In the last 4,000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.
Oh yeah!!!!!!!? Then how come people are farming emus and kangaroos? Not to mention having a budgie sitting on ones shoulder talking none stop all day.
Jared Diamond, in his book 'Guns, Germs and Steel' (which I can highly recommend), distinguished between domestication and taming. He defines a domesticated animal as 'an animal selectively bred in captivity and thereby modified from its wild ancestors, for use by humans who control the animal's breeding and food supply.' So, can anyone tell me if the farmed emus and kangaroos are domesticated or tamed?
Diamond does say in his book that no one has made 'useful domesticates of large mammals beyond the ancient 14' for the last 4,500 years. Note that he's talking only about large mammals, not all animals. By the way, the 'ancient 14' are: sheep; goat; cow, alias ox or cattle; pig; horse; Arabian camel; Bactrian camel; llama and alpaca; donkey; reindeer; water buffalo; yak; Bali cattle; and mithan.
Margot Walker in Halifax on the east coast of Canada
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