3. What was the first domesticated farm animal? Non farm animal?

*History 8 First Towns and Villages Video Notes

National Geographic defines domestication as "the process of adapting wild plants and animals for human use," for animals in particular, this means that they could not survive without humans. In essence domestication is making an animal completely reliant on humans. Though many animals like dogs and cats we could not think of ever not being domesticated, it all started somewhere, in this case the dog. The dog was the first domesticated animal. As soon as humans became sedentary dogs, which used to be natural scavengers, appeared and began eating from scrap heaps following the hunters around, and approaching ever closer to the humans settlements. By the beginnings of civilization dogs were simply a part of life and have remained so, after all a dog is a man's best friend. Though dogs were the first domesticated non-farm animal, they were never bred for work, much as do today, dogs simply lazed around and made their masters happy, but with an ever increasing population humans quickly discovered that they could domesticate animals that they could use for their benefit and soon may other animals became a part of daily life.

The first domesticated farm animal was the goat. Goats were probably domesticated so early on because they are herbivores which are much easier to domesticate then carnivores, and because they provided milk, meat, and fur for warmth, and soon goats began to show signs of domestication. Early in their history goats had large horns to protect themselves and win over females with, however now they have small horns and could not survive in the wild.

Humans were able to change the shape and size of goats horns through selective breeding, allowing only the animals from within a herd with desired traits to breed, this allowed humans to manipulate the animals and even create separate species as we see in dogs today.