The history of musk-ox domestication

• Published in: Polar Record
• Main Author: Wilkinson, Paul F.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge University Press (CUP) 1974
• Subjects: General Earth and Planetary Sciences; Ecology; Geography, Planning and Development; Arctic; Wilkinson; musk ox; ovibos moschatus; Polar Record
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0032247400031302; https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0032247400031302

If one is sufficiently bold or foolish to ask why the musk-ox Ovibos moschatus was domesticated, even a superficial review of the available evidence suggests that several answers may be given, depending upon the viewpoint from which the question is posed. I have argued elsewhere (Wilkinson, 1972a; 1973) that the domestication of the musk-ox was inevitable if the exploitation of musk-oxen was to continue in the present century. Because of certain biological and behavioural characteristics, musk-oxen can be exploited in only two ways without endangering their survival or exceeding their capacity to regenerate their numbers: they may be hunted as what I have called a critical resource, by which I mean a resource that is not exploited regularly (including seasonally) or intensively, but without which human survival is difficult or impossible incertain areas and periods; alternatively, musk-oxen may be exploited on a sustained basis for a combination of meat, milk, robes, or qiviur through domestication. Archaeological and ethnographic evidence is consistent with the hypothesis that, as a general rule, musk-oxen were hunted as a critical resource before the arrival of Europeans in the Canadian Arctic.