Running with the Mules: Integrating Zooarchaeological, Archaeological and Textural Evidence to Reconstruct the Exploitation of Equids in Southwest Asia

Summary

The equid had a vital role in animal economy in Southwest Asia, whether as a wild animal providing primary/secondary products to prehistoric communities, or as a domestic source of energy which supported war affairs and trade during historic periods. Reconstructing the dynamics of humans and the four-equid species, which were present in the region, is a complicated endeavor due to the paucity of skeletal evidence in faunal assemblages; the difficulties in distinguishing morphological traits to separate between the closely related species and hybrids; and the perplexing morphometric approaches to identifying equid skeletal elements. Therefore, integrating archaeological and textual evidence from the historic periods in the Near East provides an exceptional opportunity to assess the distribution of equids, and their role on economic and cultural levels. This study aims to demonstrate the available evidence of equid exploitation strategies during the Bronze Age, using zooarchaeological analyses, while enhancing our knowledge about how domestic and wild equid species were incorporated in early urban entities, through archaeological and textual representations of these animals. Compiling different lines of evidence is expected to illustrate how complex societies maintained their provisioning networks and maximized the intake of animal products within early urban cities in southwest Asia.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 21120