Происхождение скотоводства - [138]

Agriculture and animal husbandry spread in the most part of Europe during VII–III mill. B. C. Last of all they expanded to Scandinavia and the woodlands of East Europe.

The recent investigations in North-East Africa confirmed the idea of a local independent birth of agriculture aroung the VIII–VII mill. B. C. But Africa lacked wild ancestors of domesticated goats and sheep. Therefore the discovery of the bones of these animals in the neolithic layers of North Africa and Sahara clearly testifies to their importation from elsewhere. Aurochs however could have been domesticated just here.

Animal husbandry (and agriculture?) spread in North Africa and Sahara during the V–III mill. B. C. The food-producers began their expansion to the south around the III Mill. B. C. They reached the South Africa by the end of the I mill. B. C and in the course of A. D. I–II mill, the local Khoisahs were adopting livestock.

The late Hoabinhians of South-East Asia turned into food producers by the VI (VII?) mill. B. C. They grew rootcro.ps and rice and domesticated local species of wild boar and bovines (gaur and banteng). They seem to have domesticated also the water buffalo.

Another type of food-producing economy (millet, pig, dog) was developed in North China, Mongolia, Manchuria and the Middle Amur region. The earliest neolithic sites here were dated to c. 5000–3000 B. C. There are some reasons to look for the origin of these cultures partly in South China.

An important primary centre of food production in America emerged in the Andes c. 7000–3000 B. C., where guanaco and guinea pig were domesticated.

Chapter III deals with the relevance of ethnographic sources to the study of the early history of animal husbandry. Here some ethnographic models are analysed.

The primitive hunters and food-gatherers were already able to tame some animals. But this taming didn’t automatically turn into animal husbandry for such transformation demanded more stable material conditions. The latter were growing up among the sedentary fishing and food-gathering groups and especially they were inherent to early agriculturalists.

The direct dependence of pig-raising upon the intensity of agriculture was manifested in New Guinea. Here the process of domestication of animals has been traced. The pigs were embedded in some of the most critical and exciting parts of life of the Papuans. They were precious for reciprocal exchange, for personal prestige-seekings and tokens of status, for brides and alliances and so on. The «Pig Feast» appears to have been the most important event of the ceremonial cycle.

The prestige relationships connected with pig husbandry were more fully developed elsewhere in Melanesia (Solomon Islands, New Hebrides etc.).

Llamas played in principle the same role in the Andels from the prehistoric times.

The problem of the origin of reindeer-breeding is interesting because of its connections with the idea of the direct transformation of hunters into pastoral nomads. According to recent investigations the most ancient reindeer-breeding was born in South Siberia by the I mill. B. C. The reindeer seems to have been domesticated by the Samoyed animal husbandry men. Later reindeer-breeding spread to the north in several waves thanks to both interethnic contacts and direct migrations of some Samoyed and Tungus groups. It promoted the processes of social differentiation everywhere.

The expansion of European live-stock in America since the XVI century led to the emergence of two different economic systems: one of the hunter horsemen (many Plains groups in both Americas) and the other of the agriculturalists practicing trans-humance (Navajo, Goajiro).

Chapter IV contains a general theoretical model of the origins and early history of animal husbandry. Food production was born in a few primary centres and later spread into other regions. The foundations for domestication evolved under the conditions of specialized hunting on the basis of intensive food-gathering which was becoming transformed into agriculture, and much rarely on the basis of fishing. Imprinting served as the main means of the earliest domestication. Later forceful domestication through hunger appeared. The domestication of animals was brought about by the attempt to preserve an important source of the protein while agriculture was developing and the hunting being turned into a subsidiary occupation.

The spread of productive economy took place in the forms of both migration and borrowing (diffusion). In both cases new distinct economic systems emerged including both autochthonic and introduced elements and well adapted to the local environment. These processes were often followed by the domestication of local fauna.

The book traces the ways of the formation and evolution of the technological base of the animal husbandry: the rise of dairy economy, wool weaving gelding technique, the exploitation of the domesticated animals in agriculture and transport. Owing to all these factors animal husbandry became ripe for separation from agriculture and the nomadic pastoralism emerged.