To reinforce what Richard says about goats as leaders of the flock, I have seen a flock of sheep in SW Crete being led down the hill by a goat - with no shepherd in sight.
Michael Ryder described the same thing somewhere.
Dale
Dale Serjeantson FSA, MIFA, MA
School of Humanities Archaeology
University of Southampton
Southampton S017 1BJ
http://www.southampton.ac.uk/archaeology/about/staff/dale.page
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From: Analysis of animal remains from archaeological sites [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Richard Chuang [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 06 February 2015 16:33
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ZOOARCH] goats as farmyard animals
Hello,
This may not be very helpful or related to the question, but as I recall, mixed herding (goats with sheep) is practised in northern China/Inner Mongolia because goats are better at finding food resource (maybe because they’re browsers) and therefore they act as the leading “goat” in the herd. This is briefly mentioned in one article by Prof. Jian-Hua Yang, but I am afraid it’s in Chinese (and I don’t remember the exact title for this article).
The role of goats is probably different in region where pasture is more abundant.
Best wishes, Richard
PhD student
Department of Archaeology,
University of Southampton
2015-02-06 15:43 GMT+00:00 Haskel Greenfield <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>:
Hi. It is my sense that goats are selected for farmyard animals more so than sheep because of their ability to produce milk. However, does anyone have any literature or insight that shows a genetic predisposition on the part of goats to be used as farmyard animals (e.g. do they bond better with humans, produce more or better milk, etc.)?
Best
Haskel
Haskel J. Greenfield, Prof., University of Manitoba
Department of Anthropology, Fletcher Argue 432, Winnipeg, MB, R3T2N2
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