ABSTRACT
Both Hole and Moore argue for a long period of development of plant domestication, but Hole considers livestock to have been brought under control through entirely separate processes, perhaps without a lengthy period of development, and that it was the conjunction of these two economic adaptations that resulted in the Neolithic revolution. Essentially, archaeological and zoological evidence suggests that sheep and goats were domesticated earlier in the Zagros Mountains of eastern Anatolia and western Iran than in the Levant. The species that were eventually domesticated are native to the grassy steppes and lightly forested regions. Potentially, adaptations of this type could be found on both sides of the Mesopotamian plain where rainfall or surface runoff stimulated the growth of the relevant species. The earliest species, sheep and goats, have habits that place them seasonally in the same locales as the ripening plants that people wished to harvest, so that propinquity was an important factor.
