The horse is one of the species most represented in cave art during the Paleolithic in the southwest of Europe. These representations show an equine with phenotypical characteristics close to two presentday species which are considered as ancient horses: tarpans (Equus ferus caballus Linnaeus, 1758) and Pzrewalski (Equus caballus przewalskii Poliakov, 1881) horses. There are no paleontological evidence at sites dating from the Upper Paleolithic in this area of the last species, and furthermore various authors compare these representations with Pzrewalski horses. The comparative anatomical analysis of these representations is difficult due to the variety of styles and the different sizes of the figures. In this case, we carry out a study of the body proportions on six variables measured in 42 pictures of horses represented in 15 caves (eleven from Spain and four from France) from different cultures and styles. These measurements have been compared with data obtained from pictures of present-day horses: 22 pictures of hemiones or Asian asses (Equus hemionus Pallas, 1775), 20 tarpans of Konik breed (Equus ferus caballus Linnaeus, 1758) and 25 Pzrewalski's horses. The results of these analyses were three different equations to distinguish these three current equine species and their relationship with cave art. The equids represented in the caves studied show similar body proportions to Konik horses and similar lengths of mane, tail and ears to present-day Pzrewalski's horses. The results of this analysis significantly discriminate the three current equine species, which shows that the method is reliable and that the equids represented in the caves studied have body proportions similar to Konik horses and similar lengths of mane, tail and ears to the Pzrewalski horses.

Whale, a common name, a simple word, but so many meanings. An animal, a good, a belief, a surprise, a part of these aspects or the encompassing of them all. It is, for sure, a being of some kind, but one that is described, depicted and appropriated in several forms, in a multitude of ways. To the whale is always assigned a role, but its relevance to distinct groups of society and its presentation to diverse audiences, across history, can be very different from one type of source to another. Working from the question – what's in a whale? – we present a study on the long-term human-whale relationships (from the 13^th century onwards) connecting history and literature, to highlight the deep entanglement of societies and cultures with the marine environment. We aim at understanding the significance of whales and how culture, knowledge and values determine human behavior and actions towards these mammals. For that, we run through a long timeframe analyzing the whale, mostly based on Portuguese written sources, in comparison with European data, to discuss it as a commodity, a monster, a show and an icon. What we find is that the whale – real or conceptualized – has continuously been an element of human fascination. It is not merely a whale, but a wonder whale. An animal that still attracts crowds of people when it strands on nearby shores or when its blow is spotted in the horizon. The wonder whale allows for a close connection of people with the strange, enormous, paradoxical, ambivalent, still much unknown, oceanic realm.

This paper focuses on the identification and interpretation of a sample of vertebrate faunal remains from the Croxton archaeological site, located at Tukuto Lake, on the north slope of the Brooks Mountain Range, Alaska, in which caribou (Rangifer tarandus (Linnaeus, 1758)) dominate. Bone modifications are assessed to inform selection and processing, and skeletal part frequencies are analyzed with utility indices developed for this species among the Nunamiut at Anaktuvuk Pass. Results confirm the accumulation of faunal remains resulted primarily from human subsistence activities in the middle to late Holocene that included nutritional uses for meat, marrow and grease as well as technology manufacturing. Statistical utility analyses point to a deposit of marrow and grease processing debris at an activity area and support these as enduring subsistence practices in this region. A previous study on a larger faunal sample from the site also indicated a range of economic uses of caribou but did not find significant results with utility indices. To explain this difference it is suggested that the faunal aggregates chosen for analysis in this and the previous study have influenced statistical outcomes. The results of this study hold implications for utility analysis as well as for interpretations of caribou use at archaeological sites in arctic, sub-arctic, and alpine tundra areas of the Northern Hemisphere where this species has been abundant.

This article advances the hypotheses that sheep (Ovis aries Linnaeus, 1758) and goats (Capra hircus Linnaeus, 1758) in the Neolithic Middle East were employed regularly as pack animals and were domesticated to serve as pack animals. The employment of pack ovicaprines, especially pack goats, can explain how obsidian and other goods that circulated in exchange networks were transported across long distances and mountainous terrain. A pack goat can carry 30% of its weight over 24 km of mountainous terrain daily. A lactating dam can provide milk for human consumption on the trail. Compared to pack sheep and pack cattle, pack goats are more agile and adaptable to a greater variety of environments. Training a goat to pack is not difficult, and research on caprines' social preferences suggests that the wild sheep (Ovis orientalis Gmelin, 1774) and wild goat (Capra aegagrus Erxleben, 1777), if born in human captivity, could be trained to pack. Findings support the hypothesis that dairying originated from the training and use of pack goats in the Neolithic. Goats usually don't sustain bone pathology from bearing pack loads, and bone pathology and increased bone robustness from pack-bearing, especially of goats, may be impossible to discern from the faunal record. Neolithic figurative evidence of pack ovicaprines is highlighted.

Along the Atacama Desert coast, fish has always been a staple food and by the Formative period (500 cal B.C.-700 cal A.D.) it had become a product in high demand by the inhabitants of the inland valleys, oases and ravines of the desert. In this paper we explore the technologies used in coastal fishing activities, the diverse species caught, and fish processing and preserving techniques. We further examine the circulation routes of the product through the desert and associated strategies, the agents involved in transporting it and consumption levels in inland villages. Our study employs a multivariate analysis that includes evidence from zooarchaeology, stable isotope analysis of deceased individuals, and the composition of human coprolites, all of which were recovered from domestic waste, funerary contexts, and rest stops associated with the circulation routes running between the coast and the inland desert regions. Our results suggest that in this ancient social context, food was not only used to quell hunger, but through its associated economic cycles of production, circulation and consumption, was part of a complex and extended web of social relations. Within that network, food functioned as material culture, and as such enabled social distinctions to emerge within local groups and cultural negotiations to be conducted among different localities. Fish circulation and consumption played an active role in the reproduction of a social structure characterized by close and firm ties between marine hunter-fisher-gatherers and agropastoral communities, despite their long distance from each other.

Extensive Spanish cattle ranching boasts a strong, deeply rooted tradition: the use of completely black sheep, the offspring of white mothers, as magical elements to protect flocks from bad luck. Conditions are very specific, so they are unique, exceptional animals. These characteristics make them special, sacred sheep that are kept in the herd with special care until their death. There is an explanation for this symbolic and magic practice: it has existed to sustain, before Mendel discovered the laws governing genetics, the purity of white wool in sheep by isolating mutations in black ones. In this text we examine the scope of this practice and analyse it from the perspective of the anthropology of symbolism.

How prehispanic foragers adjusted their foraging activities to plant cultivation is a question that drives much of the modern archaeological research. As a result, the spread of food-producing economies during the Late Prehispanic Period (c. 1500-360 BP) from Sierras of Córdoba, Argentina, has been recently defined as a dynamic sociocultural process, where a mixed foraging and cultivation economy was accompanied by a flexible land-use strategy. However, the economic organization has only been superficially assessed. Thus, the aim of this article is to present the study of faunal remains recovered during the excavation of the open-air site Boyo Paso 2 in order to provide primary data on the properties of the animal food remains left by late prehispanic people and the characteristics of site occupation. Faunal remains suggest a complex sequence of reoccupations where bones were deposited, accidentally reburned and fragmented by trampling. The diversity of exploited prey also sheds light on the fact that a broad hunting spectrum continued playing a key role in the daily subsistence. Nevertheless, cultigens were a fluctuating component in a diverse foraging economy in which wild resources as guanaco (Lama guanicoe Müller, 1776), small-vertebrates and Rheidae eggs continued to be extensively used. The study of Boyo Paso 2 faunal assemblage is relevant because it helps to improve the current understanding of the economic importance of foraging wild resources and would constitute a model to interpret other archaeological cases during the Neolithic or Formative transition, where the boundaries between farming and foraging were fluid, but remained relatively invisible according to the existing terminology.

The absence of written evidence from prehistoric periods makes it difficult to understand the origins of sacrifice or offering ceremonies. Archaeological finds from prehistoric periods are the only solid evidence for these acts and rituals. One probable case of animal sacrifice or offering in the Neolithic period has been found at the site of Tepecik-Çiftlik Höyük in central Turkey. This study is focused on a single unique pit, which contained only animal bones and was found in an open space. The contents clearly indicate that this pit can not be interpreted simply as mixed kitchen garbage since an almost complete cattle skeleton as well as sixteen left front leg remains from sheep were placed in the pit after a social, or more specifically, ritual act. Similar pit with similar content was found neither in the close region to Tepecik-Çiftlik nor within Anatolia. The main aim of this study is to introduce a special archaeological find group, those were left after certain prehistoric activity.

The huge eggs of the giant extinct bird Aepyornis, from Madagascar, attracted much attention when they were first described by Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (1851). However, before 1900, only one illustration of such an egg was published in a scientific paper, by Rowley (1878). By contrast, illustrations of Aepyornis eggs appeared in various other types of publications, notably popular magazines, where they illustrated short items about the giant bird. The first one was published in 1851 in Le Magasin pittoresque (Anonymous 1851a), only a few months after Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire's original description. Similarly, in 1887 the popular science magazine Scientific American published a drawing of an Aepyornis egg (Anonymous 1887). An engraving of an Aepyornis egg was published by Ward (1866) in a catalogue advertising the casts of fossils he was selling. Yule (1871) used a lithograph of an Aepyornis egg as a frontispiece for his translation of Marco Polo's book of travels, in the belief that the eggs of this giant bird had been the source of the legend of the roc bird mentioned by Polo. In 1885, in a popular book on eggs in plants and animals, Guillaume Capus published an engraving of an Aepyornis egg to illustrate the size range of bird eggs (Capus 1885). These early illustrations are reproduced here. They testify to the appeal these huge eggs had for the general public, while scientists working on Aepyornis apparently did not find them sufficiently informative to warrant illustrations.

Now a global inhabitant, the Muscovy duck Cairina moschata (Linnaeus, 1758) was domesticated millennia ago by Pre-Columbian indigenous societies of America. Driven increasingly afar by humankind, the expansion of this species is an example of the successful dispersion of an animal known for its adaptability and resilience. This article examines various cases of husbandry, reproduction, and uses of Cairina moschata in the north and central coasts of Perú, Mexico, and North America. This exercise permits us to identify the various ways in which humans approach this versatile, charismatic, and always independent bird raised for its meat, unique behavior, or quality as companion animal or pet. As a hybrid animal, the Muscovies can also withstand extreme food conditions aimed to transform the mestizo duck in special human food. Cairina moschata ducks are a sign of belonging, tradition, innovation, and economy in Perú, Mexico, the United States, and digital communities. This analysis, in addition to allowing us to identify patterns, distinctions, and paths to new forms of human-animal relationships, permits us to explore a broader approach to the construction of the ontological nature and agency of an animal whose existence appears interwoven with our own.

The Gundestrup “cauldron” is a late Iron-Age silver ceremonial vessel found in Denmark in 1891. The busts depicted on the seven outer-plates – one is missing – are thought to represent deities but have not been confidently identified. This paper identifies the species of the birds on plate f and its symbolism allowing identification of the deity, the depicted event and its religious significance. The birds have the distinctive zygodactyl foot-morphology of the common cuckoo (Cuculus canorus Linnaeus, 1758). This species is also identified on a number of other widespread European artifacts where it was previously thought to be a bird of prey. The plate depicts a goddess in triplicate flanked by two cuckoos releasing the first cuckoo of spring. The bird is an obligate brood-parasite, laying its eggs in other birds' nests, leading to misconceptions of its life cycle: no females, nests or identifiable eggs. It was assumed the male birds mated with the host females. Hence, the cuckoo symbolized male fertility across its Eurasian summer range and was associated with several widespread European goddesses of fertility who were probably also associated with mead and the planet Venus. The evidence presented strongly suggests that these deities were known in the Bronze Age.

Deer stone and khirigsuur complexes are monuments that are characteristic of the Late Bronze Age (1200-700 BC) of the steppes of central and northern Mongolia. The khirigsuurs are made up of a large central mound around which are distributed peripheral structures: mounds and circles of stones. The peripheral mounds cover heads, vertebrae and phalanges of horses. At the centre of the circles of stones, the deposits consist of the burnt bones of caprines. This article discusses the ingredients that will allow us to better understand the gestures performed as part of the activities around the ritual monuments at Tsatsyn Ereg (Mongolia). The presence in certain mounds of a cranium and mandibles belonging to two different individuals reveals that the explanation for the horse deposits is more complicated than a simple action of in situ sacrifice. Analysis of age at death reveals that elderly animals are numerous. Males form a strong majority. The analysis of the almost 12 000 calcined remains recovered from the circles reveals that teeth and feet of caprines are disproportionately represented. The paper links the circles of stones that delimit the fireplaces with the action of purification. For the khirigsuur B10, the analysis of the alignment of the mounds and the stone circles and the orientation of the horses gives the impression of a herd of horses taking or pulling the deceased towards the rising sun. The communal aspect of the activities conducted around these large tombs is evident. We perceive all of the complexity of the deer stone and khirigsuur (DSK) phenomenon, which is simultaneously social and religious.