Affiliation:
1. Laboratorio de Paleontología y Paleobiología Instituto Andaluz del Patrimonio Histórico (IAPH) Sevilla Spain
2. Facultad de Ciencias Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED) Madrid Spain
3. Conservation and Evolutionary Genetics Group Estación Biológica de Doñana (EBD‐CSIC) Sevilla Spain
Abstract
ABSTRACTThe genus Equus was represented on the Iberian Peninsula by four species during the late Quaternary: the wild, now extinct, E. ferus (wild horse) and E. hydruntinus (European wild ass) and the extant, domestic E. caballus (horse) and E. asinus (donkey). The distribution and timing of the extinctions of the wild species and arrival of the domestic species is important to understand the changing environment and cultures through this dynamic period in one of the three southern Pleistocene glacial refugia in Europe. Here we collected data from all zooarchaeological studies that meet basic completeness criteria from the Palaeolithic to the Bronze Age (45–3.2 ka bp) and analysed the equine data in light of other large mammals at the same sites in order to document the species turnover and distributions through this culturally and ecologically dynamic period. The vast majority of Palaeolithic Equus were confidently identified as E. ferus, and by the Bronze age as E. caballus, with much uncertainty in between. Over time the larger equids (horses) were much more common than the smaller equids (asses). Equids were not common, but they were distributed across the southern Iberian peninsula through the Chalcolithic, and then appear to have become restricted to the drier eastern region in the Bronze Age. These analyses indicate that both E. ferus and E. hydruntinus went extinct by the end of the Pleistocene/Palaeolithic in Andalucia. Not all communities maintained equal numbers of equids, and their distribution changed with the changing climate through time, most notably between the Chalcolithic and the Bronze Age when confidence in species identification and local density of horses increase, but the distribution is restricted to the drier eastern region.
Subject
Paleontology,Earth and Planetary Sciences (miscellaneous),Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous)
Reference147 articles.
1. PRÃCTICAS SOCIALES ASOCIADAS AL PATRÃN DE CONSUMO ALIMENTICIO EN EL POBLADO DE LA JUNTA DE LOS RÃOS (PUEBLA DE GUZMÃN, HUELVA): CAL. 2840±80 ANE -2475±40 ANE
2. Zooarqueología del III Milenio A.N.E.: El barrio metalúrgico de Valencina de la Concepción (Sevilla);Abril D.;Complutum,2010
3. Nuevas aportaciones para la periodización del yacimiento del Polideportivo de Martos (Jaén): la evaluación estadística de las dataciones obtenidas para contextos rituales;Afonso J.A.;Archivo de Prehistoria Levantina,2014
4. La Cueva del Nacimiento (Pontones): un yacimiento neolítico en la Sierra del Segura. Apéndice II. La fauna de macromamíferos;Alférez F.;Trabajos de Prehistoria,1981
5. Almagro M.J.(1973). El poblado y la necrópolis de El Barranquete.Acta Arqueológica Hispánica 6 Madrid.