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NPS Property Consultants Ltd NAU Archaeology |
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The taming of cats is something of
interest to me, both from the zooarchaeological point of view and as a
volunteer for the RSPCA over a few years, working on groups of feral cats in
the city.
I don’t think, from my experience
with feral cats and from my childhood on a farm with resident cat rodent
control, that cats become domesticated or tamed easily, it requires quite a
programme of taking the kittens at a sufficiently young age (six weeks or less)
before they’ve developed their defensive aggressive behaviour. The taming
of older wild or feral cats is almost impossible, even those that live as regular
scavengers around our rubbish. It is surprising as well how quickly the
offspring of a domestic cat revert back to the wild or semi-wild state one the
adult escapes a domestic lifestyle.
Best wishes, julie
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From:
Analysis of animal remains from archaeological sites
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Mueller
Werner
Sent: 08 August 2008 09:29
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ZOOARCH] domestic
cat in
I guess an important
point to make here is: taming acts on the individual (and taming does
not affect the genes of that individual). Domestication is a process that
works on generations of a population by selecting certain individuals
for reproduction of subsequent generations in order to (the most important
point) alter the genepool of that population.
Taming is,
therefore, not a step that comes before domestication (although
individuals of the population that is in the process of being domesticated
might be tamed). In fact, there are over a hundred species around the
world of which individuals are regularly taken from the wild and are kept
as pets/are tamed. But since they do not reproduce in captivity, it has nothing
to do with domestication.
Best wishes to y'all,
Vern.
*************************************************
Werner Müller
Office et Musée d'archéologie
Laboratoire d'archéozoologie
Chemin de Maujobia 8
CH-2000 Neuchâtel
Suisse
tel.+41-32-725 11 80
fax +41-32-725 11 84
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
De :
Analysis of animal remains from archaeological sites
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] De la part de
Sue Millard
Envoyé : vendredi, 8. août
2008 09:45
À : [log in to unmask]
Objet : Re: [ZOOARCH]
domestic cat in Britain
Also as an outsider, but as a parallel to the
discussion -
Early Canid Domestication: The
Farm-Fox Experiment. Lyudmila N. Trut, 1999. American
Scientist, Volume 87, March–April
Foxes bred for tamability in a
40-year experiment exhibit remarkable transformations that suggest an interplay
between behavioral genetics and development.
Trut is head of the research
group at the Institute of Cytology and Genetics of the Siberian Department of
the Russian Academy of Sciences, in
~~~~~~~~~
Although the experiment investigated morphological
changes induced by selection for tamability, I take this paper's behavioural
evidence to imply that it is possible for
domestication to take place within a historically very short space of time.
Taming of individuals would precede breeding, leading to domestication of a
strain of the species - in this case, the silver fox.
Of course, the environmental conditions for the
experiment were vastly more controlled and the captive population for selection
was much larger than they could have been in prehistory so the continuum from
wild to tame to domestic will have been longer than in this experiment.
Sue Millard
-------------- Original message ---------------
As an out-sider, I would think that
"taming" is an additional step that comes before
"domestication."
KIM
Mueller: "The two related terms domestication and breeding are regarded
as the two subsequent phases of the same process, with no precise borderline to
be drawn between them. While the term domestication designates the first part
of the process until domesticates are obtained, the term breeding is then used
for all subsequent human efforts to further change these domesticates."
As a consequence there
cannot be (in my opinion) a clear borderline between a "not-yet truly
domesticate" and a "truly domesticate", no matter if you work
with morphology or genetics. It's simply that we devided a continuous
process into two sections, with two distinct terms, without being able to
define the limits.
I hope this comment was
useful,
cheers,
Vern.
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05:54
Sue in the
Intelligence is no defence against stupidity
http://www.suemillard.f9.co.uk/hoofprints.shtml
http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=813242
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