And there even fewer areas where a useful combination occurs naturally. One of the most fortunate areas was the fertile crescent of the Middle East. Similar arguments are developed for animals. Small animals such as chicken or guinea pigs have been domesticated in a lot of places. Thus, gazelles or antelopes are similar in size to goats, but much too shy and nervous.
African buffalo are much more aggressive than the Asian water buffalo.
And again, the fertile crescent was unusually lucky in having sheep, goats, cattle, pigs and horses. By contrast, the only large domesticable animal in the Americas was the Llama of the Andes, and Australia was even more poorly endowed. Nor did the aborigines remain hunter-gatherers because they had strong cultural taboos against agriculture or were some kind of ecologically noble savages who preferred to live in harmony with nature, as romantics like to claim. From this initial head start in agriculture, further advantages followed. Agricultural societies can produce surplus food to feed extra mouths.