Prehistoric India to 1000 B.C. c12.58

c12.58

There is evidence of the domestication of the dog from the earliest days of the Harappā Culture. This animal had in fact been the earliest in Europe to be domesticated, having been tamed for hunting in post-glacial mesolithic times, by 8000 B.C. or so. The evidence of bones and representations from Harappā sites show at least two types of dog, one akin to the modern pariah and the other a mastiff type. The former (*Canis tenggeranus*, r. *harappensis*) comes near the original ancestral type of dog, derived from some form of medium-sized wolf, probably from Eastern Europe or Western Asia. There is very interesting evidence of domesticated cats as well - bones from Harappā, and from Chanhu-daro a brick over which, when soft and unbaked, a dog had chased a cat, both leaving their characteristic foot-prints - 'the deep impress of the pads and their spread indicate the speed of both animals ... the dog's imprint slightly overlapping the cat's shows that he came second'. The cat from Harappā (*Felis ocreata*, r. *domestica*) seems to have closely resembled the ordinary European domestic cat in appearance.