One of the most fascinating aspects of our own past is equally frustrating in our ability to truly know for sure any details.
The period when large parts of the human population began leaving behind the nomadic, hunter-gatherer lifestyle and replacing it with sedentary existence, involving agriculture and growing rather than gathering.
A key part of this, too, was the taming of certain wild animals which would ultimately become the farm animals of today.
Goats are one of our oldest allies, but just how old?
So, when were goats domesticated?
Prehistory is a fascinating topic, as you can really see the seeds of everything that we would ultimately become, and how we got here.
Goats have been a constant companion throughout so much of the journey of civilisation, and who knows just how far back our relationship with their ancestors goes?
Let’s look further into this.
When and where were goats first domesticated?
For the when, like I said, our oldest evidence of the domestication of goats has been dated to around 8,000 BC.
This is a variety of archaeological and genetic data which leads to this conclusion.
For one thing, goat remains found in human settlements suggests that they were being selectively killed at a young age.
Males, in particular.
This suggest that the animals were being kept in pens, rather than hunted.
All of this data seems to point to the first population of managed goats.
These goats would likely have been very different from how we picture them today, in all their selectively bred variety.
But they were, ultimately, the same animal.
These remains were found at ancient sites in the Zagros mountains, in modern day Iran.
The Middle-East was, in many was, the cradle of human civilisation, and many human “firsts” can be found at sites in this region.
It is no surprise that goats were first being domesticated here, not least because of the bountiful wild goat populations in the area.
So, goats were first domesticated in modern day Iran, around 10,000 years ago, probably at first only for their meat.
But why should our ancestors have chosen goats over other animals?
Why were goats domesticated over other animals?
There are a variety of reasons.
The taming of wild animals was, most likely, a long and arduous process of trial and error.
By the end of that, goats emerged as one of the best choices for animals to tame and domesticate.
Let’s look at the kind of animals that ancient humans would have hunted.
You have things like goats, yes, but also things like bison, gazelle, and horses.
Though each of these animals are quite different, they share one difference from goats: space requirements.
Even the smaller gazelle do not do very well in captivity, and often suffer from stunted growth.
Other animals may simply have been too dangerous.
Anything with large, sharp antlers could cause a big problem.
Goats are, by nature, docile, and fairly easy to handle.
Their horns won’t be a problem unless the goat wants them to be.
Antlers could easily injure you without the animal intending to.
So, while we can never know for sure what the thought process was, there are many clear and obvious advantages to rearing goats rather than other animals.
In the more recent past, then, how did goats make it over here to America?
Who first brought goats to America?
You may not be surprised to learn that goats came to America with Columbus almost as soon as it was discovered.
Columbus discovered the continent in 1492, and by the following year he had brought goats to the settlements they had established there.
In the following centuries, settlers from across Europe brought goats over to the New World.
Swiss, Spanish and Austrian goats were brought in the 1590s, and eventually populations became feral and were introduced into the wild.
The answer, then, is that many people brought goats to America!
What was the first domesticated animal?
Unambiguously, dogs are the first domesticated animal.
Our relationship with them is far older than any other animal, and we had a strong relationship with them long before we adopted agriculture.
Our oldest evidence suggests we had relationships with dogs as far back as 40,000 years ago.
Other than this, though, in terms of livestock, it was most likely goats!
There was a clear revolution in animal husbandry around ten thousand year ago, kickstarted by the domestication of goats.
Shortly after, sheep and chickens were added to the farms, before we moved on to larger things like oxen and horses.
Apart from dogs, though, goats are the clear winners!
So, while they may not have been around as long as other animals, like dogs, goats are clearly one of our oldest friends in the animal kingdom.
Evidence suggests we were already rearing them around 10,000 years ago, and it seems natural to surmise that this process took a long time.
It didn’t occur overnight.
Thus, the actual date is probably several centuries previous, at least, to our oldest evidence.
In any case, they have clearly been around for a very long time, and are not going anywhere soon!