Author: Kevin Daly, Associate Professor, School of Agriculture and Food Science, University College Dublin

Humans and domesticated animals have lived together for millennia, and this relationship has shaped their destinies in countless ways. Animals offered people food, companionship, traction (pulling ploughs), clothing and transport. They also provided something less obvious but extraordinarily important: parchment to write on. This robust, plentiful and portable material enabled many people to record and […]