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Eating horses: the evolutionary significance of hippophagy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Marsha A. Levine*
Affiliation:
McDonald Institute for Archaeology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3ER, England

Abstract

The meat and milk of horses are highly valued food products, past and present. Horses were an especially valuable food resource in grassland habitats, which may explain their increased exploitation in the central Eurasian forest steppe during the late Eneolithic. It may also explain the emphasis on horses in final Upper Palaeolithic art.

Type
Papers
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 1998

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