Research in the spotlight

Birds were an important source of food for hunter-gatherer communities in Upper Mesopotamia at the beginning of the Neolithic period, around 9,000 years BCE. This is shown in a new study by SNSB and LMU archaeozoologists Dr. Nadja Pöllath and Prof. Dr. Joris Peters.

Genetic analyses by an international team involving researchers from the Bavarian State Collection for Paleoanatomy an the LMU Munich show that the Romans were the first to bring mules to Central Europe. Before horses were the only riding animals used by people there.

New research transforms our understanding of the circumstances and timing of the domestication of chickens, their spread across Asia into the west, and reveals the changing way in which they were perceived in societies over the past 3,500 years. Experts have found that an association with rice farming likely started a process that has led to chickens becoming one of the world’s most numerous animals.

The excavations on the “Marienhof” in Munich behind the city hall represent the largest archaeological procedure in the old town of Munich to date.

The Sumerians evidently used horse-like animals in their war campaigns as early as 4,500 years ago.

The study of the remains of unborn and newborn lambs shows researchers the fundamental problems our ancestors had to face in keeping sheep during the early Neolithic period (about 10,000 years ago).

A very special finding is the upper arm bone of an aurochs cow with a bullet wound – found in the backfill layers of one of the monumental complexes at Göbekli Tepe, southeastern Anatolia (Turkey).

From the beginning, sheep farmers consciously and unconsciously selected animals with characteristics suitable for life and reproduction in a man-made environment.