Pigs were domesticated because they could be, although not quite to the extent that dogs can be. Pigs were domesticated in China around 4900BC (although some experts claim 7000 to 6000BC in Western Asia) and were being raised in Europe by 1500BC. After domesticated dogs came the domestication of livestock animals… Aside from bacon, what do pigs bring to the table? They are intelligent social animals. False. Fossil records show pigs were roaming the earth as early as 40 million years ago, and those animals’ descendants are said to have been first domesticated around 7,000 to 9,000 years ago in current-day China and parts of western Asia. Part of the reason swine were relatively easy to domesticate is because they fit into the above four mentioned domestication characteristics. Because of this variety, some scientists even considered the domesticated pig to be its own species (Sus […] Clear evidence was obtained for domestication to have occurred independently from wild boar subspecies in Europe and Asia. Farmers may have domesticated pigs 9000 years ago, but genome studies now show that in those early centuries, trysts with wild animals were quite common, particularly in Europe. (Okay, okay, ESPECIALLY bacon.., but stick with me for a moment.) Wolves were the first animal to be domesticated, sometime between 33,000 and 11,000 years ago. The domestic pig originates from the Eurasian wild boar ( Sus scrofa ). We have sequenced mitochondrial DNA and nuclear genes from wild and domestic pigs from Asia and Europe. By the time De Soto began exploring Florida 100 years later he carried with him 13 pigs across the Atlantic. Humans have spent centuries living with pigs. The Romans later introduced purpose-specific breeding for pigs around 3,500 years ago. But why pigs? The first reason was to stave off hunger if they were blown off course or were lost. There are more than 300 breeds worldwide. Pigs, or domestic swine (family Suidae), have been raised for their meat (pork) since ancient times. Possibly before humans decided to settle down into an agricultural lifestyle, the pig made its home with us. Today, the domesticated version of the wild European boar has hundreds of varieties. Pigs were domesticated twice — once in the Mekong valley of China and another time in Anatolia, a region in modern-day Turkey — both around 9,000 years ago. These so-called genetic sweeps seem to have had the same affect on pig genomes in the two geographically isolated regions of the world where pigs were independently domesticated, hinting at … Evidence shows that "pole-axing" is an ancient technique for castrating pigs. Evidence indicates that pigs were fully domesticated by. True. 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