Dear colleagues,
I hope you are all doing great. I have uploaded some photographs of what I think is a tibia (posterior face, most probably within the proximal half). My main question concerns the identification of species. I was wondering whether it could belong to horse/donkey, based on the muscular lines on the posterior face of the tibia. Those lines are present in many species but are usually more and more dense (i.e. smaller spaces between them) on equids than e.g. cattle and red deer. I compared this specimen with cattle, red deer and horse and the latter is the closest in morphology. My uncertainty is based on the fact that muscular lines are highly variable (age, sex, breed and 'lifestyle', just to name a few variables that affect musculature and hence those lines) and I am sure the collection I consulted catches only a fraction of the naturally occurring variability. Also, I am dealing with a period/area that we do not know when exactly domestic equids were introduced.
Here is the link to the photographs:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/59255808@N07/sets/72157629540400737/
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers,
Angelos
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