4 ms·

While correct, it is an interesting thought of whether pens might have arisen through (earlier) kites by omitting or postponing the kill step in these traps.

• AlotOfReading 3y ago
  Kites are much more sophisticated than pens and they're not relying on the same principles to work. A pen is just a physical obstacle to prevent animals from getting out. These rely on the animal's herd-following and avoidance instincts, as well as how poor eyesight, panic and misdirection. They wouldn't work very well at containing leisurely grazing animals, but they're also much cheaper to build. Also worth noting that you don't actually need to pen animals to domesticate them. It has a lot of advantages (e.g. separating them from predators), but it's not required and may even be disadvantageous if you're a (semi-)nomadic pastoralist.
  • dalbasal 3y ago
    This is true. I suspect that they also had people stand on the walls at key points to deter wall jumping escapes. That said... given appropriate materials (eg flexible wooden rods for hurdles and fences)... Pens within the kite seems pretty possible. Idk if they had a reason to pen animals... but even giving yourself more time to process meat might be reason enough. Some US "buffalo jump" sites and accounts suggest a lot of waste. Processing a bison is a lot of work. If you want 20 people to turn 50 camels into dried/salted/processed meat efficiently... you need a few days. Meanwhile... a handful of kids standing on walls could probably contain a herd in of these kites for a few days, even if it couldn't contain the herd without supervision. Also... They had ropes and such.
• taneq 3y ago
  “What if kill … later?”