From Wild Animals To Domestic Pets And An Alternative History Of Human Animal Relations
Anth 68
Day 8
From Wild Animals to Domestic Pets, An Evolutionary View of Domestication
Domestication was allowed to happen mainly because animals gained a tolerance of human and human-contact. Hunter-gatherers first became docile, and started to domesticate plants and animals and developed agriculture. Domestication of today’s barnyard animals occurred as a result of these hunter-gatherers wanting to stabilize their food resources. Barnyard animals descend from herd- living herbivores whose ancestors followed a dominant individual through a territory shared with other herds.
In comparison to barnyard animals domestication of cats and dogs was much different. Dogs were domesticated because they were seen useful as guards. The domestication of dogs came from the origin of the wolf. A group of less-fearfull wolves was pulled towars a nomadic society and the wolves were used as barking sentinels and furthermore warned them of human and animal invaders approaching at night. These wolves then became dogs after generations of evolution.
On the other hand, cats were domestication in a much different way. Cats live in solitary existence and defend exclusive territories and also don’t take direct command or orders so it is hard to believe that they were domesticated into our society. The best explanation for the domestication of cats was that they as the wildcats were exploiting human environments they were tolerated by human rather than the other way around as in dogs. Cats basically integrated themselves in our society and we were accepting enough to lets them say and ended up domesticating them.
From Trust to Domination, An Alternative History of Human-Animal Relations
Tim Ingold writes in his work, From Trust to Domination An alternative history of human-animal relations, the interaction of hunter-gatherers with animals and also compares this interaction with pastoralism and the western view of domestication.
Ingold first starts out by describing how the
Day 8
From Wild Animals to Domestic Pets, An Evolutionary View of Domestication
Domestication was allowed to happen mainly because animals gained a tolerance of human and human-contact. Hunter-gatherers first became docile, and started to domesticate plants and animals and developed agriculture. Domestication of today’s barnyard animals occurred as a result of these hunter-gatherers wanting to stabilize their food resources. Barnyard animals descend from herd- living herbivores whose ancestors followed a dominant individual through a territory shared with other herds.
In comparison to barnyard animals domestication of cats and dogs was much different. Dogs were domesticated because they were seen useful as guards. The domestication of dogs came from the origin of the wolf. A group of less-fearfull wolves was pulled towars a nomadic society and the wolves were used as barking sentinels and furthermore warned them of human and animal invaders approaching at night. These wolves then became dogs after generations of evolution.
On the other hand, cats were domestication in a much different way. Cats live in solitary existence and defend exclusive territories and also don’t take direct command or orders so it is hard to believe that they were domesticated into our society. The best explanation for the domestication of cats was that they as the wildcats were exploiting human environments they were tolerated by human rather than the other way around as in dogs. Cats basically integrated themselves in our society and we were accepting enough to lets them say and ended up domesticating them.
From Trust to Domination, An Alternative History of Human-Animal Relations
Tim Ingold writes in his work, From Trust to Domination An alternative history of human-animal relations, the interaction of hunter-gatherers with animals and also compares this interaction with pastoralism and the western view of domestication.
Ingold first starts out by describing how the