Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-jwnkl Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-08T22:08:15.408Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Eating horses: the evolutionary significance of hippophagy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Marsha A. Levine*
Affiliation:
McDonald Institute for Archaeology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3ER, England

Abstract

The meat and milk of horses are highly valued food products, past and present. Horses were an especially valuable food resource in grassland habitats, which may explain their increased exploitation in the central Eurasian forest steppe during the late Eneolithic. It may also explain the emphasis on horses in final Upper Palaeolithic art.

Type
Papers
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 1998

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anthony, D.W. 1991a. The domestication of the horse, in R. Meadow, H. & Uerpmann, H.-P. (ed.), Equids in the ancient world 2: 25077. Wiesbaden: Dr Ludwig Reichert Verlag.Google Scholar
Bahn, P. & Vertut, J. 1988. Images of the Ice Age. Leicester: Windward.Google Scholar
Beardsley, R.K. 1953. Hypothesis on Inner Asian pastoral nomadism and its cultural area, Society for American Archaeology Memoirs 9: 248.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clottes, J. 1996. Thematic changes in Upper Palaeolithic art: a view from the Grotte Chauvet, Antiquity 70: 27688.Google Scholar
Crawford, M.A. 1968. Fatty-acid ratios in free-living and domestic animals, Lancet 22 June: 132933.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crawford, M.A., Casped, N.M. & Sinclair, A.J. 1976. The long chain metabolites of linoleic and linolenic acids in liver and brain in herbivores and carnivores, Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology 54 B: 395401.Google Scholar
Crawford, M.A., Doyle, W., Williams, G. & Drury., P.J. 1989. The role of fats and EFAs for energy and cell structures in the growth of fetus and neonate, in Vergroesen, A.J. & Crawford, M. (ed.). The role of fats in human nutrition: 82115. 2nd edition. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Crawford, M.A., Gale, M.M., Woodford, M.H. & Gasped, N.M. 1970. Comparative studies on fatty acid composition of wild and domestic meats, International Journal of Biochemistry 1: 295305.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crawford, M.A. & Marsh, D. 1995. Nutrition and Evolution. New Canaan (CN): Nathan Keats.Google Scholar
Dakhshleiger, G.F. 1980. The household economy of the Kazakhs on the boundary of the 19th-20th centuries. Alma-Ata: Nauka Kazakhstan SSR. [In Russian.]Google Scholar
Gade, D.W. 1976. Horsemeat as human food in France, Ecology of food and Nutrition 5: 111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Graziosi, P. 1960. Palaeolithic Art. London: Faber & Faber.Google Scholar
Gunga, Zh. 1976. V chem tsennost’ Koniny? [In what is the value of horse-flesh?], Mongoliia 31(2): 206.Google Scholar
Gurr, M. 1993. Fats, in Garrow, J.S, James, W.P.T. & Ralph, A. (ed.), Human nutrition and dietetics: 77102. 9th edition. Edinburgh: Churchill Livingstone.Google Scholar
Hillman, G.C. 1989. Late Palaeolithic plant foods from Wadi Kubbaniya in Upper Egypt: dietary diversity, infant weaning, and seasonality in a riverine environment, in Harris, D.R. & Hillman, G.C. (ed.), Foraging and farming: the evolution of plant exploitation: 20739. London: Unwin Hyman.Google Scholar
Leroi-Gourhan, A. 1982. The dawn of European Art. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Levine, M.A. 1990. Dereivka and the problem of horse domestication, Antiquity 64: 72740.Google Scholar
Levine, M.A. 1993. Social evolution and horse domestication, in Scarre, C. & Healy, F. (ed.). Trade and Exchange in prehistoric Europe: 13541. Oxford: Oxbow.Google Scholar
Levine, M.A. In press. Botai and the origins of horse domestication.Google Scholar
Levine, M.A. & Rassamakin, Y.Y. 1996. Problems related to archaeozoological research on Ukrainian Neolithic to Bronze Age sites, in The Don-Donets region in the Bronze Age system of the East European steppe and forest steppe: 259. Voronezh: Russian-Ukrainian Conference and Ukrainian-Russian Field Seminar, Vol. 2, [in Russian].Google Scholar
Mallory, J.P. 1989. In search of the Indo-Europeans. Thames & Hudson.Google Scholar
Rassamakin, Y.Y. 1994. The main directions of the development of early pastoral societies of the northern Pontic zone: 4500-2450 BC (Pre-Yamnaya cultures and Yamnaya culture), in Kosko, A. (ed.), Nomadism and pastoralism in the circle of Baltic-Pontic early agrarian cultures: 5000-1650 BC, Baltic-Pontic Studies 2: 2970.Google Scholar
Rice, P.C. & Paterson, A.L. 1985. Cave art and bones: exploring the interrelationships, American Anthropologist 87(1): 94100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rice, P.C. 1986. Validating the cave art archeofaunal relationship in Cantabrian Spain, American Anthropologist 88(1): 65866.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rossier, E. & Berger, C. 1988. La viande de cheval: des qualites indiscutables et pourtant meconnues, Cahiers de Nutrition et de Diétologie 23(1): 3540.Google Scholar
Sinclair, H.M. 1964. Carbohydrates and fats, in Beaton, G.H & McHenry, E.W. (ed.), Nutrition, a comprehensive treatise 1: Macronutrients and nutrient elements: 59—114. New York (NY): Academic Press.Google Scholar
Speth, J.D. 1983. Bison kills and bone counts. Chicago (IL): University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Toktabaev, A. 1992. Kazakh horse-breeding in the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century, historical and ethnographic research. Unpublished dissertation summary [in Russian].Google Scholar
Williams, G., Crawford, M.A. & Perrin, W.F. 1987. Comparison of the fatty acid component in structural lipids from dolphins, zebra and giraffe: possible evolutionary implications, Fournal of Zoology, London 213: 67384.CrossRefGoogle Scholar