"Wild animal species, such as deer, fox, hare and rabbit, got smaller because their forest habitats shrunk or became fragmented due to growing human settlements. Intensified game hunting, beginning in the late Middle Ages, contributed to the process as well. "In parallel, human control over domestic populations increased, with greater specialization and more systematic selective breeding under controlled management practices," Evin said."
"Sometimes, environmental factors may cause a species to grow smaller; a century later, the animals' descendants might get bigger again. Researchers have observed alternating periods of increase and decrease over thousands of years. When humans were introduced into the mix and began rearing certain species, the sizes of wild animals and domesticated ones still developed in roughly the same cycles."
Animal body sizes naturally fluctuate over millennia, with alternating periods of increase and decrease driven by environmental factors. These cycles persisted even after humans began rearing animals until the Middle Ages. From roughly 1000 to 2000 AD, wild and domestic species followed divergent trends: wild mammals and lagomorphs such as deer, fox, hare and rabbit decreased in size as forest habitats contracted or fragmented and game hunting intensified. Domestic species including sheep, goat, cattle, pig and chicken increased in size under intensified human control, specialization, and systematic selective breeding. The contrasting trends illustrate stronger anthropogenic influence on species size evolution during the past millennium.
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