The start of humans and animals interacting began about 9,000 years ago. The animals were useful for food (their meat) , clothing (made out of their skin), and milk. Their waste could also be used as a fertilizer for crops. Its also easier than hunting because they now had these animals to depend on and start a civilization with. Everybody in the community then bonded together to get the most out the animals.
Goats and sheep were the first animals to be domesticated. The people of Papua New Guinea never had horses or plows for their crop fields. Instead they hoed their crops-they were geographically unfortunate. To this day, the people of Papua New Guinea grow their crops by hand.
Despite efforts, the elephant has never been domesticated. They eat too much food in order to be useful for farming and breeding. Instead, each elephant is brought out of the wild, tamed, and trained. In order to be a domestic animal, it has to work well with humans. The Zebra would seem like an ideal domestication animal, but it has a wild streak that humans have not be able to understand and tame.
Domestic animals over 100 pounds (14 different species of animals): cows, pigs, donkeys, goats, sheep, 2 kinds of camels, water buffalo, llamas, reindeer, yaks, mithans, horses, and Bali cattle. None of these animals were native to Australia or Papua New Guinea. Countries that were homes to the best crops were also homes of the best domestic animals as well. It gave them a huge head start on civilization. The reason why the countries in the Fertile Cresent were able to really advance was because they had great crops and domestic animals. This is the main reason why Papua New Guinea hasn’t changed.
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