Professor Nilsson, it was imported into Scandinavia from Southern Europe. The same remarks apply equally to the probable ancestry of the domestic horse.[1]
The sheep of the pile-dwellings was horned, and of a fine delicate breed, and the goat possessed keeled horns arching backwards, nearly in one plane, and was probably the ancestor of the Welsh goat. Neither of these animals is represented by any wild stock in Europe, and both were unknown in the Pleistocene age. It is therefore clear that we must seek their ancestry in some other quarter of the world.
The remains of most of these domestic animals are found in association with Neolithic implements, not merely in Britain and Switzerland, but in Italy, Spain, France, Germany, and Scandinavia, and imply that the same breeds were kept by the herdsmen of that remote age over the greater part of the Continent. It is, however, interesting to note that the local varieties presented now by our domestic breeds, and produced by long-continued selection, have not been observed, up to this time, in Neolithic Europe.
It is a remarkable fact that the domestic animals appear to have been introduced into Europe en masse, and not, as they might have been expected, one after another. The dog probably was the first servant of man, and aided him in hunting; but the association of the remains of the animals in Europe affords no direct evidence on the point.
- ↑ Professor Rütimeyer adds the ass to the domestic animals found in the Neolithic pile-dwellings of Wauwyl, and that of Auvernier, of late Bronze age. Keller, Lake-dwellings, pp. 543, 545.
