Of mice and sparrows: Commensal faunas from the Iberian iron age in the duero valley (central spain)

Abstract

This paper aims to emphasize the importance of imported commensal faunas in archaeological contexts by reporting on the earliest known house sparrows and house mice from the Iberian peninsula. The finds, which date to the Iron Age of a hinterland area of the peninsula, have been identified on the basis of osteomorphological and osteometrical criteria, which are specified in the text in order to demonstrate the reliability of the identification. The temporal and geographical coincidence of these remains in the two sites analysed with those of donkey and, secondarily, chicken remains and faunal remains of littoral origin, lends support to the hypothesis that these animals arrived with the earliest trans-Mediterranean colonizers to the southern shores of the Iberian peninsula and spread involuntarily thereafter as 'sideproducts' of the Phoenician commercial routes throughout the Iberian hinterland.

Hoofprints in the sand: A study on domestic sheep (Ovis aries) from Iron Age southern Phoenicia using traditional biometric methods

“…Evidence for commensal and domestic animal introductions to the western Mediterranean in the Iron Age suggests input from Phoenician maritime activities (Hernandez Carrasquilla, 1992;Morales-Muñiz et al, 1995;Oueslati et al, 2020). Domestic sheep (Ovis aries) were a crucial component of the animal economy in the antique Mediterranean and are therefore ubiquitous in archaeological sites in the region; however, individual stock are not known to have been historically translocated by sea until later during the Roman Period in the Western Mediterranean (Columella, 1968: Book VII, II).…”

“…2014; Orton et al, 2016;Atici et al, 2017) and the western Mediterranean (Vigne, 2007). Other studies have investigated animal mobility associated with colonizations, such as from the Levant to Phoenician Iberia (Hernandez Carrasquilla, 1992;Morales-Muñiz et al, 1995;Valenzuela-Lamas et al, 2018) and Punic North Africa (Oueslati et al, 2020, with references). Fewer zooarchaeological studies have considered the continuous, lateral, multi-directional terrestrial and maritime mobility of domesticates around the Mediterranean basin after the Neolithic period (MacKinnon, 2010;Henton, 2012;Meiri et al, 2013Meiri et al, , 2019Gaastra, 2014;Colominas Barberà, 2015;Valenzuela-Lamas et al, 2016Knockaert et al, 2018;Isaakidou et al, 2019;Nieto-Espinet et al, 2020;Valenzuela-Lamas, 2020;Wordsworth et al, 2021).…”

Tracing historical introductions in the Mediterranean Basin: the success story of the common genet (Genetta genetta) in Europe

“…It is thus possible that Phoenicians (or Greeks, whom shared almost contemporaneous, similar trading routes) introduced the common genet from their North African colonies through their trading activities with Tartessians. Indeed, Phoenicians are considered the earliest trans-Mediterranean colonizers to southern Iberia having spread 'exotic' vertebrate species (Muñiz et al 1995).…”

The contribution of Mediterranean connectivity to morphological variability in Iron Age sheep of the Eastern Mediterranean

“…By tracing subtle dissimilarities between animals from different times and locales, such techniques allow to track variability among and between ancient animal populations. In this paper, we use geometric morphometrics to address the subject of maritime connectivity and livestock mobility, postulating that access to maritime networks creates coastal sources of phenotypic diversity that can percolate to sinks in inland regions (Muñiz et al, 1995; Valenzuela-Lamas et al, 2018). In other words, we assume that maritime livestock mobility could produce a distinctive morphological signature in seaside settlements, and perhaps a diffusive cline of such morphotypes to settlements remote from the coast.…”

“…By tracing subtle dissimilarities between animals from different times and locales, techniques like ancient DNA and geometric morphometrics allow us to perceive some of the genetic and phenotypic patterns in ancient livestock (Colominas Barberà et al, 2019; Evin et al, 2015; Haruda et al, 2019; Pöllath et al, 2019). In this study, we attempt to isolate and identify the contribution of maritime mobility to livestock biological diversity in Antiquity by investigating the phenotypic variability of domestic sheep from coastal and inland archaeological sites in the eastern Mediterranean (Muñiz et al, 1995; Valenzuela-Lamas et al, 2018).…”