History Goats and sheep were the first animals domesticated, long before cows and pigs, and well before horses. Interestingly, although goats have been domesticated for possibly 10,000 years or more, they are one of few domestic animals that will quickly and fully reintegrate in ...History Goats and sheep were the first animals domesticated, long before cows and pigs, and well before horses. Interestingly, although goats have been domesticated for possibly 10,000 years or more, they are one of few domestic animals that will quickly and fully reintegrate in the wild if set free, mostly because of their natural instinct for grazing.
These grazers are also fairly tasty and produce milk, which is why they caught the eye of ancient humans living in modern-day Turkey and Iran, where separate domestications are believed to have occurred. Other domestication events may have occurred in India, but DNA studies have not yet confirmed this, as it’s also possible that domesticated animals from the fertile crescent were brought east and bred with wild goats. At any rate, the hundreds of goat breeds that exist today can be traced back to the one species that roamed the mountains of western Asia.