## Notes * [[theory of why domestic cattle are smaller]] * [[cattle are very inbred]] * [[role of cattle in ancient history]] * [[Cows Painted With Zebra-Like Striping Can Avoid Biting Fly Attack by Tomoki Kojima]] * [[domestic cows come from a female but horses from a male]] - [[pesticides sicken cows]] - [[we don't know much about how cows were domesticated in the Near East]] - [[cows poorly fill the role of ancient megafauna]] - [[early Indian cows ate mostly millet]] - [[Irish cows and pigs were slaughtered in November on Martinmas]] - [[social impacts of early cattle domestication in ancient Russia]] - [[the herd is the organism]] - [[dietary habits in the ancient world]] (note: [[dietary practices are more cultural than logical]]) - [[waterwheel designs could have been improved earlier]] -- improvements originally inspired by a cow? - herded by [[Mongols]] & [[Yamnaya]] & [[Scythian|Scythians]] among many others obviously. - [[Livestock and Dairying Led to Dramatic Social Changes in Ancient Mongolia by ScienceDaily]] - [[Dairying Enabled Early Bronze Age Yamnaya Steppe Expansions by Andrey Epimakhov]] - [[Ancient Genomic Time Transect From the Central Asian Steppe Unravels the History of the Scythians by Rita Radzeviciute]] - [[2021-06-28 Food Preservation#Powdered Cow]] used by the Mongols - [[many useful animals were domesticated for their meat first]] (meat, not milk, in this case) - [[Modern meat is full of preservatives and still spoils fairly quickly when left unrefrigerated. How did people in the old... by reddit.com]] - [[the mythical Herakles famously stole cows]] - [[alfalfa feeds cows and also repairs soil]] - [[ham and cheese is vital to European culture]] points out that male cows are less useful than female ones and often slaughtered; in Rimworld the ideal ratio is 3:1 female:male. - [[economics]] points out that stockbreeding is a volatile economy. - [[domestic cows come from a female but horses from a male]] - [[differences in herding cattle vs horses]] - [[ancient Mesopotamian cattle milking practices]] - [[Mesopotamian slaves were recorded like cattle]] (but note: cows lived closely with humans and had human names because they were so important, via [[Ancient Mesopotamian epidemics lecture by Troels Arboll]]) ## Products - [[2021.09.29a Cows, thunder & how ancients exploited ceremonial roles]] - [[2021.07.21a A single fungus can destroy an entire way of life]] points out that cows do fine in forest environments - [[Review of Tamed by Alice Roberts]] - cows vs [[2020-11-10 Pigs]] - [[2021-03-08 Laundry]] for the relevance of cow gall bladders for laundresses - [[2021-05-31 Settlements]] Sintashta prioritized winter marshlands for cattle - [[2021.08.25a Scientific advancement is natural and dangerous]] see also: the evolution from the stage where [[adult lactose tolerance was rare in Ancient Rome]] -- milk was literally used as [[2021.10.27a Laxatives]] - [[2021-11-01 Marriage (DRAFT)]] - see also how [[bride-price customs complicate inheritance for widows]] (often involve cattle, see also [[2022-01-11 food as currency]]) ## Annotated Sources - [[Manure Fertilization by Sarah Taber]] - [[Human-Animal Entanglements in the Neolithic]] (cows are descended from aurochs, which went extinct _relatively_ recently). - [[The Medieval Agricultural Year by Rachel Hartman]] - [[Strange Horizons - The Medieval Agricultural Year By Rachel Hartman by Gretchen Tessmer]] - [[The Horse The Wheel And Language by David Anthony]] - [[The Civilizations of Africa by Christopher Ehret]] - [[Tamed by Alice Roberts]] - [[Anthony V. Taylor on Early Pastoral Economies on the Eurasian Plains]] - [[An historical precedent for the use of alternative milks AskHistorians by View all comments]] - year-round milk access is relatively recent