Domestication of cattle, sheep, goats and pigs in Southwest Asia
- Date
- c. 8500–7500 BCE
- Category
- Economy & trade
- Region
- Southwest Asia (Fertile Crescent)
- Era
- Prehistory
- Significance
In the centuries following the first cultivation of cereals and pulses, Neolithic communities of the Fertile Crescent transformed several wild ungulates into managed livestock, completing the founding 'package' of Old World farming.
Goats (from the bezoar) and sheep (from the Asiatic mouflon) were the earliest, managed in the Zagros and upper Euphrates region by around 10,500–10,000 years ago, followed closely by pigs (from the wild boar) and cattle (from the aurochs). Genetic studies suggest taurine cattle descend from a remarkably small founder herd of roughly eighty animals domesticated about 10,500 years ago. The shift from hunting to herding gave farmers a reliable, mobile reserve of meat, hides, bone and manure, and tied human settlements to the breeding cycles of their animals. Combined with crop cultivation, mixed farming underpinned population growth, sedentism and the spread of the Neolithic way of life into Europe, North Africa and South Asia. Zebu cattle were domesticated separately in South Asia, and some regions saw local incorporation of wild aurochs into herds, indicating a more complex, partly multi-regional process than a single event.
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Related economy & trade events
- Domestication of the potato, quinoa and Andean camelidsc. 8000–4000 BCE
- Clay tokens, seals and the threshold of writingc. 5500–3400 BCE
- The Secondary Products Revolution: wool, traction and transportc. 3500–3000 BCE
- Hatshepsut's expedition to the Land of Puntc. 1469 BCE
- Meluhha: Indus Trade with Akkadian Mesopotamiac. 2400-2300 BCE
- Old Assyrian trade network and the karum of Kaneshc. 1950–1750 BCE
Further reading
The wider story
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