On the Domestication of Cattle

Abstract

The thesis of Eduard Hahn and of his followers has stood up well in the light of progress in zootechnology, animal psychology, the comparative anatomy of domestic and wild species, and the study of non-European native cattle. Hahn''s thesis provides an insight into historical processes, constitutes a protest against the materialistic assumptions underlying 19th-century German social and economic theories. Hahn affirmed the importance of irrational forces in major technological advances of mankind. In the study of domestication the scientist and the cultural historian join forces, each playing a role which the other discipline, by its very nature, cannot fill.