Thanks to the work Davide Tanasi, an associate professor at the University of South Florida, this could be the most exciting find. There he made his most recent and significant discovery that horses inhabited Bronze Age Sicily long before the first written accounts. This discovery transforms the narrative of how horses were domesticated and utilized. It also sheds light on the eating patterns of some of the earliest communities to live on the Mediterranean island. The research was published in the journal PLOS One and is titled “Unearthing prehistoric diets: First evidence of horse meat consumption in Early Bronze Age Sicily.”
In 2024, Tanasi pulled out pottery samples from storage that had not been touched in decades. From there, he transported the samples to the Interdisciplinary Digital Exploration (IDEx) lab at USF. Over there, he employed sophisticated technologies to scrutinize the pieces. Tanasi’s meticulous examination revealed a trove of pottery fragments that contained traces of horse remains, providing compelling evidence of horse consumption in prehistoric diets.
The Role of Advanced Technology
The discovery was made possible through the use of new technologies used at IDEx lab. Technological advances allowed for an unprecedented close study of plainware pottery samples. This approach enabled researchers to pinpoint specific residues, providing hard evidence of horse meat consumption.
Tanasi told Bay News 9 that the results go against long-held beliefs. Taken together, they point to a much earlier timeline for horse domestication within the region. What we discovered through our research was that horse eating was adopted into local diets much earlier than these historical models had proposed,” he said. That they can now analyze such ancient materials with this kind of precision is a fine example of how technological advancements are driving archaeological research.
The results further indicate that horses constituted an important component of the diets of early Bronze Age communities in Sicily. This shifts the focus from traditional food sources to include horses, which may have provided essential nutrition during a crucial period in human history.
Implications for Archaeological Models
Tanasi’s research carries broad implications for current models of horse domestication and use over time. Until now, researchers thought horses had only relatively recently become food—well after the advent of a fully modern human culture. Yet, this finding necessitates a reconsideration of how horses may have been incorporated into the world’s first agricultural societies.
Tanasi’s research uncovered proof of horse meat being partaken in. This amazing discovery gives us impetus to expand our ideas of what Bronze Age dietary practice looked like. This indicates that communities probably rode horses far more than we assumed. Perhaps most importantly, it brings to light the nuanced relationships between humans and animals in ancient societies.
Additionally, this study may serve to rethink how archeologists understand other discoveries of animal remains in archeological contexts. Perhaps the possession of horse meat would suggest more exotic socio-economic factors at work, such as knowledge of trade routes and cultural exchanges between far-flung communities.
Publication and Future Directions
Tanasi’s results have been officially recorded in a peer reviewed article that has just been published in PLOS One with DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0330772. We hope that this publication, both in format and focus, will encourage impassioned debates among archaeologists. Through them, it will show how human-animal relationships and feeding practices have changed throughout different cultures.
Academics have been delving into all of these topics. Tanasi’s work opens the door for more combined archaeological and zooarchaeological investigation into how horses (and other animals) factored into ancient diets. This research not only enriches the historical narrative of Sicily but opens avenues for future studies that could unearth additional insights into prehistoric life.