I’ve been looking for current publications on equine archaeology and history. You would be surprised what is out there! I found four books that covered proceedings from the International Council for Archaeozoology meeting in Durham, UK, 2002. It sounds like it would have been an awesome conference.

Equids in time and space, edited by Marjan Mashkour (2006). From the description: “There are methodological as well as historical chapters dealing with problems ranging from the earliest purported evidence for domestication, to the role of horses in the classical periods; the geographic scope is also vast, spanning Portugal to China, and Siberia to Africa.”

The First Steps of Animal Domestication edited by J D Vigne, J Peters and D Helmer (2005).

Behaviour Behind Bones: The zooarchaeology of ritual, religion, status and identity, edited by Sharyn Jones O’Day, Wim Van Neer and Anton Ervynck (2003).

The books below were also listed in the Oxbow Books catalog, but were not ones I would purchase just yet. Sorely tempted by both of the books, but not by their prices. Yikes.

Horses and Humans: the Evolution of Human/Equine Relationships edited by Sandra L. Olsen, Susan Grant, Alice M. Choyke, and László Bartosiewicz (2000).

An Atlas for Celtic Studies: Archaeology and Names in Ancient Europe and Early Medieval Britain and Brittany by John T Koch, in collaboration with Raimund Karl, Antone Minard and Simon O’Faolain. ($100) An Atlas of Celtic Studies is a unique and comprehensive reference book that presents a huge amount of information on what is known about the Celts in Europe in the form of detailed maps. It combines thousands of Celtic place- and group names, as well as Celtic inscriptions and other mappable linguistic evidence.

While I was looking through books that have recently been published, I also checked the ones I have on the book case.

Early Riders: Beginnings of Mounted Warfare in Asia and Europe by Robert Drews (2004). “In this controversial study of when, where and why military riding first took place, Drew refutes and disproves claims that date back to c.4000 BC. Instead, he presents evidence that, even though accomplished riding was in existence much earlier, military riding did not take place until c.900 BC.” http://www.oxbowbooks.com/bookinfo.cfm/ID/40499

The Horse in the Ancient World by Ann Hyland (2003). Ann Hyland is best known for her studies of the horse in the Middle Ages but here she looks further back to the ancient world of Babylonia, Assyria, Persia, Egypt and Greece.

Equus: The Horse in the Roman World by Ann Hyland (1990). Published by Yale University Press.

Training the Roman Cavalry: Ars Tactica by Ann Hylander (1993). Published by Sutton Pub Ltd.

Plus about five other books on the Roman cavalry tactics, equipment, units and placement throughout the Roman empire.