Your second paragraph voices inquires I’ve had since I was little. I think it’s so bizarre that people one day discovered they can drink milk from other animals or even make food and clothing out of them at all. I have religious beliefs that offer their own support for why people began eating animals, but I hoped to get more of an insight specifically just how humans discovered the multitude of uses for animals.

Bulliet seems to think it was by accident that cats became domestic after humans used the friendlier ones to ward of mice, and he may be right, but I personally would like to know how people exterminated them before, and how they figured out that cats make excellent mice hunters. Furthermore, how did they get a lynx into their storage shed without being attacked? Bulliet mentioned lower adrenal levels, and basically calmer lynx (or whatever he believes to be the precursor to the cute tabby cats), but his book did not give me the in-depth answers I seek.

Your second paragraph voices inquires I’ve had since I was little. I think it’s so bizarre that people one day discovered they can drink milk from other animals or even make food and clothing out of them at all. I have religious beliefs that offer their own support for why people began eating animals, but I hoped to get more of an insight specifically just how humans discovered the multitude of uses for animals.

Bulliet seems to think it was by accident that cats became domestic after humans used the friendlier ones to ward of mice, and he may be right, but I personally would like to know how people exterminated them before, and how they figured out that cats make excellent mice hunters. Furthermore, how did they get a lynx into their storage shed without being attacked? Bulliet mentioned lower adrenal levels, and basically calmer lynx (or whatever he believes to be the precursor to the cute tabby cats), but his book did not give me the in-depth answers I seek.

Okay thank you for letting me know, and I will make sure to break up my posts better.

I see your point that just because he does not load his novel with citations does not make it inaccurate; however, if he is trying to target a broad audience, he needs to focus less on reducing the formality and more on making it an “easy read.” It is interesting and thought-provoking, but it contains complex theories with little support, and it tends to drag on with parallel paragraph structure (for example on page 85 where his claims are set up using the exact same structure).

One would think the parallel structure would make his ideas easier to follow, but I thought his description on genes on page 82 would be extremely different for the average adult, who has not had a biology lesson since high school, to comprehend.

I cannot find out who he was trying to target with this book, but it absolutely is not underage adolescents, based on the content of the first chapter.

I had always learned that the first domestication of cats occurred in Egypt because the Egyptians worshipped the half-cat goddess Bastet. The Egyptians admired the cat as a species for its sense of mystery and it’s intellect and piercing eyes, which the Europeans actually found to represent evil. However, recent studies have shown in tombs an entirely different species of cat that could not be native to Egypt.
This does not disprove Bulliet’s idea at all. As a matter of fact, further research on the domestication of cats in Egypt supports some of his claims.

That being said, I do not think his proposal is completely inaccurate, I just feel he has a bad habit of overgeneralizing domestication to one or a few small occurrences, and I believe the Egyptians purposefully domesticated cats for worship and to control mice.
I see how Bulliet finds the long-term domestication accidental, but I believe that the Egyptians intended the cats to “stick around” for dynasties because why else would they mummify and/or worship them from one century to the next? This is only my own personal opinion.

There are so many good ideas in this post and I’m really looking forward to the discussion tomorrow! On cultures of animals (and people). It’s really helpful to think about differences in terms of kind and quality rather than in terms of degree along a continuum from “primitive” to “advanced.” Ants, for example, have very sophisticated cultures – some of them even keep their own domesticates (aphids). The wolf-dog-pointing-following the gaze debate has been hot lately!
http://news.sciencemag.org/plants-animals/2011/02/wolves-can-follow-humans-gaze
http://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/were-first-dogs-our-best-friends-or-mutant-vermin-tale-f8C11562726

If I’m understanding you correctly, it sounds like you found Bulliet’s analysis of cat domestication flawed? Besides just not agreeing with him, is there evidence you’ve found in support of another theory?

Right – domestication (vs. tameness) involves artificial selection of some sort. But the deer example is a good one in terms of how animal cultures develop. In Northern VA, for example, deer have learned how to use culverts to cross roads to get to browse which means that fewer of them end up in traffic. They’ve also learned to recognize the human behaviors that precede a cull in an urban area and plan their movements accordingly (i.e. they stop coming to the place where the cull is going to be executed.)
But as their population has mushroomed and their range has encroached even more on urban areas, popular opinion about how to deal with them has also shifted: http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/as-deer-encroach-on-washington-suburbs-attitudes-about-kills-shift/2013/11/30/84400bf2-5783-11e3-835d-e7173847c7cc_story.html

Interesting discussion here! I think everyone agrees that tractability (tameness) is an important component of domestication, but there is more it than that. As Clutton-Brock and many others argue, some measure of artificial selection must factor into the equation as well.
As for leashes – well that’s a whole interesting topic in its own right! Tool of protection, control, yes, but also mode of communication. Check out one of the best books ever written about cultures of humans, cultures of dogs, and cross-species communication here: http://www.patriciamcconnell.com/store/The-Other-End-of-the-Leash.html

Thinking about how humans co-evolved with other animals yields so many cool insights. I’m going to be interested to hear what you all think about the section of Dunn we’re reading that shows how cattle domesticated us just as much as we domesticated them! Molly, I’m glad you got so much out of these chapters of Bulliet. While it does seem odd to talk about periodization before discussing domestication itself, what I like about those early chapters is the way they encourage us to remember that our contemporary attitudes toward and treatment of different animals are partly a function of changing historical circumstances and relationships. The next step is to think about domestication as an ongoing evolutionary process rather than as an event. It’s complicated for sure!

I’m not sure if I agree with the animals presenting themselves bit necessarily being root in spirituality. You might be right, but the interpretation I had was more psychological. Probably because I’m a psychology major.

I interpreted “animals presenting themselves” as a reversal of the way we usually perceive things. For example, if you’re walking toward a tree, you would describe the situation as “I am moving closer to the tree.” However, from the perspective Einstein would take with Relativity, it is equally accurate to say “The tree is moving closer to me.” It just depends on the point of reference. I interpreted “animals presenting themselves” as a switching of the point of reference. In other words, the hunter may be attributing his discovery of an animal to the environment, not to his own choices/behaviors. In the Western world we typically attribute what happens to us and what we stumble upon to ourselves and our own decisions, but this is not necessarily an accurate interpretation of the world.

I could be wrong though. Your theory sounds equally plausible.