The oldest mule in the western Mediterranean. The case of the Early Iron Age in Hort d’en Grimau (Penedès, Barcelona, Spain)
Bibliographic Data
Genetic and radiocarbon analyses confirm the Hort d'en Grimau mule as the oldest hybrid in the western Mediterranean and continental Europe. • Dated between the mid-8th and mid-6th century BCE. • The mule skeleton was found in a silo alongside the skeletal remains of a woman. This indicates a close relationship between equines and humans. • Pathological bone alterations and isotopic results suggest that the animal may have been used for riding and fed with forages containing cereals. Mules, first generation hybrids between a horse mare ( Equus caballus ) and a donkey jack ( Equus asinus ), are rarely documented in the western Mediterranean prior to Roman times. They may have been bred earlier in the Iberian Peninsula where domestic horses and donkeys had coexisted for at least a millennium. In this study, we use ancient DNA to identify a female mule from Hort d’en Grimau, an archaeological site located in the Prelitoral of the northeastern Iberian Peninsula dated to the First Iron Age (8 th -6 th century BCE). The animal was small in size and found in anatomical connection with the partially burnt remains of a woman, deposited inside a silo. Zooarchaeological analysis confirmed that the equid skeleton belonged to an adult-senile female exhibiting both horse and donkey morphological traits, with maxillary and mandibular pathologies consistent with riding. Stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analyses suggest a diet rich in cultivated cereals. This individual represents the earliest genetically confirmed mule in western Europe. Further research is needed to determine whether it was bred locally or introduced via Phoenician exchange networks.
Ancient DNA · Donkey · Equidae · Equus · Equus asinus · Mediterranean climate · Peninsula · Radiocarbon dating · Animal Diversity and Health Studies · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology
MapDamage2.0
The origins and spread of domestic horses from the Western Eurasian steppes
AdapterRemoval v2
Fast model-based estimation of ancestry in unrelated individuals
The genomic history of the Iberian Peninsula over the past 8000 years
Reconstructing Equine Bridles in the Mongolian Bronze Age
Détermination de l'âge des chevaux fossiles et établissement des classes d'âge/Age determination of fossil horses and the establishment of age classes
The mules that are not mules - metrics, morphology, archaeogenomics and mtDNA d-loop diversity in equids from Roman Switzerland
Assessing the predictive taxonomic power of the bony labyrinth 3D shape in horses, donkeys and their F1-hybrids
New osteological criteria for the identification of domestic horses, donkeys and their hybrids in archaeological contexts
Zonkey
First evidence of Equus asinus L. in the Chalcolithic disputes the Phoenicians as the first to introduce donkeys into the Iberian Peninsula
Procedures for Comparing and Combining Radiocarbon Age Determinations
Equine cranial morphology and the identification of riding and chariotry in late Bronze Age Mongolia
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |