Publication Date:
2009-03-07
Description:
Horse domestication revolutionized transport, communications, and warfare in prehistory, yet the identification of early domestication processes has been problematic. Here, we present three independent lines of evidence demonstrating domestication in the Eneolithic Botai Culture of Kazakhstan, dating to about 3500 B.C.E. Metrical analysis of horse metacarpals shows that Botai horses resemble Bronze Age domestic horses rather than Paleolithic wild horses from the same region. Pathological characteristics indicate that some Botai horses were bridled, perhaps ridden. Organic residue analysis, using delta13C and deltaD values of fatty acids, reveals processing of mare's milk and carcass products in ceramics, indicating a developed domestic economy encompassing secondary products.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Outram, Alan K -- Stear, Natalie A -- Bendrey, Robin -- Olsen, Sandra -- Kasparov, Alexei -- Zaibert, Victor -- Thorpe, Nick -- Evershed, Richard P -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2009 Mar 6;323(5919):1332-5. doi: 10.1126/science.1168594.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Department of Archaeology, University of Exeter, Exeter, EX4 4QE, UK. a.k.outram@ex.ac.uk〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19265018" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Agriculture/*history
;
Animal Husbandry/*history
;
Animals
;
*Animals, Domestic
;
Female
;
History, Ancient
;
*Horses/anatomy & histology
;
Kazakhstan
;
Lipids/analysis
;
Metacarpal Bones/anatomy & histology
;
*Milk
;
Molar/anatomy & histology
;
Seasons
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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