ABSTRACT
Domestication is an extremely complicated process. In essence it is nothing other than man's special interference in the life of certain animal species, but this interference has been really varied. The word "domestication" presumes the propagation of animals that man keeps in captivity, or more exactly man's breeding of animals under artificial conditions. The chapter discusses the essence of domestication as: the capture and taming by man of animals of a species with particular behavioural characteristics, their removal from their natural living area and breeding community, and their maintenance under controlled breeding conditions for profit. It examines the main phases of animal breeding that began with domestication. One can distinguish two main phases: animal keeping, and animal breeding. C. S. Coon was the first who advanced the thesis that a high proportion of young animal bones was a proof of a domesticated population, and this has increasingly become an axiom particularly in Near Eastern archaeology.
