Humans started cultivating, peas, water chestnuts and cucumbers around 9,750 BC. Scientists from the University of Hawaii when on an expedition to Myanmar (then known as Burma) found a cave, called the Spirit Cave, where they found these remnants and actually carbon dated them.
The first sheep were domesticated by 8,900 BC in Iraq.
The first pigs were tamed and eaten by about 7,000 BC. According to the Swedish Research Council (2005, April 26) their origin had been accurately mapped as coming from the wild boar. This means, humans had tamed the boars.
The first cattle were descendants of the aurochs who were fierce, fast and ferocious beasts and who were hunted to extinction in about 1627 AD or thereabouts.
The cows appeared around 6,000 BC because humans had tamed them by then, constricting their space and castrating the males. Julius Caesar didn’t seem to like them too much either, once when writing a report on exactly where it was they were traveling and what it was they were seeing, he referred to the aurochs as: “…….. a little less than elephants in size …. strength is very great as is their speed …” and to cut a long story short, it seems the aurochs loathed human beings.
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October 21, 2008 at 4:44 am
[...] slowly became the order of the day. Both they and their animals lived a life of abundance. The pigs, still relatively wild in those days, were associated with fertility, authority and power. A [...]