Were there royal herds? Understanding herd management and mobility using isotopic characterizations of cattle tooth enamel from Early Dynastic Ur.

ABSTRACT: During the third millennium BC, Mesopotamia (the land between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, in modern Iraq-Syria), was dominated by the world's earliest cities and states, which were ruled by powerful elites. Ur, in present-day southern Iraq, was one of the largest and most important of these cities, and irrigation-based agriculture and large herds of domesticated animals were the twin mainstays of the economy and diet. Texts suggest that the societies of the Mesopotamian city-states were extremely hierarchical and underpinned by institutionalised and heavily-managed farming systems. Prevailing narratives suggest that the animal management strategies within these farming systems in the third millennium BC were homogenous. There have been few systematic science-based studies of human and

SUBMITTER: Greenfield TL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9200365 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature