Animal Domestication: Table of Dates and Places

Over the past 10,000 years, humans have learned to control their access to food and other necessities of life by changing the behaviors and natures of wild animals. All of the animals that we use today, such as dogs, cats, cattle, sheep, camels, geese, horses, and pigs, started out as wild animals but were changed over the centuries and millennia into tamer, quieter animals. Some of the ways people benefit from a domesticated animal include keeping cattle in pens for access to milk and meat and for pulling plows; training dogs to be guardians and companions; teaching horses to adapt to the plow or take a rider; and changing the lean, nasty wild boar into a fat, friendly farm animal.

Different animals were domesticated in different parts of the world at different times. The following table describes when and where different animals were turned from wild beasts to be hunted or avoided, into animals we could live with and rely on. The table summarizes the current understandings of the earliest likely domestication date for each of the animal species, and a very rounded figure for when that might have happened. Live links on the table lead to additional information on the specific animals.

Thanks to Ronald Hicks at Ball State University for the updates. Similar information on the domestication dates and places of plants is found on the Table of Plant Domestication.