Review of Animals as Domesticates: A World View through History

Abstract

In Animals as Domesticates, Juliet Clutton-Brock suggests that "the keeping of tamed livestock as a 'walking larder' ... may be seen as the most important change in social and cultural behavior to have occurred throughout the history of the human species" (pp. 23-24). Despite its long history (eight to ten thousand years), however, sheep and goats were not the first species to be domesticated and livestock husbandry does not represent the initial human engagement with domesticated animals. In the field of archaeozoology, where the elusiveness of evidence keeps many points open to continued scientific debate, there is general agreement that the first nonhuman animal to be domesticated was the dog. There is, however, less consensus about when this happened or what the motives were of the humans and wolves who initiated this enduring partnership.