the more labor and time a person spent on obtaining animals with the properties he needed. The size and shape of the body have changed to the greatest extent in animals whose living conditions are very different from wild habitat conditions (cattle, pigs, sheep, horses) and to a lesser extent in animals such as camels and reindeer, whose living conditions are in captivity. close to natural. The so-called protective coloration has disappeared; pets have a variety of colors. Compared to wild ones, they have a lighter skeleton, weaker bones, and thinner skin. The internal organs have also undergone changes. In many domestic animals, the lungs, heart, and kidneys are less developed, but the mammary glands and reproductive organs function better than in wild ones (domestic animals, as a rule, are more prolific), and seasonality in reproduction has disappeared in many of them. Most domesticated animals are characterized by a decrease in brain size, a decrease in the reactivity of the nervous system, a simplification of behavioral reactions, an increase in heterozygosity and high phenotypic stability under changing conditions of existence, a change in the phenotypic expression of mutations under the influence of an altered gene pool, and a general increase in variability. Mankind would develop differently if its path did not cross with the paths of the smaller brothers. Would people be able to survive and create a modern culture without the participation of dogs, cows, horses, sheep? Even the absence of such a simple insect species as bees on Earth would greatly change the way of life of a person.

Today it is hardly possible to imagine human life without pets. They are a source of food, clothing, fertilizers, household help. For many, pets become true friends. But once our pets lived in the wild, got their own food and avoided strange bipedal creatures. Let's talk about which animal man tamed first.

Let's understand the terms

It means to form in him a feeling of attachment to a person, to make a wild beast obedient. Probably, primitive people did not set themselves such tasks. However, having killed the female on the hunt, they took her cubs with them. This, at least, is what modern savages do, bringing young animals into their homes without any ulterior motive.

From this point of view, it is difficult to name the very first animal tamed by man. It could be a deer, or it could be a cave bear cub, a crocodile or a fox. It is known that many emperors, such as Genghis Khan, kept tame cheetahs.

However, it is not enough to raise an animal in captivity so that it becomes a pet. Careful work is needed to select the resulting offspring. Only by selecting the most valuable specimens from each litter (with reduced aggressiveness) and raising them in a circle of people, you can get a domesticated animal.

Let's dive into history

There is no exact data about the first domestic animal tamed by man. On the earliest images of the 5th-6th centuries BC. already there are dogs, pigs. In the most ancient monuments of writing, in prehistoric myths and legends, the main domestic animals appear. Some of them were revered as sacred.

To dig deeper, we will have to turn to archaeologists for help. Thanks to the remains of camps, bones, cave drawings, they draw conclusions about the life, occupations, nutrition and other features of the life of primitive people. The early sites of the Stone Age show that at that time man had not yet entered into alliances with animals, earning his livelihood through hunting or gathering. However, in the Upper Paleolithic era, when Europe was covered with ice, and reindeer roamed the Crimea, the situation changed.

Friendship with a dog

What animal and why did man tame first? Archaeologists say that a dog or its closest ancestor, a wolf, became a true friend of savages in time immemorial. The remains of these animals are found in sites aged 13-17 millennia. A grave has been discovered in Israel where a woman and her dog have been buried for 12,000 years. Dog skulls dating back to the 34th and 31st millennia BC have been found in Belgium (Goya) and Altai (the Robber's Cave). Scientists still find it difficult to determine the exact date when the process of domestication of a four-legged friend took place.

It is unlikely that he was purposeful. Most likely, the animals came to the cave of the savages, having smelled the food. Receiving bones, they began to visit more often, getting used to unusual neighbors. People, in turn, have discovered that the dog can be an excellent guard dog. Human-bred puppies provided invaluable assistance in hunting, finding wild animals and helping to cope with them. In each family, they tried to keep several dogs, who were trained to track down the beast, to bark in case of danger. People and animals became very close, they lived in the same room and slept together to escape the cold.

Livestock development

The first animal tamed by man proved the undoubted benefits of such unions. With the development of agriculture, our distant ancestors began to lead. This created the prerequisites for the emergence of cattle breeding.

Sheep and goats were trained at least 10 thousand years ago. This happened in the territories of North America, Africa, Southern Europe, the Middle East. Most likely, after hunting, little lambs were left "in reserve". Soon a person realized that they can give not only meat, but also wool and milk. Goats began to purposefully breed.

The domestication of the aurochs, which happened 10 or 9 thousand years ago, turned out to be extremely useful. This one was used as a traction force, the females gave milk. It was more difficult to tame the buffaloes and horses. The former became human friends 7.5 thousand years ago, the latter - 6 thousand years ago.

sacred cat

The first animals tamed by man led a flock or herd lifestyle. Another thing is an independent cat walking at night. For a long time it was believed that the fluffy Muroks were domesticated by the Egyptians in the 4th millennium BC. At least, the oldest cat mummies belong to this time. The graceful animal in Egypt was revered as the embodiment of the goddess Bast, a symbol of the moon and fertility. For killing a cat, an Egyptian could pay with his life.

However, many researchers believed that the animal could have been tamed earlier, along with the emergence of agriculture. After all, cats are indispensable helpers in protecting crops from rodents. In 2004, these guesses were confirmed. The remains of a 9-month-old kitten were found on the island of Crete. He was buried next to the man. The age of the find is 9.5 thousand years. It is significant that there have never been wild cats on the island itself. Therefore, the animal was specially brought there.

Poultry yard

We talked about the first animals accustomed by man. It's time to think about birds. Initially, man hunted them, but, moving to a settled life, he wanted to have food at hand. According to researchers, geese were the first to be domesticated. Drawings with their image were found in Egypt and date back to 11 thousand BC.

Ducks were originally bred in Mesopotamia and China. They were tamed in the 5th millennium BC. For a long time it was believed that they became the second domesticated bird. Recently, however, paleozoologists have discovered the remains of chickens in northern China. They were dated to the 6th millennium BC.

The first animal domesticated by man was the beginning of a long process of domestication that continues to this day. Currently, man is actively working on the domestication of zebras and ostriches. Moose, deer, mink, sable are next in line. There are already some successes in their domestication.

Briefly about the article: Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind Civilization, whether real or imagined by a science fiction writer, is built not only on social relations, discoveries, and religion, but also on the contacts of the leading intelligent biological species with other species. Long before the start of the search for our big brothers in the depths of space, homo sapiens turned their attention to smaller brothers. "Friendship" of man with animals most directly influenced the formation of the current civilization. Using the example of history, we will trace what contacts with other types of beings have given humanity.

Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind

domestication of animals

Civilization, real or fictional by a science fiction writer, is built not only on social relations, discoveries and religion, but also on the contacts of the leading intelligent biological species with other species. Long before the start of the search for our big brothers in the depths of space, homo sapiens turned their attention to smaller brothers. "Friendship" of man with animals most directly influenced the formation of the current civilization. Using the example of history, we will trace what contacts with other types of beings have given humanity.

The search for optimal (in terms of cost and effort) options for cultural development has led our species to the variety of sources of clothing, food, raw materials, fertilizers, vehicles, household care, and just pleasure that countless and close relationships with domesticated animals provide.

Mankind's First Partner

One of the first, and perhaps the very first animals that people subjected to a pleasant but difficult procedure of domestication (and scientifically - domestication), became dog. It happened 9-17 thousand years ago.

The study of the fossil remains of ancient dogs began in 1862, when skulls of the Neolithic period were found in Switzerland. This dog was called "peaty", and later its remains were found everywhere in Europe, including on Lake Ladoga, as well as in Egypt. Peat dog outwardly did not change during the entire Stone Age, its remains were found even in the deposits of the Roman era. The Spitz-shaped dog of the Samoyed is considered a direct descendant of the peat dog. A dog from Lake Ladoga, larger than a typical peat dog, is attributed to the ancestors of Great Danes, and sometimes Laikas.

With the ancestors of the dog itself, there is less clarity. The following are named as such: 1) wolves - both our gray Tambov comrade and Indian (the most common hypothesis); 2) wolves and jackals; 3) the now extinct wild "great dog" - Carl Linnaeus, the creator of the first classification of living beings, thought so.

According to the method of application, five main types of dogs are distinguished: mastiffs, wolf-like dogs, greyhounds, hunting pointer-like and shepherd dogs.

Since ancient times, dogs have been drawn, carved in stone, minted on coins - this gives us the opportunity to trace the development of the "relationship" between a dog and a person. In ancient Egyptian tombs, images of the pharaoh dog, deified by the Egyptians, were found: thus, according to Herodotus, mourning was declared in connection with the death of a dog in Egyptian homes. On the bas-reliefs of Babylon and Assyria, we see mastiffs used for hunting and as fighting dogs. In Greece and Rome, there are many coins depicting dogs, the oldest of which date back to the 7th-6th centuries. BC e.

Fighting dogs were in special demand. In the army of Alexander the Great, they occupied a place of honor. Assyro-Babylonian dogs, known as Epirus or Molossian dogs, were brought to Ancient Greece and Rome, where they were also used as fighting dogs. Dogs of hunting breeds, greyhounds and hounds were highly valued (the constellation of Hounds of Dogs, which remained in the sky with their master, Actaeon, is named after them).

In Rome, fighting dogs began to act as gladiators, competing alone with bulls, lions, elephants, and bears. Miniature decorative melites, which later became known as Maltese lapdogs, also became widespread there. The passion of matrons for dogs was so great that the emperors repeatedly condemned him, because, in their opinion, this prevented noble ladies from having children.

In the 1st century BC e. the first treatise on dogs known to us appears. In Marcus Terentius Varro's encyclopedic essay On Agriculture, he describes the different types of dogs, puppy selection, dog food, breeding, and dog training. However, even earlier in China and Japan, written references to the upbringing and breeding of dogs were preserved - they are about four thousand years old.

A monument was erected to the dog that saved the ancient Greek city of Corinth. And in Pompeii, covered with ashes, a large dog was found covering the body of a child. The inscription on the silver collar said that the dog had already saved the life of his master twice...

Pets of shepherds

The next most domesticated, apparently, was goat. It happened 9-12 thousand years ago on the territory of modern Iran, Iraq, Palestine. Her wild ancestors were bezoar and markhorn goats. The goat was respected as a nurse (according to legend, the goat Amalthea nursed the baby Zeus), and the goat skin refers to the divine attire of Pallas Athena. Images of goats are also on the frescoes of Ancient Egypt.

Not all the consequences of friendship with goats were predictable. The domestication of goats gave humans high-quality milk, wool, and leather, but also harmed their habitat. Where herds of goats graze for a long time, all vegetation disappears, and a desert sets in on a flowering land. Goats not only completely destroy the shoots - they even get to shallow seeds that could germinate in the coming rainy season. The soil exposed by goats is subject to erosion. Such a fate befell the plateaus of Castile, and Asia Minor, and the once famous Moroccan and Lebanese cedar groves.

Around the same time - 10-11 thousand years ago - on the territory of modern Iran was domesticated sheep. From there, domestic sheep - the descendants of wild rams argali and mouflon - first came to Persia, then to Mesopotamia. Already in the twentieth century. BC in Mesopotamia there were various breeds of sheep, one of which - a fine-fleeced sheep with spiral horns - spread widely: merino sheep then became the pride of Spain.

The ones that walk on their own

7-12 thousand years ago, next to a person appeared cat. Cats that settled next to human habitation of their own free will are an exception among domestic animals. It is generally accepted that the North African and Western Asian steppe buckskin cat, domesticated in Nubia about four thousand years ago, is considered the single ancestor of the domestic murka. From here, the domestic cat came to Egypt, later crossing in Asia with the forest Bengal cat. In Europe, fluffy aliens met with a local, wild European forest cat. The result of crossings is the modern variety of breeds and colors.

Fossil remains of cats have been found in the Neolithic and Bronze Age layers of Asia Minor and in the Caucasus, Jordan and the cities of Ancient India. On the paintings in the tombs of Saqqaragh (2750-2650 BC), the cat is depicted with a collar, and on the fresco from Beni Hassan, in the house, next to the mistress.

In Egypt, cats were in a special position among other deified animals. Their corpses were embalmed and buried in magnificent tombs in special cemeteries. They were considered the incarnation of Bast, the goddess of the moon and fertility, in whose temple in Bubastis sometimes up to 700 thousand believers gathered for the holidays. Archaeologists have discovered about 300 thousand cat mummies dating back to the 4th millennium BC. e. In the 19th century, an enterprising merchant loaded a whole ship with them in Egypt and brought them to Manchester, thinking of selling them for fertilizer. The idea failed, and most of the mummies ended up in scientific collections.

The law also protected the sacred animal: for the murder of a cat, severe punishment was threatened, up to the death penalty (Herodotus tells about the unfortunate Greek who unknowingly killed a cat).

The export of cats abroad has long been banned. Only in the second millennium BC, domestic cats appeared in Babylon, then in India, China and Japan. From Egypt, the cat on the ships of the Phoenician merchants came to many parts of the Mediterranean, but until the beginning of AD. e. she was a rare and expensive animal.

The demand for cats began to fall sharply only with the spread of Christianity, which took them sharply negatively. If in the era of early Christianity cats could still live at monasteries (in a number of nunneries they were generally the only animals that were allowed to be kept), then later cats (especially black ones) began to be perceived as accomplices of witches, sorcerers and the devil personally. Innocent animals became victims of the Inquisition, they were hanged and burned as heretics. On all Christian holidays, unfortunate animals were burned alive and buried in the ground, roasted on iron rods and in cages with ritual ceremonies in front of crowds of believers. In Flanders, in the city of Ipern, Wednesday in the second week of fasting was called "cat's" - on this day, cats were thrown from a high tower. The custom was introduced by Count Baldwin of Flanders in the 10th century and lasted until 1868.

European cats would inevitably have been exterminated, but they were saved by the invasion of rats, which brought with them the "black death" - the plague, and the cats found a worthy use for themselves, and then the respect of the owners.

Egg and Feather Suppliers

The "peers" of cats - by the time of taming - are geese. Geese were the first to be domesticated among birds: the wild gray species - in Europe, the Nile - in North Africa, the Siberian-Chinese - in China. Found drawings of the Nile goose, bred in Egypt in the 11th millennium BC. e.

chickens as poultry first appeared in South Asia. Their wild ancestor was the banking rooster. Chickens were bred both for eggs and meat, and for fights. Themistocles, going to war with the Persians, included cockfighting in the training program so that the soldiers, looking at the birds, learned from them stamina and courage. From the bold cocky birds the people of the Gauls got their name.

How much milk does a buffalo give?

buffaloes- the most valuable domestic animals in the countries of Southeast Asia - were tamed 9 thousand years ago. Surprisingly unpretentious in food, tireless in work and immune to many diseases that are detrimental to other livestock, with the conquests of Islam, they were brought by the Arabs to Asia Minor and North Africa, from Egypt to East. The Arabs brought buffaloes to Sicily and northern Italy, and the Turks brought them to the Balkans.

8.5 thousand years ago was domesticated cow. This happened, according to different versions, on the territory of modern Turkey, in Spain, South Asia... Its wild ancestor tour was exterminated in the Middle Ages, and the cow, which spread around the world in antiquity, was everywhere elevated to the rank of a sacred animal. This status is still maintained in many Indian religious schools and in Africa. Sacred winged bulls carved from stone adorned the temples of Assyria and Persia. In Egypt, the bull Apis was the earthly incarnation of the patron god of Memphis, Ptah. In Crete, the birthplace of the bull-headed minotaur, bulls participated in the famous bull games - circus performances with religious overtones. And it is not in vain that one of the epithets of the goddess Hera is "hair-eyed"...

Buffaloes and bulls were widely used not only as sources of milk, meat, skins, but also as draft animals. They dragged heavy carts and rallies behind them, helping a person to farm.

Their counterpart in South America is lama and alpaca, tamed five to seven thousand years ago in Peru. Before the arrival of the Spaniards, llamas were the only transport animal among the Indians. On mountain roads, a llama can carry a load of 50-60 kilograms, which is quite a lot, considering that she herself weighs about a hundred. Alpaca is bred for its fine wool.

acorn lovers

9000 years ago in China and Southeast Asia were domesticated pigs, bred for meat and skins. Somewhat later, their images appear on the frescoes of Ancient Egypt. The pigs of those times are not like the pigs we are used to, but the current boars: sinewy, agile, very thin by modern standards.

In Europe, pigs were grazed on peculiar lands - in oak groves. These artiodactyls love to feast on acorns, although they are able to digest almost any organic food.

The ever-hungry pigs were a source of trouble in medieval cities. Their usual crime is infanticide. They were treated like criminals - they were arrested, kept in the city prison on an equal footing with people, tried, sentenced to hanging ... And the piglets were confiscated in favor of the court.

Perhaps the most famous story of antiquity, in which, although clearly against his will, a sheep was involved - the voyage of the Argonauts for the Golden Fleece. This treasure of King Eet was kept in Colchis (Caucasus), in the sacred grove of Ares. Scientists have not come to an unambiguous conclusion what exactly was the golden fleece. There are at least two plausible versions:

1) that the Argonauts actually swam for fine-fleeced sheep, which at that time were not in Greece, but were in Georgia;

2) that the fleece was indeed golden. In the gold-bearing rivers, the precious metal was mined in this way: a sheepskin was laid on the bottom, and the wool retained the heavier particles of gold. If this happened long enough, the skin did acquire a fair amount of monetary value.

The sound of hooves

The first centers of domestication horses originated 4,000 years BC. e. Presumably, two types of wild horse were domesticated: small, broad-browed steppe horses, vaguely similar to tarpans (wild European horses that died out in the Middle Ages), and larger forest horses, with a narrow forehead, long facial part of the head and thin limbs. Domestic horses retained signs of wild ancestors for a long time. The peoples of the Ancient East were the first to improve horses. In the VII-VI centuries. BC e. The best in the world were the Nesean horses of the Persian kingdom. The regions adjoining the Caspian Sea were famous for horse breeding. At the end of the first millennium BC. e. the glory of the Nesean horses was inherited by the horses of the Parthian kingdom, which was formed on the site of the northern provinces of Persia and Bactria. The Parthian horses of a golden-red color were stately and for those times high (one and a half meters), they became a desirable military prey of any state.

Horse breeding in the forest belt of Eastern Europe was completely different in those days - here horses were used mainly for meat, their height was only 120-130 cm.

In the XVII century BC. e. chariots appeared. Thanks to them, the Hyksos, alien tribes, conquered Egypt for a long time. Much later, cavalry appeared - armed horsemen in large military formations (individual riders were much earlier), this happened at the beginning of the 1st millennium BC. e. at the Assyrians. Interestingly, at the beginning, the equestrian warrior, as in chariots, had a right-handed driver: in battle, he controlled two horses (his and his warrior), and the fighter at the same time freed both hands for shooting and throwing darts.

The African wild donkey was domesticated 5-6 thousand years ago. Domestic donkeys have long been the main transport animal, especially in those countries where horses were not known or for some reason the use of donkeys was preferable. The donkey's hooves are much stronger than those of the horse, and they do not need horseshoes even on stony and uneven mountainous soil. Donkeys were widely used as riding and pack animals for many millennia, they were used in the construction of the Egyptian pyramids and even in battles. So, the Persian king Darius once, with the help of donkeys, dispersed the army of the Scythians, who had never seen these animals and were frightened.

In Europe and Asia, strong, tall breeds of domestic donkeys were bred, such as the Khomad ones in Iran, the Catalan ones in Spain, and the Bukhara ones in Central Asia. In Greece, the donkey was dedicated to the god of winemaking, Dionysius, and was part of his intoxicated retinue along with the sileni and satyrs.

Hunting and postal services

Originating about five thousand years ago in India, falconry hunting quickly conquered the world, and the "sport of kings" flourished in the early Middle Ages. In Europe, falconry was of a mass nature: it was a hobby for both feudal lords and commoners. There was a special table of ranks, prescribing who and with what bird to hunt. In England, stealing or killing someone else's falcon was punishable by death.

Huge and majestic were the hunts of Genghis Khan, with the participation of hundreds of birds and thousands of dogs. Many hundreds of birds were kept under Ivan the Terrible - they even took the travel tax from merchants in pigeons for falcons.

Actually pigeons man domesticated 6.5 thousand years ago (in Mesopotamia). Doves were often depicted in Assyrian bas-reliefs. In many countries, doves were sacred animals dedicated to the goddesses of love - Astarte, Aphrodite. In ancient Rome in special rooms columbaria pigeons were bred for meat. Pliny the Elder wrote that his contemporaries were "obsessed with roast pigeons." But the main purpose of the dove is different. This is the only bird that faithfully serves as air mail, thanks to its ability to find its way to its native places.

Under extreme conditions

Domesticated 5000-6000 years ago camels: in Arabia - one-humped (dromedary), in Central and Central Asia - two-humped (Bactrian). In Egypt, a figurine of a loaded dromedary was found, which is over 5,000 years old. Apparently, the drawings depicting one-humped camels on the rocks of Aswan and Sinai are of the same age. In the literature, both camels were mentioned from 700-600 BC. e. Herodotus wrote a lot about camels in connection with the great importance of these animals for wars. "Ships of the desert" were famous for their ability to go without water and food for a long time.

Not left without pets and the north. Two or three thousand years ago, Chukotka originated reindeer herding. In the rather poor world of the tundra, the deer has become a real salvation for the northern peoples. The carcass of the animal was used in its entirety, and not just the meat and skin. Everything went into food, up to young horns, tendons, bone marrow and larvae of the subcutaneous gadfly!

The same salvation in the mountains, steppes and semi-deserts of Tibet was yak, tamed in the first millennium BC. e. From fat - twice as fat as cow's - milk, in addition to ordinary butter and cheese, they make special cottage cheese, which does not deteriorate for a long time and weighs almost nothing (which is very convenient for travelers). Wool and yak skins keep out the cold, and dried dung is often the only available fuel in the mountains.

Winged six-legged

A little later - according to various estimates, from 2300 to 5000 years ago - people began to domesticate bees. The oldest image of a bee was found in the Aran cave (Spain) - a drawing of the Paleolithic period more than 15 thousand years old. The systematic breeding of bees was started by the ancient Egyptians, and beekeeping in Egypt was nomadic: hives on rafts, as the medonium of wasp plants bloomed in the northern provinces of Egypt, slowly moved down the Nile.

From the second millennium BC, the custom appeared in Assyria to cover the bodies of the dead with wax and immerse them in honey. The custom lasted for a long time - until Alexander the Great, whose body was also transported in a coffin, filled to the top with honey, to the place of his burial in Egypt.

Judging by the frequency of references in literature, bees were one of the most popular animals in antiquity: King Solomon and Democritus, Aristotle and Virgil, Aristophanes and Xenophon wrote about them. In 950, on the orders of Emperor Constantine VII, an encyclopedia on beekeeping, Geoponics, was compiled. Honey was practically the only raw material for the preparation of sweet dishes until the middle of the Middle Ages, and wax was used to make candles.

At the opposite end of Eurasia, they found a use for another insect - a butterfly - silkworm. The first mention of silk is found in an ancient Chinese manuscript c. 2600 BC e. For more than twenty centuries, the Chinese have maintained a monopoly on silk production. According to legend, the first successful attempt to smuggle caterpillar cocoons was made in the 4th century BC. n. e. by a Chinese princess who married the king of Lesser Bukhara and brought him a gift of "silkworm eggs" hidden in her hair. It was not possible to breed silkworms outside of China.

The second smuggling in 552 turned out to be more successful, when two monks carried cocoons in staffs and handed them to Emperor Justinian. Since that time, sericulture began to develop outside of China. True, then for some time it died out, but was revived after the Arab conquests.

cabbage eaters

A rabbit began to domesticate in ancient Rome - there the animals were kept in special pens - leporaria. As everyone knows, a rabbit is "not only valuable fur." The Romans began to fatten them for meat (gourmets especially loved rabbit embryos and newborn rabbits). Rabbits were also valued in medieval Europe - for example, in England at the beginning of the 14th century. a rabbit cost as much as a pig.

And already in ancient times, the rabbit began to cause a lot of trouble. In the Balearic archipelago, a pair of rabbits released into the wild produced such a large offspring that the locals began to ask Emperor Augustus to help them cope with the scourge and send soldiers to fight the voracious little animals. Judging by Australia, "eaten" by rabbits already in modern times, this story did not teach anyone anything.

Pair of each creature

Several thousand years BC. e in the New World began domestication guinea pigs. It is likely that these animals themselves came to the human dwelling in search of protection and warmth. Among the Incas, pigs were sacrificial animals, which were brought as a gift to the god of the Sun, and were also eaten on holidays. Particularly popular were pigs with motley brown or white color. They were brought to Europe in the 16th century. They are now called "sea" rather by mistake - it is much more correct to call them "overseas".

ostrich, for the sake of feathers and eggs, the ancient Egyptians domesticated five thousand years ago. Birds were kept in flocks and guarded. Young animals were tamed, which, after reaching adulthood, were periodically plucked. Ostriches were also domesticated in eastern Sudan - they were kept there with herds of cattle and camels.

In ancient Egypt, they began to breed and guinea fowl. For a long time, guinea fowl in Greece and Rome were only sacrificial birds. This continued until the emperor Caligula, who decided: as a sign of "divine majesty" to sacrifice guinea fowl to him - that is, to the table.

In the 5th century n. e. was bred from wild carp carp. In Europe, carps were bred mainly in monastery ponds. The first mention of them is in the orders sent by the minister Cassiodorus to the governors of the provinces: the minister demanded that carps be regularly supplied to the table of King Theodoric (456-526).

Since ancient times, there were also such pets, whose functions were reduced to purely decorative. In the tenth century BC e. in China, various breeds were bred from carp goldfish, which quickly spread to Japan and Indonesia. And in the Middle Ages (XV century) it was domesticated canary.

Today we can hardly imagine as domestic animals such as blackbirds, partridges, swans, storks, cranes, pelicans- in Egypt they were fattened for meat and used as laying hens. Bred for meat hyenas(!), they were also used as guard animals. In ancient Rome sleepyhead(small rodents) were kept in special pots ( dolia), where they were fattened with nuts. Their meat was valued as a great delicacy. It has long been the custom to put scales on the table at feasts, weigh the dormouse on them in the presence of a notary and record its weight in the minutes. Serve the most well-fed dormouse was a matter of prestige and pride of the rich. And in ancient Roman ponds, to the delight of gourmets, they bred moray eels.

In the ancient East leopards and lions were kept as sacred and sacrificial animals (and also for the prestige of the ruler). They even hunted with lions, although they were much more popular as hunters cheetahs. In some places with them, as well as with those tamed much later - 1000-2000 years ago - caracals(large wild cats) hunt now.

Hundreds of years old is the use of tamed cormorants- in China and Japan, they are used as "live fishing rods": an iron ring is put on the bird's neck, which does not allow swallowing the fish, after which the cormorant is released for fishing.

In the last two centuries, attempts have been made to domesticate several more animals: moose, musk oxen, antelope; as well as decorative animals - Syrian hamsters and many aquarium fish.

Since cats were rare in antiquity, the service of a mouse catcher was carried out by tamed cats. ferrets and petting, and in Ancient Egypt - also a famous snake fighter, a relative of the mongooses Ichneumon ("pharaoh's mouse" - see picture). Since ancient times, the albinistic form of the black ferret has been known - furo(he, and not at all an ermine, is depicted in the painting by Leonardo da Vinci "Lady with an ermine"). It was bred 2500-2000 years ago in Southern Europe and for a long time replaced the cat, and was also used when hunting rabbits. At the end of the IV century. n. e. the Roman writer Palladius advised replacing the domestic ferret with a cat in the fight against mice and moles ("artichoke pests"), however, the charming representatives of mustelids still remain pets, although they are much less common than cats.

* * *

Mankind would develop differently if its path did not cross with the paths of the smaller brothers. Would people be able to survive and create a modern culture without the participation of dogs, cows, horses, sheep? Even the absence of such a simple insect species as bees on Earth would have greatly changed the way of life in the Middle Ages.

domestication Animals are the most important condition in the development of civilization, and if you ever start creating your own fantastic or fairy-tale world, your peoples and countries, do not forget about the true friends of rational beings, about domestic animals.