Early animal husbandry

Abstract

Prehistoric man-animal relationships can be studied from both a zoological and an archaeological viewpoint. Despite the considerable degree of overlap between the approaches the interests of the two disciplines are substantially different. It is important that archaeology should develop hypotheses concerned primarily with human behaviour. Animal husbandry can be viewed as a group of close relationships between man and animals, in which man derives benefit from a dependable and efficient exploitation. Such relationships are not necessarily confined either to the modern farmyard domesticates or to the Holocene period. It is to be expected that the exploitation of species which provided food staples was regulated so as to favour the success of both species involved in the relationship. Reindeer, red deer, fallow deer, and gazelle were successfully exploited for long periods, in certain cases many millennia. The data at some sites suggest that individual human groups may have been dependent upon particular herds or populations of animals on a year-round basis. The slaughter patterns, where they are known, show a selective pattern of exploitation as opposed to a random kill. These Pleistocene economies illustrate the difficulty of accommodating archaeological data successfully to the zoological wild/domestic classification. A more appropriate classification for archaeological purposes will be concerned with variations in human behaviour rather than in animal morphology. Such a classification may as usefully indicate the continuities in human and animal behaviour, as concentrate exclusively on a single dramatic change.