Domestication of the Donkey: Aridity, Mobility and the Development of African Pastoral Societies

在美国国家科学基金会的支持下，菲奥娜·马歇尔博士和一个由同事组成的国际团队将在非洲东北部、西欧和美国进行为期三年的考古和基因研究。该团队将美国、葡萄牙/法国和厄立特里亚的考古学、动物学、现代和古代遗传学专家聚集在一起，研究驴驯化的过程和时间。古代家畜的使用塑造了全球社会变化的轨迹，以及当代牲畜的生物多样性。然而，人类驯养的大型哺乳动物很少，大多数是为了食物。驴（Equus asinus）是古代世界大部分地区唯一的大规模运输工具。尽管驴子和骡子在今天的非洲、亚洲和南美洲的许多地区仍然是重要的驮畜，而且直到第二次世界大战期间，骡子在西方社会中发挥了关键作用，但人们对它们被驯化的背景知之甚少。驴的野生祖先，非洲野驴（Equus africanus），发现于非洲东北部。由于驴出现在埃及前王朝时期的非洲遗址（距今6-5万年），学者们认为古埃及人驯养驴是为了运输和贸易。在亚洲的驯化也被考虑过。该项目考虑了另一种假设，即随着该地区变得更加干旱，降雨越来越不可预测，古代非洲东北部的牧民在非洲驯养了驴（7-6.5 kyr bp）。今天，驴在帮助非洲放牧社会应对不可预测的气候波动方面发挥着关键作用。它们被用来收集水和柴火，以及运输家庭建筑、货物、幼畜和儿童。驴的使用使牧民能够更灵活地面对不稳定的降雨，并改善人类和牲畜的健康和种群动态。研究问题的性质要求收集三个不同领域的动物考古学数据，收集现代参考材料，对现代骨骼进行形态测量学研究，并分析考古标本。厄立特里亚的四具现代非洲野驴骨架和肯尼亚的四具驴骨架的收集将加强博物馆现有的非洲驴藏品。从18头现代驴和12头现代非洲野驴骨架中收集的形态计量学数据、测量和x射线将为区分驴和它们的野生祖先提供新的方法。动物考古学研究将对来自非洲东北部6个考古遗址的非洲野驴和驴进行研究，这些遗址的年龄在12- 2000千岁之间。10个古野驴样本将提交AMS日期，15个用于DNA分析。该项目将澄清驴是在何时何地被驯化并纳入非洲早期畜牧系统的问题。这项研究的智力价值将有助于解决长期以来关于驴的西南亚和非洲起源的争论，为大型哺乳动物驯化过程的变化提供新的理解，并重塑目前对非洲畜牧业发展的理解。该项目更广泛的影响是，通过收集世界上最濒危的大型野生哺乳动物之一——非洲野驴的骨骼和遗传信息，它将有助于保护生物多样性。该项目还利用了考古学、畜牧业发展和保护生物学当前目标之间的协同作用，并将对这三个目标都有所贡献。将为今后的研究建立基础设施，包括新的参考骨骼材料，以及一个出版的和在线的非洲野驴和驴，现代和古代的骨骼测量数据库。后者将有助于在没有比较材料的国家和地点鉴定分离标本。该项目还促进了欧洲、非洲和美国的遗传学家、动物学家和动物考古学家之间的跨学科国际合作

With National Science Foundation support, Dr. Fiona Marshall and an international team of colleagues will conduct three years of archaeological and genetic research in northeast Africa, western Europe and the U.S.A. The team brings together U.S., Portuguese/French, and Eritrean specialists in archaeology, zoology, and modern and ancient genetics to examine the process and timing of domestication of the donkey. Ancient use of domestic animals has shaped global trajectories of social change, as well as the biodiversity of contemporary livestock. Humans have domesticated few large mammals, however, and most for food. Donkeys (Equus asinus) provided the only means of large-scale transport for much of the ancient world. Although donkey's and mules are still important pack animals in many areas of Africa, Asia, and South America today, and mules played a key role in western societies up through the Second World War, very little is known about the context of their domestication. The wild ancestor of the donkey, the African wild ass (Equus africanus), is found in northeastern Africa. Because donkeys appear in Predynastic Egyptian sites in Africa (6-5 kyr bp), scholars have suggested that ancient Egyptians domesticated the donkey for transport and trade. Domestication in Asia has also been considered. This project considers the alternative hypothesis that donkeys were domesticated in Africa by ancient northeast African cattle herders (7-6.5 kyr bp), as the region became more arid and rainfall increasingly unpredictable. Today, donkeys play a critical role in assisting African herding societies to cope with unpredictable climatic fluctuations. They are used to collect water and firewood, and to transport household structures, goods, young stock, and children. Use of donkeys allows herders greater mobility with which to face erratic rainfall, and improves the health and population dynamics of humans and livestock. The nature of the research question requires collection of zooarchaeological data in three different areas, collection of modern reference material, morphometric study of modern skeletons, and analysis of archaeological specimens. Collection of four modern African wild ass skeletons in Eritrea and four donkey skeletons in Kenya will strengthen scant existing Museum collections of African ass. Morphometric data, measurements, and x-rays collected from 18 modern donkeys and 12 modern African wild ass skeletons will contribute new, methods to discriminate between donkeys and their wild ancestor. Zooarchaeological studies will be conducted of African wild ass and donkeys from six northeast African archaeological sites ranging in age from 12-2,000 kyr bp. Ten ancient wild ass samples will be submitted for AMS dates, and 15 for DNA analysis. The project will clarify the question of where and when the donkey was domesticated and incorporated into early pastoral systems in Africa. The intellectual merit of the research will be to contribute to longstanding debates over southwest Asian vs. African origins of the donkey, to provide new understanding of variation in domestication processes among large mammals, and to reshape current understanding of the development of African pastoralism. The broader impacts of this project are that it will contribute to conservation of biodiversity, through assembling skeletal and genetic information on one of the world's most endangered large wild mammals, the African wild ass. The project also draws on synergies among current objectives in archaeology, livestock development, and conservation biology, and will contribute to all three. Infrastructure for future studies will be created, including new reference skeletal material, and a published and on-line database of bone measurements for African wild ass and donkey, modern and ancient. The latter will facilitate identification of isolated specimens in countries and locations without comparative material. This project also promotes interdisciplinary international collaboration among geneticists, zoologists, and zooarchaeologists in Europe, Africa, and the U.S.A.