Horse in the Early Bronze Age Southern Levant

Horses are quite rare in the archaeological record of the Southern Levant, especially before the Late Bronze Age (1550-1200 BCE) and the advent of chariot warfare. Domesticated horses (Equus ferus caballus Linnaeus, 1758), brought from the Euro-Asiatic steppes, are attested in the Southern Levant during the Early Bronze Age, as shown by the sites of Arad, Ashkelon/Afridar, Tell Jenin, Ras el-Ain/Aphek and Khirbet al-Batrawy. The latter is one of the most interesting case studies, where recent samples of equid bones have been analysed by the Molecular Anthropology/Paleogenetic Unit of the Laboratory of Anthropology in the University of Florence, to identify ancient equid DNA in order to determine the species and possible hybridization, giving new evidence to help developing the study of equid domestication.