3. DOMESTICATION OF ANIMALS AND PLANTS
HUNTING AND FISHING STAGE
Prehistoric man lived at first chiefly on wild berries, nuts, roots, and herbs. As his implements improved and his skill increased, he became hunter, trapper, and fisher. A tribe of hunters, however, requires an extensive territory and a constant supply of game. When the wild animals are all killed or seriously reduced in number, privation and hardship result. It was a forward step, therefore, when man began to tame animals as well as to kill them.
DOMESTICATION OF THE DOG
The dog was man's first conquest over the animal kingdom. As early as the Age of Metals various breeds appear, such as deerhounds, sheep dogs, and mastiffs. The dog soon showed how useful he could be. He tracked game, guarded the camp, and later, in the pastoral stage, protected flocks and herds against their enemies.
THE COW
The cow also was domesticated at a remote period. No other animal has been more useful to mankind. The cow's flesh and milk supply food: the skin provides clothing; the sinews, bones, and horns yield materials for implements. The ox was early trained to bear the yoke and draw the plow, as we may learn from ancient Egyptian paintings. [3] Cattle have also been commonly used as a kind of money. The early Greeks, whose wealth consisted chiefly of their herds, priced a slave at twenty oxen, a suit of armor at one hundred oxen, and so on. The early Romans reckoned values in cattle (one ox being equivalent to ten sheep). Our English word "pecuniary" goes back to the Latin pecus, or "herd" of cattle.
[Illustration: EARLY ROMAN BAR MONEY A bar of copper marked with the figure of a bull. Dates from the fourth century B.C.]
THE HORSE
The domestication of the horse came much later than that of the cow. In the early Stone Age the horse ran wild over western Europe and formed an important source of food for primitive men. This prehistoric horse, as some ancient drawings show, [4] was a small animal with a shaggy mane and tail. It resembled the wild pony still found on the steppes of Mongolia. The domesticated horse does not appear in Egypt and western Asia much before 1500 B.C. For a long time after the horse was tamed, the more manageable ox continued to be used as the beast of burden. The horse was kept for chariots of war, as among the Egyptians, or ridden bareback in races, as by the early Greeks.
OTHER ANIMALS DOMESTICATED
At the close of prehistoric times in the Old World nearly all the domestic animals of to-day were known. Besides those just mentioned, the goat, sheep, ass, and hog had become man's useful servants. [5]
PASTORAL STAGE
The domestication of animals made possible an advance from the hunting and fishing stage to the pastoral stage. Herds of cattle and sheep would now furnish more certain and abundant supplies of food than the chase could ever yield. We find in some parts of the world, as on the great Asiatic plains, the herdsman succeeding the hunter and fisher. But even in this stage much land for grazing is required. With the exhaustion of the pasturage the sheep or cattle must be driven to new fields. Hence pastoral peoples, as well as hunting and fishing folk, remained nomads without fixed homes. Before permanent settlements were possible, another onward step became necessary. This was the domestication of plants.
AGRICULTURAL STAGE
The domestication of plants marked almost as wonderful an advance as the domestication of animals. When wild seedgrasses and plants had been transformed into the great cereals—wheat, oats, barley, and rice—people could raise them for food, and so could pass from the life of wandering hunters or shepherds to the life of settled farmers. There is evidence that during the Stone Age some of the inhabitants of Europe were familiar with various cultivated plants, but agriculture on a large scale seems to have begun in the fertile regions of Egypt and western Asia. [6] Here first arose populous communities with leisure to develop the arts of life. Here, as has been already seen, [7] we must look for the beginnings of history.