A History of Agriculture in India v1.c16.16

v1.c16.16

How were the wild animals domesticated? Carl Sauer explains: ‘Taming of the wild again may be thought of as beginning by infant capture, nursing by a foster mother, and raising the young in close association with man. A plausible reconstruction is thus: man returning from the hills with a kid or lamb, woman rearing it, and children growing up with the young animal and leading it out to browse. In such a gentle captivity, breeding might occur and thus domestication begin.’² The domestication of goat and sheep took place in the pre-agricultural phase. When the nomadic man with the aid of the dog brought sheep and goat under his control, it was the first step towards food production.