Lainé N. 2010. — Les éléphants sous la cour ahom (XIII^e–XIX^e s.). Anthropozoologica 45 (2): 7–25.

Elephants under Ahom's court (13th–19th)

Since Ancient texts Northeast India is quoted as being a region where wild elephants can be found in abundance. It remains a place which has given birth to long traditions relating to the capture and to the domestication of the animal. The natural environment of the Northeastern region constitutes, indeed, a tremendous habitat for the elephants and remains today one of the last bastions of the Asian elephants in the world. The Ahoms, after whom comes the name of the existing state of Assam, are Shan conquerors, native of upper Burma, who migrated in North-East India at the beginning of the 13th century. Their territory has progressively stretched in the whole alluvial plain of Brahmaputra, which they dominated up to the arrival of the English (beginning of the 19th century). During these six centuries, the Ahoms knew how to exploit the rich natural resources of their kingdom, particularly the elephants. During their rule, these animals were captured, used and maintained into a sophisticated domesticatory system controlled, managed and organized at the highest level of the monarchy. This article has as intention to present some elements of this system (classification, capture methods of capture, training, use, etc.) from vernacular available sources, in particular the Hastiviayārnava, a famous treatise on elephant domestication dated from the Ahom period.

Masseti M., Albarella U. & De Grossi Mazzorin J. 2010. — The crested porcupine, Hystrix cristata L., 1758, in Italy. Anthropozoologica 45 (2): 27–42.

In this paper the evidence for the introduction of the crested porcupine (Hystrix cristata L. 1758) in Italy is reviewed and hypotheses concerning the timing and modalities of this event are brought forward. The crested porcupine current distribution outside Africa is limited to Sicily and the Italian Peninsula. Palaeontological data indicate that porcupines were present in Italy and other parts of Europe in the Pleistocene (possibly up to the early Holocene), but there is now broad consensus that these belonged to different species, now extinct. Apart from some unreliable prehistoric finds, there is no evidence that porcupines occurred again in Italy and the rest of Europe before historic times. This led many authors to suggest that the Romans may have been responsible for the introduction of the species in Italy, but such assumption was largely speculative. The available evidence in fact indicates that the crested porcupine does not occur in Italy before late Antique or even early medieval times and that it never spread in Europe beyond the Italian Peninsula (and Sicily). The long chronological gap existing between Pleistocene and late Holocene specimens strongly suggests that the presence of the species in historic times in Italy is the result of a human-induced introduction. Variations in the morphometric and genetic characteristics of current porcupine populations in Italy and differences in the timing of the introduction between different regions suggest that the species was probably introduced as a consequence of multiple events.