Keystone
In what is now Aleppo in Syria, researchers have unearthed the bones of an extraordinary species of donkey. Genetic studies show that the 4,500-year-old fossils are the oldest known example of deliberate animal breeding by humans.
The Archaeologists suspect that these are the legendary “Kungas”, a rare species of donkey, as they report in the journal “Science Advances”. Cuneiform tablets from the time of the bone finds report that these animals were highly prized by Mesopotamian elites because they were strong, stocky, and fast.
Research has already assumed that these were hybrids of domesticated and wild animals. It was not known which species it was. Geneticists have now been able to show that these are crosses between female donkeys and male Syrian wild asses, which are now extinct.
Mesopotamians were clever breeders
It testifies to a highly developed breeding management that female donkeys were selected, the researchers report. Because these domesticated mothers ensured problem-free rearing of the kungas, while the wild donkey fathers were probably notoriously stubborn.
Although the While human breeders of the first domestic animals must have repeatedly crossed them with their wild relatives, this is the first documented example of a half-wild, half-domestic animal. The mule – a cross between a horse and a donkey – may be the next oldest animal of this species, but it didn’t come onto the scene until over 1000 years later.
So precious they got a burial
The fossils were discovered in 2006 in the 4,500-year-old royal burial site Umm el-Marra in Aleppo. Based on the arrangement and positioning of the tombs, archaeologists suspected that the creatures could be the mythical kungas.
They were buried as individuals, which is a rarity in archaeology, as animal remains are usually just thrown away. Many of the animals also appear to have been sacrificed, presumably to join their humans in the afterlife. “These animals must have been something very special,” says Eva-Maria Geigl, geneticist at the Jacques Monod Institute in Paris.https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abm0218
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