THE ORIGINS OF THE BREED

Our thanks to Dr. Maria Andreoli, for letting us publish this most interesting research, which will help us to understand the origins of the Maremma Sheepdogs through the history of the sheep breeding.

Around 3000 BC a cultural surge took off in the Middle East. Sheep breeding - and therefore also sheep dog breeding - was involved in it. In the beginning it was the sheep fleece which was modified. The hair of the wild sheep is made of a very fine undercoat and of a coarse outer coat which is bristly and strong. For thousands of years after sheep taming, domestic sheep kept the same type of fleece as their wild ancestors, where there was a big difference between the under coat and the outer coat. Their colour also remained the same - they were generally brown with white on their stomach. These were the type of sheep present in Europe up to the end of the Neolithic period. We don’t have any evidence of woollen fabrics in that era, although weaving was certainly well known. In fact, remains of linen fabrics were found in the sites of this age. Conversely, archaeologists found needles to sew leather, this most probably being the use that was made of the sheep fleece. This habit was carried on for a long time, as when Caesar conquered Gaul, he reported that its inhabitants wore sheep skins. Other evidence found in the Middle East, show that in that region, sheep fleece had evolved; in other words there was a convergence between the two types of coat. While the undercoat became bigger, the outer coat became softer, and eventually became a woolly type of coat. This kind of coat was such that it could be spun and woven, & so brought about a quick evolution towards woollen fabrics (rugs, dresses). Evidence of woollen fleeces is already found in Mesopotamia in the Sumerian period around 2500 BC. In documents datable around 2100 BC flocks of sheep are mentioned among them - it is possible to distinguish the herds bred for wool from the herds bred for meat. Black, brown and white sheep are also mentioned. Sheep under the royal patronage were white, they were in fact more valuable and rather uncommon, whereas brown sheep were more common. It is obvious that at that time, wool had achieved a notable importance as a textile fibre. Though it was in Babylon, (whose name seems to mean “the country of wool”), where historical written records on sheep and wool were found. In the Hammurabi code, dated around 1800 BC, there is the first historical testimony of a law on sheep and wool. Here the earliest wool industry was born, with a very advanced textile technology, and that made Babylon the first trade wool centre in history. It is not evident how wool was cropped, but it is likely that sheep coat still dropped in a spring shedding and, so wool would be picked by hand during this period. Only after 1000BC were clipping shears invented, and it was this technological invention to create a new push towards new biological mutations, which eventually developed fleeces where the woolly coat was constantly growing - in other words it would not shed. A great impetus to the selection of white sheep was given by the Phoenicians. They learned how to extract a red substance, the purpura, from a gland of a shellfish living in the Mediterranean sea, that could be used to dye wool. The Phoenicians were a population of Semitic origin, the Canaanites of the Bible, who settled onto a narrow strip of land on the Eastern coast of the Mediterranean, more or less today’s Lebanon. They were mainly dedicated to trades, and in order to extend their possibilities of exchange, they started to move on the sea. Their sailing activity was stimulated also by the necessity to get hold of the maximum amount possible of molluscs to get the purpura, which was a great source of earnings. Starbone refers to the fact that around the Phoenician cities there were such big piles of the remains of molluscs used for the extraction of the pigment, that the air was plagued by an unbearable stink. They then used different kind of molluscs in order to get different colours. Besides the proper purpura, they would also extract dark red, violet and scarlet. Very often Homer reports that Phoenician vests were very colourful, in contrast with the white linen vests of the Egyptians. Colouring techniques stimulated the production of more and more white woollen sheep, as it was the only wool that could be coloured. It was however in the region of Anatolia, facing the Ionian sea, that, taking advantage of the Babylonian experiences, sheep were selected whose fleece was not only white, but also made of a very fine wool, suitable for the weaving of refined fabrics. Those sheep were destined to have a long and glorious history. It was in fact from those animals that the Merino sheep in Spain were selected at the end of the Middle Ages. Those animals were a great source of richness for centuries for that country, and for that reason, by a privative regulation, its export was forbidden for a very long time. It was only recently that those sheep were exported to Australia, where they have been, once again, of a great commercial value. But let us go back to the origins. The merit of the propagation of the Anatolian sheep is to be credited to the Greeks, who in 700 AC colonized the Ionian coast of Asia Minor. During the age of Imperial Rome, the sheep of Mileto were well renowned and Laodicea bloomed because of the trade of Roman vests. In the city of Pergamo, todays Bergama, it is said that the processing of sheep skin was invented, to create parchment. If we think that in the library of that city 200.000 parchment rolls were stored, we get an idea of the number of animals living in that area. The Greeks, later on, founded colonies in Italy and introduced that kind of sheep. Siracusa was founded by Corinto in 73 AC and just a little bit later the Spartans founded Taranto. A little bronze statue coming from Siracusa and kept at the museum of Palermo clearly features a sheep with fine fleece, and still in Roman age the sheep from Taranto were named as “Greek” and were considered to produce the best wool of all the Empire. The Greek colonization extended onto the Ionian and Tirrenian costs, whereas there is no trace on the Adriatic cost. The reason being that a population was present in Apulia that had settled there strongly: the Iapigi. They were a population of Indo-European origins coming from Illiria that, after crossing the Channel of Otranto, had come to the Italian coasts. Because the Illiri were in close contact with the Greek civilization, they created in this new country an advanced cultural centre that overlapped the underdeveloped culture of the existing population, and that developed on an independent basis. The Illiri were part of the nomadic migrant flow moving from South to North, from East to West. Since they had always been close to the coast and more civilized, they kept for longer the influence of those centres of great cultural level from which they had originated. As they were pastoral nomadic populations, arriving at Apulia, they took their flocks with them, which must have been comprised of animals that – like them – had kept the features of their places of origin. In other words they must have been sheep with white and fine coats. In the Roman age the Apulian sheep were, in fact, renowned for their wool. It is interesting to note that Roman authors always make a distinction between the Apulian sheep and the Tarantine sheep and, by that, we have to assume that in such period the animals were still distinguishable as belonging to two different breeds. As all nomadic people, with sheep, they had their dogs, which were also introduced into Italy. If we have been been studying the evolution of the sheep, it’s because we aim to ascertain the evolution of the dogs who were working with them. In fact, for the obvious economic implications, the history of the sheep has always been widely documented, whereas nobody has ever found an interest in writing about the sheep dogs. We can only find occasional and incomplete evidence about them. In any case, because, it is unavoidable that the type of dog needed to be strictly conditioned from the type of animal that he was supposed to live with, the only way to guess the evolution of the dogs is to follow the evolution of the sheep. For instance, it is obvious to wonder if the evolution of a completely white dog was not somehow stimulated since the sheep became white. The first evidence of a white dog, as chance would have it, was found in Anatolia, where they would distinguish two types of dogs: “Akbach” literally “white head”, accordingly to the colour of the coat, in comparison to the mastiff called “Karabach” that literally means “black head”. And it is meaningful that this white dog was found in the regions where white sheep grew in numbers. It was found in Anatolia, Greece, peninsular Italy, Illiria and reached the North up to the Danubian lowlands. When Varrone advises us to choose sheepdogs of a good breed, he specifies that it is named by its origins and states that the most esteemed are the Spartan, the Salentina and the Epirota, (the first and the third ones coming from different regions of Greece, the second one from Southern Italy). That confirms Illiria as a point of population growth of those dogs. That kind of dog, already present in the South of the Italian peninsula, most likely was already present in Maremma and the Roman countryside even before when Rome, in its expansionist conflicts, got in touch with the Greek colonies of Magna Greece (Southern Italy) or with Apulia. Though the direction of its provenance was different. We need to remember that shortly after the settlement of the Iapigi in Apulia, another population from Illiria, analogous to the previous one, entered Italy, accordingly to Erodoto, through the Giulie Alps. This was the population of the Veneti, who founded a community there that is known as Atesina, from the centre where it started, i.e. Este, at the base of the Euganei Hills (region of Padova) and not far from the ancient bed of river Adige. From here, it expanded into almost anywhere in Veneto, where testimonies were found in Padova, Verona, Belluno and also in Pieve di Cadore. Adria, which at the time used to be on the sea, was their port, and became very well known, gave the name to the sea it overlooked, the Adriatic sea. The expansion of the Atesina civilization was blocked towards the interior of the Padana lowland because of the existence there of quite an advanced population, that had developed - the “Villanoviana civilty”. A feature of this community was the technological development of manufacturing metals. Where Bologna is now, remains of a big number of houses were found and this area gave birth to a big industry of processing bronze. To ascertain the development they had reached, it is enough to remember that in the excavations in just one site, 14,800 tooled pieces were found. It is evident from the diffusion of the Villanoviani artworks both towards the North, more underdeveloped, and from the arterial road going from the river Po to the Adriatic sea, i.e. the Via Emilia. It is also evident that cultural and commercial exchanges were existing between the Villanoviana and the Atesina civilty. The Villanoviana civilty, was not only an industrial centre, but also, due to the fertility of the Padana lawland, an agricultural and sheep farming centre. Needless to say we can believe that there were some agricultural tradings between the two nucleus civilties. When Columella in “De Re Rustica” writes about the different breeds of sheep, he says “Not only the type of sheep, but also their colour, is a matter of great importance. We used to consider of a great value the sheep from Calabria, Apulia and those of Mileto, and the best of all, the Tarantine ones. Jet, now the sheep from Gaul should be considered of higher value, especially those of Altino (near Venezia) and those that have their folds in the wide flatland of Parma and Mutina (Modena). The white colour, apart from being the best colour, is also the more useful, because from that it is possible to obtain many other colours, and that would not be possible from other colours.” He adds also that, conversely, in Pollenzia (Piacenza) and in Cordova (in Spain), sheep are bred with black or dark brown fleece.” From those references it is obvious that in the Padana flatland sheep from breeds similar to the Greek ones or to the Apule ones had arrived and had settled whilst remaining untouched in their fleece qualities. The Gauls, who later occupied all Northern Italy, were part from a migratory flow arriving from the North, and as we will see, they would bring a totally different kind of sheep with them, it is obvious that the white sheep with valuable wool, were pre-existent to the arrival of the Gauls. The most likely assumption is that, because of Columella’s references to Altino, they arrived in Italy with the Veneti, as they had arrived to Apulia with the Iapigi. Between those two populations, the Veneti and the Iapigi which were both from Illiric origins were in fact found to have many points in common. Amongst other things they had in common legends that they brought with them, which also prove their close relationship with the Greek civilization. For both those populations, the legend says that their leaders were Greek and that like Aeneas, lead them to a new homeland. Diomede is considered to have been the leader of the Iapigi, and is believed to have found many cities in Apulia, whereas Antenore is considered to have been the leader of the Veneti, and is believed to be the founder of Padova, where we can still admire his grave. Both the Atesina and Villanoviana civilizations were later defeated by the coming of the Etruscans, who, already settled in Etruria (more or less north of Rome throughout Western Tuscany), crossed the Appennines and overflowed into the Padana Flatland. Here, they took possession of the industrial centre of the Villanoviani people, which they called Felsina (that means place of sales, i.e. market). It immediately became the centre of the Etruria in Padana flatland, which in the meantime became wider and wider, up to the Adriatic sea, near the Commacchio Valleys, where they founded the city of Spina, on a pre-existing Greek emporium, which became the harbour of Felsina. Since the exchanges between the Padana colony and the Tuscany motherland were probably consistent, the sheep and the white dogs crossed the Appennines towards Tuscany and the Roman countryside. It must in fact be taken into consideration that at that time there was a clear predominance of Etruscans in the newborn Rome. On the other hand, the Latins were a rural population, whose main divinity was Pales, the goddess of shepherds, after which the famous Palatino hill (one of the seven hills of the city of Rome) was named. Such a rural proclivity was so deep rooted into the Latin stirp that for all the time of the Republic, the senatorial class in Rome was made up of an agricultural and pastoral aristocracy. Still in II century AD Marco Porcio Catone in “De Re Rustica” gives advice about how to organize the agricultural estates in order to make them profitable, considering sheep farming the prime value activity, as sheep were the main source of richness. Don’t forget that the Italian word “pecunia” (money) comes from the word “pecus”, i.e. in Italian “pecora”(sheep) and “capitale” (capital) from “caput” i.e. in Italian “testa” (head), meaning number of sheep. In part, the Roman sheep farming would happen inside of the “villas”, big farms whose such wide expanse made them totally self-sufficient. In the latifundium system of those days many cultivable areas were kept for pasture, and that confirms the importance of the sheep. ‘Transumanza’ (sheep were kept out to pasture on the mountains rich of nourishing grass in the summer and brought back to the farm in the winter) was also a very typical custom. As Varrone says in “Rerum Rusticarum”: “… on the contrary, for the animals that are used to be put out to pasture and are far away from the farm, we need to get netting to make enclosures in desert places, as well as all the necessary handtools. In fact they are used to graze on wide spaces in very different places, as summer pastures and winter pastures are many miles apart. I know this very well, in fact I had sheep that lived in Apulia in winter and in the summer were brought onto the mountains of Reati, (Rieti i.e. the Reatini mountains). As the packsaddle keeps the two baskets in balance, so do the “Callae Publicae” (tratturi) i.e. a kind of a footpath for sheep. Still in those times no mention of Abruzzo’s pastures was made, that will only be made much later. In conclusion, at the time of the Roman empire, we have a pretty good picture of the condition of sheep farming and of the white sheepdogs. First of all, the fact that there were dogs of different breeds depending on their origins, means that they arrived to Italy through different ways. Also the fact that Illiria was considered to be the origin of a valuable sheep dog breed, still in Imperial period, confirms the theory of both the sheep and the sheepdogs arrived from Illiria both to Apulia (Southern Italy) and to Veneto (Northern Italy). Although from different provenance, from the descriptions that we have found, the peculiarities of the type were still very homogeneous. Columella says that “the guardian sheepdog should be neither slim nor fast as a gun dog, but also not as heavy and massive as a dog meant to guard the house. It should be both agile and quick, but also robust and vigorous in order to be able to follow and to do battle against wolves. Its body should be lean and long, the opposite of the home dog who is clearly described as mastiff, with its squared and massive body and with his head so big to appear the main part of the body”. The favourite colour of the shepherds is white because therefore the dog would be more easily recognized from the wild animals. Varrone also says that it should be of a big size, big head, hanging ears, dark or grey-yellowish eyes, lips covering teeth, but not too abundant, neck and shoulders wide and limbs long and straight, preferably more closed than wide apart, big and wide feet with strong bent nails. Flanks should be hollow, back level and overall it should have a leonine appearance. What can be deduced from those two authors, who are well in accordance anyway, is the idea of an impressive dog, powerful, but not so much as to lose its agility and speed, in contrast with the clearly mastiff type of features ascribed to the dog used to guard the farm, with a very heavy head, square built, and very heavy body, which becomes slow and has little mobility. In fact, so Columella says “it has to stay near the houses, carrying out its duties by the sniff and barking at strangers, so that he will attack with violence if they get near”. Today’s Maremma Sheepdog just fits these descriptions.

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE GUARDIAN SHEEPDOG The guardian sheepdog performs his job staying beside the sheep and by instinct he will be on the alert to any stranger who will try to get through the ideal circle that he has created around the flock, which represents for him his territory. The territorial instinct of the wolf survived in him, and was actually enhanced by the selection operated by the shepherds. To do his job he does not need any particular training, but the intrusion of a stranger is the spring that sets in motion innate reactions - though we need to explain the particular meaning that the concept of territory means for the sheepdog. For the wolf the “territory” has an obvious topographical connotation, of visual and olfactory signs, and will not change. For the sheepdog, instead, it will be the presence of the sheep which stimulates its territorial instinct, in other words its territory is the space occupied by the flock, which keeps moving with the movement of the animals. Sheep farming has been - and still nowadays mainly is – related to nomadism or to transumanza, (the ancient custom of sheep migration we have explained above). The dog, along with the shepherd, was constantly moving, so that he adapted his instinctive territorial sense to everything he was used to seeing around him. That way, after a thousand year long habit, safekeeping of the sheep became instinctive, in that he was helped by the selection operated by the shepherd, who would certainly eliminate the dogs less talented for this job. Through a similar mechanism the tendency of the sheepdog to walk round the flock may also have developed. Dickinson, after 20 years of observations, gives us an accurate description of the life and customs of the Bedouins of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. He refers, inter alia, to the fact that when encampment was set up for the night, animals were placed against the tents to protect them better from the cold of the night and from predators, whereas the dogs should walk around the camp and were specifically trained for that. On the other hand, it is logical to think that a guardian sheepdog, who is watching over the flock, needs to walk around the animals which would otherwise get too dispersed while grazing. As sometimes it was only one or two persons (sometimes women or children) who were looking after 300 – 400 head of sheep, it was up to the dogs to take care of the flock. This is not yet the rounding up activity of a herding sheepdog, but it gives an idea of the reason for which all sheepdogs are used to walking round the sheep, to limit the dispersion of the animals and to mark off the territory, the ideal area that the dog creates by itself to perform its guardian activity. This would give a more persuasive explanation of the typical behaviour of sheepdogs, than believing they have inherited this habit from the heritage of the predatory action of the wolf. When a pack of wolves attacks a herd, their action is not turned to group up the animals, but to disperse them, slipping into the herd, to isolate one single quarry and concentrate on it. Vice versa, the animals who live in groups, tend to at the first danger signal, get close together, as it would improve the chance of surviving. The herds, the flights, the nest building colonies, the shoals of fish, are all good examples of how that way of defence is widely used in nature. It’s not really plausible to interprete the strong propensity of the sheepdog to group the animals as a predatory behaviour, because the wolf (the dog’s ancestor) is not using it. The guardian sheepdog was (and still is) used to protect the flock and does not have to fulfil any other task. Although this job may appear to be “simple”, when compared to the more sophisticated and refined job of the herding sheepdog, these dogs have achieved the fundamental skill of the sheepdog: to be instinctively adapted to the flock. In fact they are not only able to recognize the flock as an entity, but also to recognize every single member of it as part of that entity. If that was not the case, what would stop those aggressive dogs from considering the individual animals as quarry? Only thousands of years of cohabitation and a ruthless selection carried out by men have made possible such a deep modification of the predominant instinct of the wolf, the predation. They can attack anything moving near the sheep, but have the capacity to stop their aggression with those animals which would be their natural prey. This is the focal point that makes a dog into a sheepdog: to have fixed on a genetic basis the inhibition to prey on the animals of which they are wardens. In the poem of the Persian poet Nizami who lived in XVI century the history of a shepherd is narrated who hung his dog not because he had mated to a female wolf, but because he had seduced her overnight by offering a big sheep. This literary example is significant because it depicts the manner of thinking of the shepherds and of what they required from their dogs. Without going that far, still nowadays, on the mountains of Abruzzo the flocks are left alone to graze, looked after only by the dogs, with no fear that some sheep can be attacked by them. Maremma Sheepdogs were exported from Italy to the United States to fight against coyotes which had caused big losses to the flocks. The dogs are left alone for long periods of time with the sheep, and it was proved that the losses of animals have drastically dropped. This proves that these dogs, even when left unattended, would respect the sheep, reserving their aggressiveness only for the wild animals menacing the flocks. The habit of walking around the sheep and the inhibition of their aggressiveness are part of the genetic equipment of the sheepdog that will be passed onto the future generations. The role of the herding dog is much different. His main duty is to co-operate with men working on the flock. It’s very hard to state when men felt it was good to take advantage of the many virtues of the dog to work with the sheep. Where there was the actual danger - for the shepherd and the sheep – of the predators, the necessity of safeness was - and still remains - a priority. It was in those places that the shepherd needed a big ferocious dog beside him. On the other hand we have to take into consideration that, where there are wild animals, the conditions for grazing are such that the flock can move freely in big areas. In such places, the shepherd first needs to avoid the dispersion of the sheep. The sling or the stone throwing (in front of the animals who try to walk away), the sound of a simple wind instrument, the bell hung on the neck of a mutton that the sheep identifies as the guide of the flock, are all expedients used during all times and in all places since the beginning of sheep. In the areas where there was a progressive development of agriculture, sheepfarming had somehow to mould to the new conditions. The deforestation of areas that used to be grazing areas, brought a progressive restriction of the habitat of wild animals and therefore a drop in their number and confinement in narrower areas – but also a reduction of the areas used for grazing. These two joined factors determined some major changes in sheep farming, bringing a change of the ancient traditional habits. This period of transformation, coincides with the progressive replacement of the big, ferocious guardian dog, (where the mutated conditions would allow it), with the more ductile and mobile herding sheepdog.

THE MODERN TIMES While in Northern Italy those changes in the pastoral world were taking place, to the point of causing an evolution in the behaviour of the dogs (e.g. the Bergamasco sheepdog), in central and Southern Italy we find after many centuries, the same kind of sheep farming of the Roman age. After the fall of the Roman empire there was definitely a period of deep decline. The Gothic wars had deeply impoverished those regions to the point of causing a dramatic decrease of the population. The recurring invasions that followed could only worsen the situation while the political arrangement had deeply changed. Those regions, which used to have no borders, were fractioned in several little countries, almost in antagonism between each other. The Papal country – which stretched from the Adriatic to the Tirrenian sea – became a barrier so that central and Southern Italy were separated from the rest of Italy, and so those territories undertook a different independent development. What happened to sheepfarming in that period we don’t know, as we only have little contradictory information. For Southern Italy, it was only after the coming of the Normans first and the Svevi later, that a new development period started, and since then, we have new documented data on sheepfarming. It was in 1115 when the Constitution (list of fundamental laws) of Guglielmo il Malo established strict rules and wide privileges of grazing in favour of the shepherd of the Appennino mountains. From this period, sheepfarming started to develop significantly. It was with the Suevi, (a population from the Germanic area), and in particular with Fredric II of Suevia, who chose Apulia as his favourite residence, that sheepfarming undertook a new, strong development after a long period of decline. The Tavoliere, (the Apulian flatland), became royal property and was submitted to a special legislation called “La Mena delle pecore in Puglia”. The “tratturi” (the paths for the sheep to pass through to the Abruzzo Appennines) were organized and regulated and everything was set with such an effectiveness, that with a few alterations everything remained unchanged until the 19th century, when the state privileges were abolished by law by the Italian Parliament in 1868. All the above gave a great drive to sheepfarming, but on the other hand equally penalized agricultural development. Because the income for the government was so high, all the land was used to guarantee the grazing for the highest number possible of sheep. Under the control of the officers of the “Mena” every sort of ploughing was severely forbidden, and therefore agriculture was banned from the lands where there were sheep. In other words, in this area of the South, agriculture and sheepfarming wouldn’t cohabit, this was different from what happened in Northern Italy. As a consequence, in the South there were not the necessary conditions and the needs for the selection of a herding sheepdog. Our Maremmano Abruzzese continued to be what it had always been: a guardian dog. In actual fact, nothing had changed in its way of living and of working, since the far times of his origins. And since then, so little had changed, because nothing had forced him to change. We therefore shouldn’t be surprised if we read the pages written by Varrone or Columella, and we find the same dog we can see beside us. The sheepfarming life in Lazio, (the region of Rome), and Tuscany were not much different from each other. Although it was for different historical reasons, the Maremma (the coast Tuscany flatland) and the Roman countryside remained uncultivated until the recent times of the Drainage. Therefore, in these areas also, sheepfarming was not forced to cohabit with agriculture, and also here the “white dog” kept doing the same job it had been used to doing for thousands of years. Those sheep were also used to the summer “transumanza” (summer migration) to graze on the high Abruzzo Appennines, although they would get there by a different itinerary though the Umbrian Appennines and Marche Appennines, it is most certain that interchange with the dogs from Apulia occurrred. The consistency of type of those dogs has to be researched much more in depth. If we take into consideration the similar breeds living in the Eastern European countries, we can see how similar they are between each others. When comparing the Maremma Sheepdog with the Kuvasz, Chuvach, Owczarek Podhalanski and Tatra, we can find major homogeneity in the main type features. Unlike what has occurred with the other group of breeds similar to the Bergamasco Sheepdog, where we can find big variations, those white dogs, at first sight, can hardly be distinguished between each other. The fact that there were so little variations in the time and in the space can only mean that their type features are so strongly fixed that they are spontaneously maintained. Therefore, the current dispute about the difference between the Maremma dogs and the Abruzzo dogs is sterile and meaningless. It is undoubtedly due to factors of another nature than to real breed reasons. The danger is that for some stubborn spite someone will submit this dog to a selection in order to exacerbate some specific features, and by doing so, will get him far away from the type to which the breed has naturally evolved and remained close.

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