The Geography of Livestock

Just like our fruits and spices, the many animals we eat have a rich and varied history spanning nearly all the worlds continents. Today we're exploring the stories behind domesticated livestock!

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[psammiad]

Honey might not seem worth it to our modern sugar-rich diet, but imagine what it was like for ancient people who lived on plain fruit, grains and meat - golden honey would've been a miraculous taste sensation.

[PedroMata]

It's funny that in English, you have turkey which is the same name as a country, Turkey.

While in Portuguese, a turkey is called a "peru" which is the same name as a country, Peru.

[hokipokiloki]

I want to know the geography of our grains and vegetables. that would be interesting to know.

[cool]

You forgot water buffaloes. Very important domestic animal of South and Southeast Asia.

[ElementZephyr]

"Grains, Vegetables, or maybe even pets"

1, 2, and 3.

[Wolfiyeethegranddukecerberus]

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Me: *adjusts spectacles* _Actually it was the red junglefowl originating from the tropical regions of India and South Eastern Asia_

[InterKELLar]

“African wild ass”. Imagine this phrase without context. 🤣😂🤣😂

[And-ljgb]

3:35 - "With 19 billion total chickens alive today on Earth, grown solely for their meat"
Eggs: "Am I a joke to you?"

[Remls]

3:04 What do you mean, that's totally a historically accurate representation of cockfighting

[Ratchet]

You missed a couple:
reindeer/Caribou by the Sami,
Guinea pigs by the Andeans (for its meat)
Other fowl (Ducks, Geese, Swans, Peacocks, Quail, etc.)
Meat Rabbits.
I probably missed a couple too!
Interesting historical domesticate: Snails! While I don't think modern Escargot Snails are considered domesticated, there is archeological evidence of massive Snails that gained that size by being bred and cultivated as food by Greeks in ancient times.

[joshygoldiem_j]

The domestication of horses is very important to civil history. If you know anything about linguistics, then the Yamnaya people expanded from the Pontic steppe on these horses that they began domesticating. After a Yamnaya-descended group of Anatolians became the Hittites, the near Eastern empires around them adopted their horse and chariot practices. Today, many languages we speak today, including English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Greek, Russian, Persian, Hindi, Punjabi, Bengali and Marathi all derive from the Yamnaya language spoken 6000 years ago.

[Barkend]

In portuguese the bird turkey is called "peru", which is also the name of a country. The name comes from the fact that the Portuguese believed that the bird was original from the region of Peru, in South America. So the Portuguese people also missed the target, but not as much as the English.

[DeyaViews]

What about geese, ducks and buffalo?
Or rabbits?

And are there any other insects we've cultivated for a long time?

[farinator]

Animal: exists



Turkey: *it's free real estate*

[sisyphusvasilias]

"You're being a Jenny"
Is my new fav slur.

[yestintebeck]

I think you really missed out on eggs in the chicken part

[Yarblocosifilitico]

A lot of beekeepers nowadays only use the head piece so it's not that crazy that honey was collected that long ago. Also, smoke is something bees avoid so they probably used that and some cloth covering most of the face. We often give our ancients too little credit; they were very resourceful.

[desertblade]

Lydia is the ancient name for modern day Turkey, it was the first country to use gold and silver as coins of equal weight and size for their currency way before Athens.

[shmuelparzal]

The singular of aurochs is .... aurochs. It comes from MIddle High German aur-: primitive + ochs: ox. Strictly speaking, the older plural form would have been aurochsen.

[tankinator]

If aliens landed in Turkey, the Turks would try to domesticate them 😂