Author Description

Donkeys Carried Christ Into Jerusalem While In Greek Myth They Transported Hephaistos Up To Mount Olympos And Dionysos Into Battle Against The Giants. They Were Probably The First Animals That People Ever Rode, As Well As The First Used On A Large-scale As Beasts Of Burden. Associated With Kingship And The Gods In The Ancient Near East, They Have Been (and In Many Places Still Are) A Core Technology For Moving People And Goods Over Both Short And Long Distances, As Well As A Supplier Of Muscle Power For Threshing And Grinding Grain, Pressing Olives, Raising Water, Ploughing Fields, And Pulling Carts, To Name Just A Few Of The Uses To Which They Have Been Put. Yet Despite This, They Remain One Of The Least Studied, And Most Widely Ignored, Of All Domestic Animals, Consigned To The Margins Of History Like So Many Of Those Who Still Depend Upon Them. Spanning The Globe And Extending From The Donkey's Initial Domestication Up To The Present, This Book Seeks To Remedy This Situation By Using Archaeological Evidence, In Combination With Insights From History And Anthropology, To Resituate The Donkey (and Its Hybrid Offspring Such As The Mule) In The Unfolding Of Human History, Looking Not Just At What Donkeys And Mules Did, But Also At How People Have Thought About And Understood Them. Cover; The Donkey In Human History; Copyright; Acknowledgments; Contents; List Of Figures; List Of Colour Plates; List Of Tables; A Note On Nomenclature And Dating; Donkeys And Their Offspring; Native North Americans; Radiocarbon Dating; Plates; 1. Why Donkeys?; Donkeys And The â#x80;#x98;animal Turnâ#x80;#x99;; Donkeys In A Material World; Approaching The Donkey: Structure And Organization; 2. Origins; Evolution; Biology; Behaviour; Hybrids; Taming The Ass; Identifying The Domestic; Becoming A Donkey; 3. Along And Beyond The Nile; The First Donkeys; Donkeys In Daily Life Life At The Vilage Level: The Donkeys Of Deir El-medinathe Donkey As Symbol; Donkey Caravans And Donkey Roads; The Donkeyâ#x80;#x99;s Expansion In Africa; 4. The Ancient Near East; Into The Fertile Crescent And Beyond; Trading On Donkey-back; Donkey Power: Donkeys, Donkey Hybrids, And The Legitimization Of Elites; Sacred Donkeys; Supplanted? The Introduction Of The Camel And The Horse; 5. The Classical World; Bronze Age Donkeys: The Aegean, Italy, And Iberia; Into Temperate Europe: Detecting Donkeys, Unmasking Mules; The Mules Of Marius; The Agricultural Donkey; Donkeys, Mules, And Mills Donkeys And Mules In Transport: The Local Levelmoving Over Long Distances; Mules And Donkeys In Greco-roman Thought; 6. The Triumph Of The Mule; Donkeys And Mules In Christianity And Islam; A Question Of Numbers; On Farms And In Food; The Donkey, The Mule, And The Wheel; Pack-donkeys And Pack-mules; The Silk Road And The Salt Road; 7. New Worlds For The Donkey; Arriving In America; Bearers Of Silver: PotosÃƯ And Panama; Mexicoâ#x80;#x99;s Mule Trains; Connecting Spanish America; Donkeys And Mules In Brazil; North Americaâ#x80;#x99;s Burros; The Indigenous Donkey; Southern Africa; Australia An Ecological Problem?8. The Donkeyâ#x80;#x99;s Tale; The Worlds The Donkey Made; Donkeys As Underdogs; A Donkeyâ#x80;#x99;s Eye View?; The Agency Of The Ass; Questions For The Future; Classical Authors Cited; References; Index Peter Mitchell. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.