  In this paper, we are exploring the properties of old, metal-poor globular
clusters in galaxies. We investigate whether their properties are related to
the properties of their host galaxies, and whether we can constrain their
formation. The main result is that the mean metallicities of old GC systems are
found to lie in a narrow range -1.7 < [Fe/H] < -1.1 (80 % of the population).
Moreover, no correlations are found between the mean metallicities and other
galaxy properties which implies a GC formation independent of the host
galaxies. Further, we try to identify the sites of old, metal-poor GC
formation, with any currently known high redshift objects. We find that the
metalicities of damped Ly$\alpha$ systems in the redshift range 1.6 < z < 4 are
consistent with our GC metalicities, which suggests that these high-density
neutral gas objects may be the progenitors of the old, metal-poor globular
clusters.
