I have to tell you-all that this has been of particular interest to me
because of the GUILT I have felt for a number of years over the
(apparently) bad dates on Dereivka. When researching my book on equestrian
history ("Conquerors: The Roots of New World Horsemanship"), I relied on
published papers by Anthony & Brown as part of the chapter on horse
domestication and early use. After it was too late to revise or change
(i.e. after the book had already been printed), we then heard that the
original Dereivka dates were way too early. So the guilt came because here
I was offering a book with wrong information in it (we continued to sell
it, however, because one bad date a failure doth not make).
But now comes Kazakhstan with dates in the same range, and I am feeling
relieved. And part of this relates to "Conquerors": I can put a slip of
paper in under the cover that points readers to this latest finding. But
even more, I am happy because I've been convinced, for many other reasons,
that horse domestication cannot be more recent than these dates indicate.
There must have been a very long period before harnessing, before bitting,
and even before the first attempts to ride the animal bareback, where
humans made a transition from hunting them in order to eat them to penning
them in order to eat them. And this raises the old question of what 'to be
domesticated' means anyway -- but that's another discussion. -- Deb
Bennett
> Well done Alan and team indeed- and one more really good example of
> combining zooarch with residue analysis. Thanks for posting this Jacqui.
> Thanks also to all for the thread on curation of older samples- that was
> really interesting and useful.
>
> All the best
> Tom
>
> Dr. Thomas H. McGovern, Prof.
> Director, Hunter College Zooarchaeology Laboratory
> Coordinator, CUNY Doctoral Program Archaeology
> Coordinator, North Atlantic Biocultural Organization (NABO)
>
> Address:
> Dept. of Anthropology
> Hunter College CUNY
> 695 Park Ave.
> New York, N.Y.10021
> email: [log in to unmask]
> dept. office phone: 212 772 5410
> Fax: 212 772 5423
> lab phone 212 772 5656
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Analysis of animal remains from archaeological sites
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Jacqui Mulville
> Sent: Friday, March 06, 2009 4:44 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: [ZOOARCH] Horse Domestication in the news
>
> Well done Alan Outram and team - it was good to wake up to a
> zooarchaeology
> news story
>
> links from
>
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7926235.stm
>
> and of course in Science
>
> http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/41446/title/Horse_domestication_t
> raced_to__ancient_central_Asian_culture
>
>
>
> Jacqui Mulville (PhD)
> Zooarch Listowner,
> Senior Lecturer in Bioarchaeology,
> School of History and Archaeology
> Cardiff University
> Humanities Building
> Colum Drive
> Cardiff
> CF10 3EU
> http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/hisar/people/archaeology/jm1/
>
> Tel: + 44 (0) 29 2087 4247
> Fax: + 44 (0) 29 2087 4929
>
>
>
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