| View previous topic :: View next topic |
Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
|
|
 |
|
| Hence a theory that all the cats (not just the cheetahs) were bred for specific purposes -- though since we have lost Cro-Magnon's way-with-animals they've mostly gone feral now. |
It's often claimed that cats, sorry felids, are the most skilled hunters of all (they're trying to carry out a survey to discover how many small furry animals our moggies kill per year in Britain) so it's entirely plausible to assume that early man would've exploited them; probably some species, like tigers and snow leopards, which have been pushed to the fringes or in certain cases almost been wiped out, were replaced by dogs similarly bred-for-the-purpose but more amenable.
[I also saw the wildebeest programme, its main point was that the lion pride featured practically starved to death in the absence of the wildebeest on their thousand-mile migration; this suggests that big cats can't be trained to follow the herds outside their territory, clearly not suited to a 'nomadic' lifestyle if such ever existed...seems that hunters aren't migratory but tied to their territory like village or city dwellers].
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
Grant
|
|
|
|
| cats, sorry felids, are the most skilled hunters of all (they're trying to carry out a survey to discover how many small furry animals our moggies kill per year in Britain) so it's entirely plausible to assume that early man would've exploited them |
But why doesn't anyone hunt with cats now? Surely, cats are simply not capable of being domesticated?
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
|
|
|
|
So, Grant, what's your explanation for the domestic cat's untrained but engrained habit of bringing its kill in for its human owner's inspection? (cf the passenger pigeon...)
PS As I say, we have lost Cro-Magnon's way-with-animals. That's why we still use just the ones he domesticated and that we 'decided' to keep.
PPS Anyway, don't Arab sheikhs keep cheetahs for hunting?
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Grant
|
|
|
|
| The cheetah's long association with humans dates back to the Sumerians, about 3,000 BC, where a leashed cheetah, with a hood on its head, is depicted on an official seal. In early Lower Egypt, it was known as the MAFDET cat-goddess and was revered as a symbol of royalty. Tame cheetahs were kept as close companions to pharaohs, as a symbolic protection to the throne. |
This is from a web site about cheetahs.
But what about this also from the same site:
| Molecular genetic studies on free-ranging and captive cheetahs have shown that the species lacks genetic variation, probably due to past inbreeding, as long as ten thousand years ago. | |
|
| |
|
|
|
Grant
|
|
|
|
| So, Grant, what's your explanation for the domestic cat's untrained but engrained habit of bringing its kill in for its human owner's inspection? (cf the passenger pigeon...) |
No explanation for this yet, or the other big question - why do they shit on the lawn?
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Chad
In: Ramsbottom
|
|
|
|
There have been some fantastic posts in this thread over the last couple of days (I've just been catching up on the more recent ones) and the most fundamental thing to come out of it is that Cro-Magnon (the northern branch at the very least) would never have managed to get his show on the road if he hadn't managed to domesticate the dog first.
The domestication (wherever that occurred) and control of large herbivores couldn't have been accomplished without that prerequisite. - - Canid domestication seems to have been the initial catalyst for Cro-Magnons later success.
Dan wrote: everyone seems to be assuming that herbivores were understood and exploited in the wild...
...I'm tellin' ya, the nomadic or pastoral lifestyle can only follow from the sedentary lifestyle |
Why do you assume the two ideas are mutually exclusive?
If reindeer for example had first been domesticated in cities, would it make sense for those who chose to go nomad with them to then take them to where their larger wild ancestors dwelt, to compete for scarce resources?
If I was going to leave the comfort of the city to herd domestic deer I would find the nearest suitable pasture in the mildest possible location, not push myself to the limit in the harshest possible environment.
This isn't necessarily, however an argument against City First. - - Here's another scenario:
There would always have been an element amongst the citizenry who possessed the 'Ray Mears' gene. These would have been the professional hunters and trappers, who would have been used to spending long period away from the city.
It's not a giant step from there to becoming a full blown Saami -- all you need is a compliant lead reindeer (broken but not necessarily domesticated), a good dog or two and the missus in tow -- and there you have it...no city bred herd required.
| But do we know of anyone herding wild animals? |
But isn't that precisely what the Saami do? - - Tell me...apart from size (which in itself is no indication of domestication) what exactly is the difference between wild and domestic reindeer?
I wouldn't mind betting a team of experienced Saami reindeer herders and their dogs could knock a herd of caribou into domestication within couple of generations. (Caribou generations that is.) - - (Might make a good reality TV series.)
| "A good reindeer dog can handle a large herd of as many as a thousand reindeer, keeping it on the move and together. If necessary, a reindeer dog is capable of collecting the herd alone..." | |
|
| |
|
|
|
Chad
In: Ramsbottom
|
|
|
|
| Grant wrote: | | So, Grant, what's your explanation for the domestic cat's untrained but engrained habit of bringing its kill in for its human owner's inspection? (cf the passenger pigeon...) |
No explanation for this yet, or the other big question - why do they shit on the lawn? |
And why does my otherwise unaggressive Staffie turn into a homicidal maniac at the mere sight of one?
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
|
|
|
|
|
This last question prompts the answer that the only enemy that big cats have is packs of dogs (or hyenas that also act like a pack of dogs). Contrariwise large cats are the only things that dogs need fear. It would appear that domestication does not affect this 'learned' behaviour. Perhaps this too is part of the Cro-Magnon domestication toolkit.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Chad
In: Ramsbottom
|
|
|
|
|
Maybe dogs, bred to herd and protect livestock, would need to display heightened aggression toward other carnivores...and felids would have been high on the hit list.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Ishmael
In: Toronto
|
|
|
|
| Chad wrote: | | Maybe dogs, bred to herd and protect livestock, would need to display heightened aggression toward other carnivores…and felids would have been high on the hit list. |
Dogs bred by herders. Cats bred by raiders?
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
|
|
|
|
|
You've been watching The Pink Panther again. Dogs for day-time herding, cats for night-time hunting.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
DPCrisp
In: Bedfordshire
|
|
|
|
| Molecular genetic studies on free-ranging and captive cheetahs have shown that the species lacks genetic variation |
Ah-hah! I said genetics would clinch it. They're domesticated.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
DPCrisp
In: Bedfordshire
|
|
|
|
| Dan wrote: | everyone seems to be assuming that herbivores were understood and exploited in the wild...
...I'm tellin' ya, the nomadic or pastoral lifestyle can only follow from the sedentary lifestyle |
Why do you assume the two ideas are mutually exclusive? |
Which two?
| If reindeer for example had first been domesticated in cities, would it make sense for those who chose to go nomad with them, to then take them to where their larger wild ancestors dwelt, to compete for scarce resources? |
Well, if they could look after themselves, people wouldn't have to go with them: they'd just go and cull some as and when. Farmers of all kinds eliminate competition. They call it management.
The pastured animals are still livestock: the nomads need to buy in their material/materiel needs. The mistake is to think of nomadism as a self-contained, primitive lifestyle. Where the climate allows, conventional farmers have fixed fields of crops and livestock. Nomadism is only required where the environment is crappy and the animals need, well, shepherding from place to place. People are exploiting crappy environments because they can and it's another way to make a living, supplying the demand for animals.
| If I was going to leave the comfort of the city to herd domestic deer I would find the nearest suitable pasture in the mildest possible location, not push myself to the limit in the harshest possible environment. |
Certainly. But when the best places are already taken, you take the next best...
And you can't do it in too big a leap. You can try going from a Middle Eastern city to set up a seal hunting lodge in the Arctic, but you'll soon give up and turn back or die trying. All the tools and technologies you need (including knowledge of the seasons, geography, animal habits...) have to be developed by trial and error. You can't withstand the cold long enough to invent a fur coat. But from a home base where you can live indefinitely and have the time and resources to try new things, you can invent a coat. Then a better coat. And a winter coat. And an Arctic coat... And all the techniques and new materials involved... Which takes time.
You don't even know the Arctic and the seals exist to begin with, but with environment-managing and resource-exploiting technologies, people spread to locations their forebears could not stay in... and discover what is over the next horizon... and so on... and on... and on...
| There would always have been an element amongst the citizenry who possessed the 'Ray Mears' gene. These would have been the professional hunters and trappers, who would have been used to spending long period away from the city. |
Quite so. But explorers come home again... and the ability to develop technologies and establish supply lines until forward posts can fend for themselves is all city-network stuff.
| It's not a giant step from there to becoming a full blown Saami...all you need is a compliant lead reindeer (broken but not necessarily domesticated), a good dog or two and the missus in tow -- and there you have it...no city bred herd required. |
Given the ability to live and work without dying of exposure, you can apply your technologies, including the concept and experience of animal husbandry, in new areas. I don't know the historical details of the emergence of Saami culture, but even if they learned to control whole wild herds, this new lifestyle would still be an off-shoot of city life. (Mind you, if they could control wild herds, why would there now be any difference between their herds and wild ones?)
| Tell me...apart from size (which in itself is no indication of domestication) what exactly is the difference between wild and domestic reindeer? |
There is the question of continuity: do the Saami ever go off to lay claim to or bring back a wild herd? Or have these families of Saami been herding these families of reindeer for as long as anyone can remember?
There is also the question of size: what explanation is there for the Saami reindeer being consistently smaller than wild ones, except that they descend from restricted branches of the family tree?
I haven't met a clear exception to the rule of thumb that domesticated (large) animals are small compared with their wild relatives. (Maybe small animal domesticates are a bit larger?) Recent selective breeding to produce huge horses, cows, pigs, sheep... doesn't count. Why isn't size an indication (backed up by genetic 'coversity' when the genetic results come in, every time so far) of domestication?
| I wouldn't mind betting a team of experienced Sammi reindeer herders and their dogs could knock a herd of caribou into domestication within couple of generations. |
Are you thinking that being domesticated just means doing as humans tell them? The way I see it, the domesticated animals are the ones that have been successfully incorporated into human economic life. They're bred, sold, eaten, put to industrial uses, blah blah. They're genetically 'coverse' (the opposite of diverse) because they descend from the branches of the family that were actually captured and mastered: the most docile and manageable species and individuals.
Animals weren't captured for the purposes of domestication (at first): it's just the consequence of people managing wild food.
"Zebras can not be domesticated" means that they're too boisterous to be handled easily, or the people who tried it thought too hard about what domestication meant and didn't give it time to play out naturally...
| "A good reindeer dog can handle a large herd of as many as a thousand reindeer, keeping it on the move and together. If necessary, a reindeer dog is capable of collecting the herd alone..." |
A herd of domestic reindeer? Or of bigger, faster, more unpredictable wild reindeer?
If you were at the market and saw pigs for sale for the first time, would you buy some from the pen (along with some fodder, maybe) and discuss their habits/needs with the farmer... or would you think "that's a great idea: I'll go and nab me some wild boar so I can start pig farming"?
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
|
|
|
|
| Ah-hah! I said genetics would clinch it. They're domesticated |
Since I seem to be losing my 'discoveries' on a daily basis, can I at least claim to be the very first person in the known universe (TVFPITKU) to claim that cheetahs are a domesticated species gone feral? I need something for the tombstone. Not that I'm depressed or anything. But, you know, better safe than sorry....
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
|
|
|
|
| can I at least claim to be the very first person in the known universe (TVFPITKU) to claim that cheetahs are a domesticated species gone feral? |
In that programme about wildebeest, which in fact was even more interested in lions, it was apparent that the lionesses behaved in an almost dog-like way when hunting; four of them liaised with each other splitting into two pairs to catch an unwary warthog, one pair driving it towards the catchment area so to speak where one of the waiting pair was in charge of the actual kill.
Rather interesting too that lionesses did the hunting. Is there any difference in feline temperament between males and females? If, like cheetahs, lions had at one time been used by humans (after all until quite recently lion-tamers were not uncommon in the days when circuses owned animals), would the lionesses have been easier to train perhaps?
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
The Library Index 
FAQ 
Search
Register
Profile 
Log in to check your private messages 
Log in 
