The domestication of animals took place in the Middle East between the 9th and the 8th millennium BC. The practice spread over the Aegean region in the two millennia that followed (7th-6th), although in these areas the methods and procedures of animal domesticating remain unknown. Stock breeding became a major factor in Neolithic economy, especially when man started to use domesticated animals for specific tasks such as riding, transporting goods, and to make use of what their bodies produced (wool, milk).