Cattle in The Earliest European Cities Weren’t Bred as Food : ScienceAlert:

Between 4200 and 3650 BCE, animals domesticated by Trypillia societies were prized largely for their poop, not their flesh, according to Schlütz and his team.

An analysis of nitrogen isotopes in teeth, bones, and soil from the remains of Tryphillia societies suggests that early farmers in Europe were mostly consuming peas, lentils, and cereal grains, like barley.

Cattle, sheep, and goats, which were kept in fenced pastures, were largely used to fertilize farmland. These animals also ate peas and grains, and their manure boosted the production of later crops.

Slaughtering the herds for meat would have depleted a vital resource after much labor raising them, collapsing the whole system.

Interesting. If your diet is primarily vegetarian, then you have a very good reason to invest resources in keeping livestock – and the less efficient their digestive tract, the better. Maybe that’s why some older cultures from that region have taboos and practices that end up providing societal protection for ungulates. 

Maybe old and “quaint” practices existed, not because of superstition per se, but because a cultic belief was the best way to keep succeeding generations from forgetting them and suffering the consequences that they couldn’t understand.

Girard’s theory that Scapegoating arose as a curb on Mimetic Desire and the rise of ritual animal sacrifice as a method to control inter-personal violence in communities seems like it would fit this idea.