MAN FROM THE FARTHEST PAST 
acquired domestic animals in addition to the dog he had 
already had so long. 
We do not know what animals other than the dog man 
first tamed, or how he did it, but we can make several 
pertinent deductions. First a set of conditions must have 
arisen which brought man and certain species of animals 
susceptible of domestication into especially close contact 
with each other. The plausible suggestion has been made 
that, as the west-central portions of Asia slowly dried out 
after the close of the Ice Age, both men and animals 
tended to be crowded more and more closely together in 
those areas which still remained well watered. Finally 
even these shrank until they became mere oases—islands 
of vegetation surrounded by vast expanses of desert and 
semidesert. Not only does drought tend to crowd all 
living creatures together about the water holes; it also robs 
animals of much of their wildness and instinctive timidity 
toward man. Thus, among the rest, those wild animals 
upon which man had largely preyed became less wild. 
Some such state of affairs may have led to the beginnings 
of domestication. 
The process implies first a sufficient degree of intelligence 
to enable man to appreciate the advantages of having 
domestic animals at all. Then there must exist animals 
of species which can be domesticated. The lack of these 
over a great part of the New World supplies us with a 
fundamental explanation for the backwardness of the 
American Indian as compared to the European four hun- 
dred years ago. Finally, conditions must be such that 
the animals, after being half tamed and in a measure 
accustomed to the presence of man, can not easily escape 
from under his control and become once more truly wild. 
The more we study early man, the oftener do we find 
instances in which he was governed by reasons totally 
different from those which cause us to do some of the very 
same things that he did. If asked why man domesticated 
cattle, we should doubtless reply without hesitation, “For 
[250] 
