ABSTRACT
The aim of this chapter is to shed more light on animal husbandry and herd management in antiquity and to evaluate the contribution of animal products (meat and milk) to the human diet. This ethnographic study is based on data collated from the British census carried out in the 1940s (Government of Palestine 1943; 1945). During the British Mandate in Palestine, a number of censuses were carried out (Barron 1922; Mills 1932; see also Finkelstein 1992a and Moscrop 2000 for additional sources on the British censuses). In the early 1940s, the British Mandatory Government carried out detailed censuses, which provide us with demographic data per village, the size of built-up areas and agricultural lands as well as the number of livestock and their distribution to species, sex and age (Government of Palestine 1943; 1945). It should be noted that modern agricultural technologies were not prevalent in the Arab villages surveyed by the British censuses (Hirsch 1933:20-31; Hurwitz 1966:23-4; Perevolotsky and Landau 1992:18). Hirsch (1933:36) discussed animal husbandry and herd management among the Arab farmers in the 1930s. He stresses the fact that agriculture was carried out without the benefit of modern techniques and that ‘the raising of domestic animals is still primitive’ (Hirsch 1933:36). This allows us a unique opportunity to examine traditional animal husbandry not yet enhanced by modern technology using a rare statistical database of agricultural practices.
