Sex identi cation from fragmentary archeozoological assemblages is particularly challenging in th... more Sex identi cation from fragmentary archeozoological assemblages is particularly challenging in the Equid family, including for horses, donkeys and their hybrids. This limitation has precluded in-depth investigations of sex-ratio variation in various temporal, geographic and social contexts. Recently, shallow DNA sequencing has offered an economical solution to equine sex determination, even in environments where DNA preservation conditions is not optimal. In this study, we applied state-of-the-art methods in ancient DNA-based equine sex determination to 897 osseous remains in order to assess whether equal proportions of males and females could be found in a range of archeological contexts in France. We found Magdalenian horse hunt not focused on isolated bachelors, and Upper Paleolithic habitats and natural traps equally balancing sex ratios. In contrast, Iron Age sacri cial rituals appeared to have been preferentially oriented to male horses and this practice extended into the Roman Period. During Antiquity, the Middle Ages and the Modern Period, cities emerged as environments largely dominated by horse males. This strong sex-bias was considerably reduced, and sometimes even absent, in various rural contexts. Combined with previous archaeozoological work and textual evidence, our results portray an urban economy fueled by adult, often old, males, and rural environments where females and subadults of both sexes were maintained to sustain production demands.
squelettes complets ou quasi complets de grand et de petit bétail, enfouis individuellement, au s... more squelettes complets ou quasi complets de grand et de petit bétail, enfouis individuellement, au sein ou parfois en
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), 2019
HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific r... more HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés.
International audienceDepuis 2011, plusieurs chercheurs se sont groupés dans le cadre d&#... more International audienceDepuis 2011, plusieurs chercheurs se sont groupés dans le cadre d'un Projet Collectif de Recherche "les marais charentais au Moyen Âge et à l'époque moderne : peuplement, environnement, économie". Rapidement, la question environnementale, devenue incontournable, a été abordée par des chercheurs de diverses origines (archéologues, archéozoologues, historiens, géographes). Les textes et les cartes anciennes permettent de saisir certaines des transformations qui affectent les marais salants par exemple comme les tentatives de remise en fonctionnement. La faune issue des fouilles d'habitats dans et autour du marais constitue un corpus considérable en taille. L'évolution des spectres de faune, sauvage ou domestique, peut-être un excellent indicateur pour essayer de donner une interprétation économique, historique, mais aussi environnementale, à ces mutations du paysage
Abstract Although the economic importance of sheep husbandry in the Middle Ages, especially durin... more Abstract Although the economic importance of sheep husbandry in the Middle Ages, especially during the development of the major cloth industries, and the speculation of animals for wool, is recognized, until now the evolution of sheep forms on the French mainland have not been the subject of major investigations. The purpose of our study, therefore, was to assess the morphological diversity of sheep across eleven centuries, and attempt to reconstruct the zootechnical practices used in husbandry and their effectiveness from the zooarchaeological remains. In addition, a database was created, with the help of numerous specialists, grouping 16,353 measured bones corresponding to 59,801 distributed measurements from the 9th to the 19th centuries in France. Our purpose was to describe the shape of animals bred for wool (through size or dimensions) across a wide territory using bone remains and the help of common methods and tool, such as shoulder height, the slenderness index, and the log size index. The work carried out within the framework of this study should be reproducible for any type of zooarchaeological study. The results reveal an evolution in sheep diversity and morphologies according to three stages, from the end of the Late Middle Ages to the industrial era. The first phase corresponds to fairly homogeneous sheep herds from the 9th–10th and the 12th–13th centuries, with a low diversity of forms: small and stunted. We then witness an important development in morphological variety from the 13th–14th centuries, in all dimensions, from the smallest to the largest. Many of the various forms emerged without impacting sheep dimensions in depth; overall, the herds remained composed of smaller individuals. Finally, from the 12th–13th and the 18th–19th centuries, there is a loss of diversity in sheep forms to the benefit of herds primarily consisting of larger dimensioned individuals. This zootechnical evolution can be compared to the effect of merinisation operating at the end of the modern period.
Although the economic importance of sheep husbandry in the Middle Ages, especially during the dev... more Although the economic importance of sheep husbandry in the Middle Ages, especially during the development of the major cloth industries, and the speculation of animals for wool, is recognized, until now the evolution of sheep forms on the French mainland have not been the subject of major investigations. The purpose of our study, therefore, was to assess the morphological diversity of sheep across eleven centuries, and attempt to reconstruct the zootechnical practices used in husbandry and their effectiveness from the zooarchaeological remains. In addition, a database was created, with the help of numerous specialists, grouping 16,353 measured bones corresponding to 59,801 distributed measurements from the 9th to the 19th centuries in France. Our purpose was to describe the shape of animals bred for wool (through size or dimensions) across a wide territory using bone remains and the help of common methods and tool, such as shoulder height, the slenderness index, and the log size index. The work carried out within the framework of this study should be reproducible for any type of zooarchaeological study. The results reveal an evolution in sheep diversity and morphologies according to three stages, from the end of the Late Middle Ages to the industrial era. The first phase corresponds to fairly homogeneous sheep herds from the 9th–10th and the 12th–13th centuries, with a low diversity of forms: small and stunted. We then witness an important development in morphological variety from the 13th–14th centuries, in all dimensions, from the smallest to the largest. Many of the various forms emerged without impacting sheep dimensions in depth; overall, the herds remained composed of smaller individuals. Finally, from the 12th–13th and the 18th–19th centuries, there is a loss of diversity in sheep forms to the benefit of herds primarily consisting of larger di-mensioned individuals. This zootechnical evolution can be compared to the effect of merinisation operating at the end of the modern period.
Les animaux en ville Des squelettes amiénois médiévaux et modernes Benoît Clavel CNRS, Umr 7209 «... more Les animaux en ville Des squelettes amiénois médiévaux et modernes Benoît Clavel CNRS, Umr 7209 « Archéozoologie, archéobotanique : sociétés, pratique et environnement »
Sex identi cation from fragmentary archeozoological assemblages is particularly challenging in th... more Sex identi cation from fragmentary archeozoological assemblages is particularly challenging in the Equid family, including for horses, donkeys and their hybrids. This limitation has precluded in-depth investigations of sex-ratio variation in various temporal, geographic and social contexts. Recently, shallow DNA sequencing has offered an economical solution to equine sex determination, even in environments where DNA preservation conditions is not optimal. In this study, we applied state-of-the-art methods in ancient DNA-based equine sex determination to 897 osseous remains in order to assess whether equal proportions of males and females could be found in a range of archeological contexts in France. We found Magdalenian horse hunt not focused on isolated bachelors, and Upper Paleolithic habitats and natural traps equally balancing sex ratios. In contrast, Iron Age sacri cial rituals appeared to have been preferentially oriented to male horses and this practice extended into the Roman Period. During Antiquity, the Middle Ages and the Modern Period, cities emerged as environments largely dominated by horse males. This strong sex-bias was considerably reduced, and sometimes even absent, in various rural contexts. Combined with previous archaeozoological work and textual evidence, our results portray an urban economy fueled by adult, often old, males, and rural environments where females and subadults of both sexes were maintained to sustain production demands.
squelettes complets ou quasi complets de grand et de petit bétail, enfouis individuellement, au s... more squelettes complets ou quasi complets de grand et de petit bétail, enfouis individuellement, au sein ou parfois en
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), 2019
HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific r... more HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés.
International audienceDepuis 2011, plusieurs chercheurs se sont groupés dans le cadre d&#... more International audienceDepuis 2011, plusieurs chercheurs se sont groupés dans le cadre d'un Projet Collectif de Recherche "les marais charentais au Moyen Âge et à l'époque moderne : peuplement, environnement, économie". Rapidement, la question environnementale, devenue incontournable, a été abordée par des chercheurs de diverses origines (archéologues, archéozoologues, historiens, géographes). Les textes et les cartes anciennes permettent de saisir certaines des transformations qui affectent les marais salants par exemple comme les tentatives de remise en fonctionnement. La faune issue des fouilles d'habitats dans et autour du marais constitue un corpus considérable en taille. L'évolution des spectres de faune, sauvage ou domestique, peut-être un excellent indicateur pour essayer de donner une interprétation économique, historique, mais aussi environnementale, à ces mutations du paysage
Abstract Although the economic importance of sheep husbandry in the Middle Ages, especially durin... more Abstract Although the economic importance of sheep husbandry in the Middle Ages, especially during the development of the major cloth industries, and the speculation of animals for wool, is recognized, until now the evolution of sheep forms on the French mainland have not been the subject of major investigations. The purpose of our study, therefore, was to assess the morphological diversity of sheep across eleven centuries, and attempt to reconstruct the zootechnical practices used in husbandry and their effectiveness from the zooarchaeological remains. In addition, a database was created, with the help of numerous specialists, grouping 16,353 measured bones corresponding to 59,801 distributed measurements from the 9th to the 19th centuries in France. Our purpose was to describe the shape of animals bred for wool (through size or dimensions) across a wide territory using bone remains and the help of common methods and tool, such as shoulder height, the slenderness index, and the log size index. The work carried out within the framework of this study should be reproducible for any type of zooarchaeological study. The results reveal an evolution in sheep diversity and morphologies according to three stages, from the end of the Late Middle Ages to the industrial era. The first phase corresponds to fairly homogeneous sheep herds from the 9th–10th and the 12th–13th centuries, with a low diversity of forms: small and stunted. We then witness an important development in morphological variety from the 13th–14th centuries, in all dimensions, from the smallest to the largest. Many of the various forms emerged without impacting sheep dimensions in depth; overall, the herds remained composed of smaller individuals. Finally, from the 12th–13th and the 18th–19th centuries, there is a loss of diversity in sheep forms to the benefit of herds primarily consisting of larger dimensioned individuals. This zootechnical evolution can be compared to the effect of merinisation operating at the end of the modern period.
Although the economic importance of sheep husbandry in the Middle Ages, especially during the dev... more Although the economic importance of sheep husbandry in the Middle Ages, especially during the development of the major cloth industries, and the speculation of animals for wool, is recognized, until now the evolution of sheep forms on the French mainland have not been the subject of major investigations. The purpose of our study, therefore, was to assess the morphological diversity of sheep across eleven centuries, and attempt to reconstruct the zootechnical practices used in husbandry and their effectiveness from the zooarchaeological remains. In addition, a database was created, with the help of numerous specialists, grouping 16,353 measured bones corresponding to 59,801 distributed measurements from the 9th to the 19th centuries in France. Our purpose was to describe the shape of animals bred for wool (through size or dimensions) across a wide territory using bone remains and the help of common methods and tool, such as shoulder height, the slenderness index, and the log size index. The work carried out within the framework of this study should be reproducible for any type of zooarchaeological study. The results reveal an evolution in sheep diversity and morphologies according to three stages, from the end of the Late Middle Ages to the industrial era. The first phase corresponds to fairly homogeneous sheep herds from the 9th–10th and the 12th–13th centuries, with a low diversity of forms: small and stunted. We then witness an important development in morphological variety from the 13th–14th centuries, in all dimensions, from the smallest to the largest. Many of the various forms emerged without impacting sheep dimensions in depth; overall, the herds remained composed of smaller individuals. Finally, from the 12th–13th and the 18th–19th centuries, there is a loss of diversity in sheep forms to the benefit of herds primarily consisting of larger di-mensioned individuals. This zootechnical evolution can be compared to the effect of merinisation operating at the end of the modern period.
Les animaux en ville Des squelettes amiénois médiévaux et modernes Benoît Clavel CNRS, Umr 7209 «... more Les animaux en ville Des squelettes amiénois médiévaux et modernes Benoît Clavel CNRS, Umr 7209 « Archéozoologie, archéobotanique : sociétés, pratique et environnement »
Uploads
Papers by Robin Opale