You mean the huuntingg doggs they brought withthem? Why would they do that?
Cool Potential Domestications
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You mean the huuntingg doggs they brought withthem? Why would they do that?
Who says that the dogs they brought with them weren't initially for food rather than for hunting anyway? That's certainly been suggested as an alternative reason for why dogs might have been domesticated in the first place...
People eat dogs. And vice versa. Dogs may have been working animals, among the inuit and chuchki they pulled sleds. It's likely that dog sledding was a much later development, perhaps as early as 3000 or 4000 years ago, but likely no earlier. But they also pulled Travois.
Early dogs may have been analogous to the pariah dogs of India. Around. Useful for some purposes. But too clever and dangerous to be rid of.
Early dogs may have been analogous to the pariah dogs of India. Around. Useful for some purposes. But too clever and dangerous to be rid of.
I'm quite intrigued by Manatee domestication. How do you see that working?
What are Manatee's domesticated for?
I think its possible you could actually milk them. I don't know that there's any other re-cyclable on them - you couldn't harvest hair or fur or wool.
And I can't really see conventional draft labour. Definitely, they wouldn't be pack animals, and there's nothing for them to pull. Or is there?
No. You might harness up manatees to a river boat to pull it along, but you'd get better results having an ox along the river bank, with a specialized rig. The Ox would get way more traction, give you much better horsepower. Even humans or poling would get you better.
So for Manatee draft, you'd probably need a culture with no viable land domesticates at all.
Even then, I don't think Manatee have huge endurance.
So really, it seems mostly hides and meat.
On the other hand, there's no predators for Manatees and no shortage of food, so what's the upside for the Manatee?
My understanding of Manatees, without checking, is that they're relatively slow growing and slow reproducing.
Anyway, I'd love to see an effort to develop this....
What are Manatee's domesticated for?
I think its possible you could actually milk them. I don't know that there's any other re-cyclable on them - you couldn't harvest hair or fur or wool.
And I can't really see conventional draft labour. Definitely, they wouldn't be pack animals, and there's nothing for them to pull. Or is there?
No. You might harness up manatees to a river boat to pull it along, but you'd get better results having an ox along the river bank, with a specialized rig. The Ox would get way more traction, give you much better horsepower. Even humans or poling would get you better.
So for Manatee draft, you'd probably need a culture with no viable land domesticates at all.
Even then, I don't think Manatee have huge endurance.
So really, it seems mostly hides and meat.
On the other hand, there's no predators for Manatees and no shortage of food, so what's the upside for the Manatee?
My understanding of Manatees, without checking, is that they're relatively slow growing and slow reproducing.
Anyway, I'd love to see an effort to develop this....
Well, maybe not full domestication to the same extent as for cattle or sheep, but at least habituation to human presence so that they can be moved around more easily. Apart from the meat (which is supposed to be rather tasty) and maybe the hides, they'd be useful for keeping waterways clear of vegetation... You know what Water-Hyacinth is, and how 'invasive' that has become when spread outside its normal range? Well, they definitely eat that...
The slow reproduction rate and growth rate would reduce the economic viability a bit, I admit, but maybe selective breeding could slowly improve those factors?
Sexual maturity at nine years, 12 month gestation period, and one calve every two to five years. Animal is believed to have a low metabolism
Tough. My impression is that gestation periods are very hard to manipulate. With effective selective breeding, you might get the maturation rate down to 6 years, with a faster growing, smaller animal. That's still very long, almost intolerably so. And you might get the reproduction rate up to one every two years.
So what would this look like.
Let's assume a starting population of 10,000 'fast' breeding Manatee. Let's say that males are intensively harvested, leaving one male for every four females. That keeps the Manatee reproductive quotient high. So 8000 breeding females. These 8000 females will each produce a calve every 2nd year. So 4000 calves in any given year. Not too bad, eh?
So we can harvest 4000 Manatee a year, and still leave a starting population of 10,000?
Not quite. The 4000 Manatee we harvest will be the breeding adults, not the calves. So in 2.5 years, we will have harvested all of the adult manatees and eliminated the breeding population, leaving a replacement population of 10,000 immature Manatee, the oldest generation of which is 3.5 years from sexual maturity, and a 4.5 years from producing the third generation. But they won't make it, because in another 2.5 years, the 10,000 immature Manatee will be harvested. Ouch!
How about 1000 Manatee a year? In six years, you will have harvested the majority of adult Manatee = 6000, there will be a first generation of 4000 entering the population, so your mature Manatee population is now 8000. Take 1000 of that, and you're down to 7000 Manatee, who will breed 2800 new Manatee. On the other hand another 3600 will be entering the adult populations. Which takes us back up to 10,600, in year eight. Take a thousand of those, down to 9,600. But the new cohort is 3200, which takes us up to 12,800 in
Well, what if we only take Manatee calves at 4000 a year? Okay, but then you're cancelling any future generation. But this may be viable. Continually harvesting calves might well start selecting for twin births, and shorten the period between pregnancies. You might get a newborn manatee every 16 to 18 months. But at that harvesting rate, there's no selection, because you are taking the entire crop.
This isn't actually too bad. You're harvesting about 10% of the population a year, sustainably, and perhaps can go higher than that. It's nowhere near the rate of meat production you'd get with cattle or chickens, but its nothing to sneeze at. Particularly since the manatee are harvesting and processing completely inaccessible biomass. You're not going to use this waterway terrain to produce anything else that humans can eat.
Of course, this is an extremely arbitrary illustrative example. You are not going to start from zero with a population of 10,000 manatee and no juveniles and newborns. Any Manatee population is going to be a mixture of newborns, juveniles, adolescents, and mature animals. So let's assume 5000 harvestable adults, and 5000 juveniles divided up among 5 cohorts from newborn to pre-adult. Every year, a thousand pre-adults join the adult population. But the five thousand adults (assuming 4000 females and 1000 males), will produce 2000 newborns a year. So for a sustainable harvest, you could take 1000 adults and 1000 juveniles a year and maintain a stable population.
Conceivably you could embrace a harvesting strategy aimed at taking only juveniles, biasing strongly towards males, which would produce a fair amount of useful protein, and leave a strong enough surviving cohort that they could leave the manatee population going strong.
There's all sorts of scenarios in terms of trying to create sustainable harvest strategies.
But you know what? It's not bad. Particularly when you've got an environment which is highly inaccessible for agriculture. This strategy is probably a lot closer to herding and shepherding, but these often take place in resource poor areas, so their yields are reduced from optimum. Manatees are in a resource rich but inaccessible environment, so they might well produce returns that compare favourable to dryland or scrubland shepherding. Of course, the Manatee will be storing a lot more protein in the bank, so to speak. But its not bad at all.
The big risk of course will be excess harvesting, particularly poaching from invasive cultures.
But (and my models are using a comparatively fast breeding, fast maturing version of Manatee - rather than the current ones) (achievable through selective breeding/harvesting) it seems viable, at least in terms of production.
So, its at least theoretically possible that some culture might have domesticated the Manatee.
Tough. My impression is that gestation periods are very hard to manipulate. With effective selective breeding, you might get the maturation rate down to 6 years, with a faster growing, smaller animal. That's still very long, almost intolerably so. And you might get the reproduction rate up to one every two years.
So what would this look like.
Let's assume a starting population of 10,000 'fast' breeding Manatee. Let's say that males are intensively harvested, leaving one male for every four females. That keeps the Manatee reproductive quotient high. So 8000 breeding females. These 8000 females will each produce a calve every 2nd year. So 4000 calves in any given year. Not too bad, eh?
So we can harvest 4000 Manatee a year, and still leave a starting population of 10,000?
Not quite. The 4000 Manatee we harvest will be the breeding adults, not the calves. So in 2.5 years, we will have harvested all of the adult manatees and eliminated the breeding population, leaving a replacement population of 10,000 immature Manatee, the oldest generation of which is 3.5 years from sexual maturity, and a 4.5 years from producing the third generation. But they won't make it, because in another 2.5 years, the 10,000 immature Manatee will be harvested. Ouch!
How about 1000 Manatee a year? In six years, you will have harvested the majority of adult Manatee = 6000, there will be a first generation of 4000 entering the population, so your mature Manatee population is now 8000. Take 1000 of that, and you're down to 7000 Manatee, who will breed 2800 new Manatee. On the other hand another 3600 will be entering the adult populations. Which takes us back up to 10,600, in year eight. Take a thousand of those, down to 9,600. But the new cohort is 3200, which takes us up to 12,800 in
Well, what if we only take Manatee calves at 4000 a year? Okay, but then you're cancelling any future generation. But this may be viable. Continually harvesting calves might well start selecting for twin births, and shorten the period between pregnancies. You might get a newborn manatee every 16 to 18 months. But at that harvesting rate, there's no selection, because you are taking the entire crop.
This isn't actually too bad. You're harvesting about 10% of the population a year, sustainably, and perhaps can go higher than that. It's nowhere near the rate of meat production you'd get with cattle or chickens, but its nothing to sneeze at. Particularly since the manatee are harvesting and processing completely inaccessible biomass. You're not going to use this waterway terrain to produce anything else that humans can eat.
Of course, this is an extremely arbitrary illustrative example. You are not going to start from zero with a population of 10,000 manatee and no juveniles and newborns. Any Manatee population is going to be a mixture of newborns, juveniles, adolescents, and mature animals. So let's assume 5000 harvestable adults, and 5000 juveniles divided up among 5 cohorts from newborn to pre-adult. Every year, a thousand pre-adults join the adult population. But the five thousand adults (assuming 4000 females and 1000 males), will produce 2000 newborns a year. So for a sustainable harvest, you could take 1000 adults and 1000 juveniles a year and maintain a stable population.
Conceivably you could embrace a harvesting strategy aimed at taking only juveniles, biasing strongly towards males, which would produce a fair amount of useful protein, and leave a strong enough surviving cohort that they could leave the manatee population going strong.
There's all sorts of scenarios in terms of trying to create sustainable harvest strategies.
But you know what? It's not bad. Particularly when you've got an environment which is highly inaccessible for agriculture. This strategy is probably a lot closer to herding and shepherding, but these often take place in resource poor areas, so their yields are reduced from optimum. Manatees are in a resource rich but inaccessible environment, so they might well produce returns that compare favourable to dryland or scrubland shepherding. Of course, the Manatee will be storing a lot more protein in the bank, so to speak. But its not bad at all.
The big risk of course will be excess harvesting, particularly poaching from invasive cultures.
But (and my models are using a comparatively fast breeding, fast maturing version of Manatee - rather than the current ones) (achievable through selective breeding/harvesting) it seems viable, at least in terms of production.
So, its at least theoretically possible that some culture might have domesticated the Manatee.
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twovultures
Donor
This has happened IOTL, Norwegian rats have been domesticated as pets, while Gambian Pouched rats have been tamed and trained for de-mining fields.
Differences in the amounts and types of silk produced don't really let this be practical.
They don't have a social system of one of the kinds into which humans could insert themselves as leaders, and what do humans have to offer them in exchange for this work? Trying to coerce them in the water would be rather difficult, as they could just swim away. Sorry but, appealing though the image undoubtedly is, it's yet another concept that I think would effectively be a non-starter.
And bearing in mind that Guinea Pigs were tamed as meat animals, I suspect the same would also be possible for some of the larger & more herbivorous 'Rat' species -- such as that Gambian one, or the 'Cane Rats' which also come from western Africa -- too.
They use some 'river' otters like that, yes, and as you say the idea might have potential for expansion. However I'm fairly sure that so far the fishermen have to keep their otters on long leashes while they're working, so that they don't just swim away, and you couldn't do that with sea otters practically because -- even leaving aside greater difficulty of collaring & leashing them in the first place -- there'd be too great a likelihood of leashes getting entangled in the kelp amidst which the otters live and hunt.
Basically, you need to find some aspect of the animal's behaviour, and maximize the rewards for that.
If for instance, Otters had any behavioural trait that could be associated with or magnified into a hoarding behaviour.
If, for instance, Otters fed their offspring shellfish, and would dive to collect shellfish and bring it to the dens, you might try to take that behaviour, select for it, and do a social tweak where the otter was basically in perpetual 'mom feeding babies' mode.
If for instance, Otters had any behavioural trait that could be associated with or magnified into a hoarding behaviour.
If, for instance, Otters fed their offspring shellfish, and would dive to collect shellfish and bring it to the dens, you might try to take that behaviour, select for it, and do a social tweak where the otter was basically in perpetual 'mom feeding babies' mode.
I think that's an excellent strategy. And likely to be sucessful with many carnivores. Otters are perhaps more likely to be adopted as cubs in the first place, owing to the overpowering cuteness quotient.
(I was actually thinking of river otters, rather than sea otters. I believe river otters are more den based, so it would probably work better with them.)
I'm new to Althistory. Someone told me about Green Antarctica and I followed that here. So hi.
I love the idea that the fact that we use cats (and not domestic foxes or weasels) is an accident of history.
I've read the stuff on Russian domestic foxes, but do you have citations for domesticate ferrets in Europe?
I have also come across early efforts in the Russian fox experiment to domesticate river otters, although I don't know what came of it.
As for what useful things racoons can do: harvest fruits in trees? Maybe something like helper-monkeys for an ATL Algonquin civilization? I like the idea of using them as thieves.
Here in Bulgaria, hedgehogs are valued in folklore for their ability to kill snakes, and they have no problem living in setted areas. I wonder what kind of verminators they would make? Or they might just be a useful at converting kitchen waste into edible hedgehog meat. Mini-pigs, and especially useful during the Ottoman Occupation, since they don't offend Muslims.
Keep in mind that the wolf-to-dog story might not be as simple as it appears: http://darrennaish.blogspot.com/2006/10/controversial-origins-of-domestic-dog.html
Simreeve, that is SO cool about domestic Elands.
I like the idea of using squirrels to gather nuts, but how would you control them? I've heard stories about people raising squirrels and training them to come when called. Imagine a Californian acorn-farmer walking through his fall orchards, yelling "c'mere SQUIIRLES!" and thousands of little tree rats mobbing him and filling his baskets. Good times.
Fish: In Satoyama (http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/satoyama/) they talk about rural Japanese "sinks" that are extensions of a artificial river system that extends into people's houses. The "sink" is closed off from the water by nets, trapping big carp. The carp eat scraps off the dirty dishes you place in the sink. Then you eat the carp. Except for the fact that those carp have already been domesticated, I'd say they were great candidates for discussion on this forum
Thespitron: I absolutely love the idea of breeding bats (or birds) to produce saltpeter. What if the Incas had figured that out, with their enormous reserves of guano? I suppose that would be more like USING the birds than domesticating them, but maybe there's some way to make them more useful. Breed some neotonous fuzzy perpetual baby birds that attract adult wild birds to feed them? Then that perpetual baby bird poops all over the place, and you've got some useful guano.
I love the idea that the fact that we use cats (and not domestic foxes or weasels) is an accident of history.
I've read the stuff on Russian domestic foxes, but do you have citations for domesticate ferrets in Europe?
I have also come across early efforts in the Russian fox experiment to domesticate river otters, although I don't know what came of it.
As for what useful things racoons can do: harvest fruits in trees? Maybe something like helper-monkeys for an ATL Algonquin civilization? I like the idea of using them as thieves.
Here in Bulgaria, hedgehogs are valued in folklore for their ability to kill snakes, and they have no problem living in setted areas. I wonder what kind of verminators they would make? Or they might just be a useful at converting kitchen waste into edible hedgehog meat. Mini-pigs, and especially useful during the Ottoman Occupation, since they don't offend Muslims.
Keep in mind that the wolf-to-dog story might not be as simple as it appears: http://darrennaish.blogspot.com/2006/10/controversial-origins-of-domestic-dog.html
Simreeve, that is SO cool about domestic Elands.
I like the idea of using squirrels to gather nuts, but how would you control them? I've heard stories about people raising squirrels and training them to come when called. Imagine a Californian acorn-farmer walking through his fall orchards, yelling "c'mere SQUIIRLES!" and thousands of little tree rats mobbing him and filling his baskets. Good times.
Fish: In Satoyama (http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/satoyama/) they talk about rural Japanese "sinks" that are extensions of a artificial river system that extends into people's houses. The "sink" is closed off from the water by nets, trapping big carp. The carp eat scraps off the dirty dishes you place in the sink. Then you eat the carp. Except for the fact that those carp have already been domesticated, I'd say they were great candidates for discussion on this forum
Thespitron: I absolutely love the idea of breeding bats (or birds) to produce saltpeter. What if the Incas had figured that out, with their enormous reserves of guano? I suppose that would be more like USING the birds than domesticating them, but maybe there's some way to make them more useful. Breed some neotonous fuzzy perpetual baby birds that attract adult wild birds to feed them? Then that perpetual baby bird poops all over the place, and you've got some useful guano.
You know, ferrets are an OLD pet of occident - they are not new; there was ferrets in europe (beyond greek world? roman?) before the cats got around, and/or got popular. Hunting wild rabbits-hares, and rats controls surely too.
I say at least like 2,5-3,000 years for the ferrets's domestication.
I say at least like 2,5-3,000 years for the ferrets's domestication.
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Welcome aboard.
Interesting. No idea what happened.
The trouble is, not that many useful fruit trees in Algonquin territory. There's some, and they form a significant part of diet, but we don't have anything like a silviculture economy.
And there are a couple of issues: Raccoons aren't hoarders like squirrels and chipmunks. They eat on site, they don't bring it back. Their storage reservoir is their body fat.
And silviculture harvesting is intensely and narrowly seasonal. Say a two week time frame in a year to harvest apples... and then your harvesters are taking up space.
Conceivably, you could stagger out your silviculture environment, different fruit or berry or nut trees and bushes fruiting at different times, so your harvest period could stretch across several months.
But for the most part, although its possible, that sort of silviculture economy didn't exist in the right times and places.
Still, it seems possible that things could evolve in that direction.
Here in Bulgaria, hedgehogs are valued in folklore for their ability to kill snakes, and they have no problem living in setted areas. I wonder what kind of verminators they would make? Or they might just be a useful at converting kitchen waste into edible hedgehog meat. Mini-pigs, and especially useful during the Ottoman Occupation, since they don't offend Muslims.
Quite interesting. My impression of hedgehogs is that they're vrey human tolerant. And apparently good eating. Microlivestock?
There's actually quite a lot of possibilities in microlivestock. It's perhaps the big unexploited domestic potential.
Well, it would actually be more like bee keeping. The farmers would establish squirrel habitats and squirrel nests where the squirrels would return to to store their goods, and the farmers would harvest from the nests.