G Goose: Domestication Kristiina Mannermaa Department of Philosophy, History, Culture and Art Studies, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland Basic Species Information Domestic geese descend from two wild species, the greylag, Anser anser (Linnaeus 1758), and the swan goose, Anser cygnoides (Linnaeus 1758) (Shi et al. 2006). The natural breeding range of the swan goose, the ancestor of the Chinese goose, is in Mongolia, North China, and southeastern Russia, and wintering areas are mainly in China. The breeding area of the greylag, the wild form of the domestic goose in Europe (European goose), covers Northern and Central Europe and Asia; wintering areas are in Southern Europe and North- ern Africa. Two subspecies of the greylag are known, A. a. anser (western form) and A. a. rubrirostris (eastern form). Both A. a. rubrirostris and the European domestic goose have pink beaks, while A. a. anser has an orange beak. The pink beak indicates that the European domestic goose descends from the eastern form. The two domesticated forms of geese, the European and the Chinese, are closely related. Both are widely spread in the world today, and they can have fertile offspring. Also wild forms, the greylag and the swan goose, can interbreed (Gray 1958). The Chinese goose grows larger than the European and has a longer neck; the male has a pronounced knob at the base of the beak. Both Chinese and European geese have white and gray breeds. The Egyptian goose Alopochen aegyptiaca was kept by ancient Egyptians a long time before the greylags, but this species never became fully domesticated. One early use of domesticated geese has been for sacrifices (e.g., in Mesopota- mia, Middle East, and classical Greece). Geese were probably sacred in Pre-Roman Britain (Zeuner 1963). Domestic geese were associated with religious symbolism in Roman times in Brit- ain and Italy (Albarella 2005), and geese bones are regularly found in Iron Age burials in North- ern and Central Europe. Over time, geese have provided meat, liver, and eggs. Wild or domestic goose was identified, for example, in Tutankhamun’ s tomb (c. 1330 BCE) among the remains of the funerary meal (Houlihan 1986). Romans and probably ancient Egyptians overfed geese in order to improve the flavor of the liver and meat. Perhaps, the most important material advantage of geese was the fine quality of feathers and down. Quill pens were used in medieval and historical times. Geese were respected house guards at least from Roman time onward. It is currently not possible to date or locate when and where geese were kept for the first time, though in China, the goose was domesti- cated by ~1000 BCE and most likely earlier. The # Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2018 C. Smith (ed.), Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology , https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51726-1_2208-2