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By Eric Hand
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Tuesday, Oct. 17 2006

A few years ago, Egyptologists found a new Pharaonic burial site more than
5,000 years old. They opened up a tomb.

"They're expecting to find nobles, the highest courtiers," said Washington
University archaeologist Fiona Marshall. "And what do they find? Ten donkey
skeletons.

"The ancient Egyptian burial shows how highly valued (donkeys) were for the
world's first nation-state. After the horse came, they became lower status. Of
course, they're the butt of jokes and all the rest of it. That has to do with
the name mostly."

Heehaw. Marshall wants to know how the donkey was domesticated from the Somali
wild ass. By traveling around the world, searching for bones in London museums
and African deserts, she hopes to pinpoint the time and place of this event,
which Marshall says was as revolutionary as the invention of the steam engine.

She also hopes to understand why the ass was domesticated and not, say, the
zebra.

Animal domestication events are rare in human history. Of 148 land-dwelling
mammals that weigh more than 100 pounds, only 14 were domesticated. These
animals tend to have certain characteristics, like a strong hierarchy. That
allows humans to slip in atop the order. Calm, social and nonterritorial
animals also made good candidates.

Yet wild asses - stubborn, territorial, flighty - have none of these
characteristics. "That is the conundrum. By all the rules of domestication,
they're not at all suitable," Marshall said.

Marshall is working with St. Louis Zoo researcher Cheryl Asa to understand how
asses breed and behave in captivity, which could provide clues as to how they
were turned into the domesticated donkey.

The St. Louis Zoo has five wild asses. Only a few dozen are kept in North
American zoos, and only a few thousand cling to war-torn lands in Somalia,
Eritrea and Ethiopia, where the Zoo is funding conservation work.

While the vicious and flighty zebra has resisted domestication even by modern
biologists, the ass was somehow domesticated in these lands at least 6,000
years ago, according to Marshall.

Pinpointing domestication events is a challenge. Marshall looks for subtle
things to distinguish donkey and ass bones, like arthritis in a shoulder bone -
evidence of a pack-laden animal.

The events are important to archaeologists because they have major historical
implications. Domesticated plants and animals let farmers stockpile food in a
more predictable way, said Melinda Zeder, an archaeologist at the National
Museum of Natural History.

"Domestication around the world has certainly been an incredible lever for
human change," she said.

In one theory, the large number of domesticated plants and animals in the
Fertile Crescent of the ancient Near East spread easily across the east-west
axis of Eurasia. In his Pulitzer Prize-winning book "Guns, Germs and Steel,"
Jared Diamond credits that for the eventual dominance of European powers.

Marshall said, "It helps us understand the trajectory that's been taken to the
modern world. The places that are wealthy and powerful today had good
conditions for domestication long ago."

But in Africa, something different happened, she said. Few plants were
domesticated. Africans did domesticate cattle and donkeys, but that didn't
encourage an intensive, settled agriculture. Instead, a herding culture
thrived. Donkeys were the engines that moved men, women and children from
pasture to pasture with their cattle and belongings.

Pastoralism is dying in the modern world as intensive, agricultural societies
prevail economically. But Marshall says donkeys still have an important role to
play.

Mules, the sterile offspring of a male donkey and a female horse, are used for
agriculture the world over and renowned for their endurance. Miniature mules
are now popular as pets. And donkeys are making a comeback as transportation
for ecotourists in southeastern Europe, Marshall said.

"The donkey is a gift that Africa had for the world," she said.

ehand@post-dispatch.com 314-340-8250

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/sciencemedicine/story/797DE3693457769C8625720A006B9122?OpenDocument&highlight=2%2C%22donkey%22

Domestication Event: Why the donkey and not the zebra?
By Eric Hand
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Monday, Oct. 16 2006

A few years ago, Egyptologists found a new Pharaonic burial site more than
5,000 years old. They opened up a tomb.

"They're expecting to find nobles, the highest courtiers," said Washington
University archaeologist Fiona Marshall. "And what do they find? Ten donkey
skeletons.

"The ancient Egyptian burial shows how highly valued (donkeys) were for the
world's first nation-state. After the horse came, they became lower status. Of
course, they're the butt of jokes and all the rest of it. That has to do with
the name mostly."

Heehaw. Marshall wants to know how the donkey was domesticated from the Somali
wild ass. By traveling around the world, searching for bones in London museums
and African deserts, she hopes to pinpoint the time and place of this event,
which Marshall says was as revolutionary as the invention of the steam engine.

She also hopes to understand why the ass was domesticated and not, say, the
zebra.

Animal domestication events are rare in human history. Of 148 land-dwelling
mammals that weigh more than 100 pounds, only 14 were domesticated. These
animals tend to have certain characteristics, like a strong hierarchy. That
allows humans to slip in atop the order. Calm, social and nonterritorial
animals also made good candidates.

Yet wild asses - stubborn, territorial, flighty - have none of these
characteristics. "That is the conundrum. By all the rules of domestication,
they're not at all suitable," Marshall said.
Dr. Fiona Marshall of Washington University's archaeology department, records the measurements of the skeleton of a domesticated donkey at her laboratory Friday afternoon.
(Robert Cohen/P-D)
Marshall is working with St. Louis Zoo researcher Cheryl Asa to understand how
asses breed and behave in captivity, which could provide clues as to how they
were turned into the domesticated donkey.

The St. Louis Zoo has five wild asses. Only a few dozen are kept in North
American zoos, and only a few thousand cling to war-torn lands in Somalia,
Eritrea and Ethiopia, where the Zoo is funding conservation work.

While the vicious and flighty zebra has resisted domestication even by modern
biologists, the ass was somehow domesticated in these lands at least 6,000
years ago, according to Marshall.

Pinpointing domestication events is a challenge. Marshall looks for subtle
things to distinguish donkey and ass bones, like arthritis in a shoulder bone -
evidence of a pack-laden animal.

The events are important to archaeologists because they have major historical
implications. Domesticated plants and animals let farmers stockpile food in a
more predictable way, said Melinda Zeder, an archaeologist at the National
Museum of Natural History.

"Domestication around the world has certainly been an incredible lever for
human change," she said.

In one theory, the large number of domesticated plants and animals in the
Fertile Crescent of the ancient Near East spread easily across the east-west
axis of Eurasia. In his Pulitzer Prize-winning book "Guns, Germs and Steel,"
Jared Diamond credits that for the eventual dominance of European powers.

Marshall said, "It helps us understand the trajectory that's been taken to the
modern world. The places that are wealthy and powerful today had good
conditions for domestication long ago."

But in Africa, something different happened, she said. Few plants were
domesticated. Africans did domesticate cattle and donkeys, but that didn't
encourage an intensive, settled agriculture. Instead, a herding culture
thrived. Donkeys were the engines that moved men, women and children from
pasture to pasture with their cattle and belongings.

Pastoralism is dying in the modern world as intensive, agricultural societies
prevail economically. But Marshall says donkeys still have an important role to
play.

Mules, the sterile offspring of a male donkey and a female horse, are used for
agriculture the world over and renowned for their endurance. Miniature mules
are now popular as pets. And donkeys are making a comeback as transportation
for ecotourists in southeastern Europe, Marshall said.

"The donkey is a gift that Africa had for the world," she said.

ehand@post-dispatch.com 314-340-8250

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/sciencemedicine/story/E8B2979F8B3334C98625720A001BFFE4?OpenDocument&highlight=2%2C%22donkey%22
 

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