where no other breed of swine has been discovered, seem to me good evidence that it was introduced into Europe as a domestic animal. The small size of its tusks, as compared with the wild boar, was most probably the result of a long domestication before the animal arrived in Europe.
The common domestic hog, descended from the wild boar, may have been originally tamed in Europe, since the wild boar was a member of the European fauna in Pleistocene and Prehistoric times. But, nevertheless, the latter is found also in Asia, and it is therefore very probable that it was domesticated in the same region as the dog and the turf-hog.[1]
The Domestic Oxen, Sheep, and Goats.
Among the two or three races of oxen found in the pile-dwellings, the interest centres more particularly in the small, delicately-shaped Celtic short-horn, which was the sole domestic ox in Britain as late as the English conquest. According to Professor Rütimeyer, it was not originally wild in Europe; while Professor Nilsson, on the other hand, holds that it lived in a wild state in North Germany and Scandinavia. The animal is undoubtedly found in the turbaries of Britain, Ireland, and of the Continent, in association with the remains of animals such as the stag and roe. But this fact tells us nothing of its aboriginal condition, since the cattle introduced into America and Australia have become wild, and are now spreading with a remarkable rapidity
- ↑ Dr. Rolleston calls attention to the exceeding variability of the wild hogs of Europe, Asia, and Africa, and considers that the Neolithic swine may be of foreign derivation.—Trans. Lin. Soc., SS. i. p. 264.
