30 THE DOMESTICATION OF ANIMALS 



Along another line and with another kind of creature, 

 domestication may have arisen from the chance capture of 

 young animals, which, treated in the first instance as pets, 

 became closely associated with their captors' families] feeding 

 and' even breeding in semi-captivity, so that they too in the 

 course of a few generations fell into the ways of domesticated 

 things. 



Although it is generally stated that the domestication of 

 animals began with the men of the Neolithic or Polished 

 Stone Age, recent investigations indicate that even in the 

 later stages of the Palaeolithic cultures, a few animals may 

 have been trained to definite uses. At Saint Marcel, Indre, 

 in deposits containing relics of Magdalenian culture, was 

 found a stone pendant bearing on one side the representation 

 of a deer, probably a Reindeer, at a gallop, and on the other 

 side lines which represent very fairly the runners and cross- 

 stays of a sledge. It seems no unwarrantable assumption 

 to regard the figures on the two sides as related to each 

 other, for Palaeolithic engravers frequently carried their 

 artistic motives around the surfaces of the bones or antlers 

 on which they worked. So it has been surmised that the 

 Magdalenians had led the Reindeer captive, and harnessed 

 it to a sledge. Other Palaeolithic sculptures have been 

 discovered in France, whereon representations of wild Horses 

 bear lines round nostrils and neck and other markings, which 

 have been interpreted by M. Piette as halters and rude 

 harness. It seems possible, therefore, that the secrets of 

 the domestication of animals had been tapped before Neolithic 

 man made his great conquest of the animal world. 



The earliest inhabitants of Scotland seem to have 

 possessed no domestic animals ; for the shell-mounds of the 

 Azilian or early Neolithic settlers in Oronsay yielded traces 

 of none to the careful examinations of Mr Henderson Bishop 

 and Mr Ludovic Mann, notwithstanding that abundance of 

 bones of wild creatures, including those of Red Deer, Boar, 

 Otter and several species of marine mammals, were dis- 

 covered. But Oronsay is an island lying in the western seas, 

 and it may be said that its isolation nullifies any conclusions 

 regarding domestic stock drawn from its relics, since it would 

 be impossible to transport animals of any size across the 

 straits that separate the island from the mainland. While 

 it must be admitted that the ultimate decision as to the first 



