This book investigates relations between humans and animals over several centuries with a focus on the Middle Ages, since important features of our perceptions regarding animals have been rooted in that period. Elucidating various aspects of medieval human-animal relationships requires transdisciplinary discourse, and so this book aims to reconcile the materiality of animals with complex cultural systems illustrating their subtle transitions 'between body and mind'.

This book investigates relations between humans and animals over several centuries with a focus on the Middle Ages, since important features of our perceptions regarding animals have been rooted in that period. Elucidating various aspects of medieval human-animal relationships requires transdisciplinary discourse, and so this book aims to reconcile the materiality of animals with complex cultural systems illustrating their subtle transitions 'between body and mind'.

Animals have always been integral to culture. Their interaction with humans has intensified since the onset of domestication resulting in higher incidences of animal disease due to human intervention. At the same time, human care has counter-balanced pressures of natural selection, reducing morbidity among wild animals. Prior to the emergence of a veterinary record, animal disease can only be traced by analysing pathological symptoms on excavated animal remains. This volume presents a collection of studies in the discipline of animal palaeopathology. An international team of experts offer reviews of animal welfare at ancient settlements from both prehistoric and historic periods across Eurasia. Several chapters are devoted to the diseases of dog and horse, two animals of prominent emotional importance in many civilisations. Curious phenomena observed on the bones of poultry, sheep, pig and even fish are discussed within their respective cultural contexts. Many poorly healed bones are suggestive of neglect in the case of ordinary livestock. On the other hand, a great degree of compassion may be presumed behind the long survival of seriously ill companion animals. In addition to furthering our better technical understanding of animal disease in the past, this volume also mirrors the diversity of human attitudes towards animals during our millennia-long relationship. Some animal bones show signs of extreme cruelty but others also reveal the great attention paid to the recovery of sick animals. Such attitudes tend to be a largely hidden yet are characteristic aspects of how people relate to the surrounding world and, ultimately, to each other.

This volume constitutes the proceedings of the Horses and Humans Symposium, held in 2000 at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History Powdermill Nature Preserve, in Rector, Pennsylvania, USA, in honor of Mary Aiken Littauer. The four-day symposium brought together 35 academics from Eurasia and America from the disciplines of archaeology, art history, history, paleontology, biology, veterinary medicine, animal husbandry, and other fields for presented papers, round-table discussions, demonstrations and much lively debate in the evenings. The culmination was a one-day public event at the St. Clair Showgrounds called the Celebration of the Horse that involved a wide range of equestrian performances by over 50 horses and riders for a public audience of over 500. In addition to the production of this volume, the symposium introduced many equine scholars to each other and initiated both collaboration and communication amongst this active community.

Thirty-six papers, from the 2nd meeting of the (ICAZ) worked Bone Research Group held in Budapest in 1999, written by archaeologists and archaozoologists, report on material from North and Central America, Europe and South West Asia. The collection is divided into six thematic sections (general theory, raw material exploitation, manufacturing technology, function, social context and special assemblages) and include reports on bone materials, objects and tools that date from the Neolithic to the Viking and medieval periods.

A case study from Vac, Hungary. It is the author's ocntention that during the late Middle Ages, the contribution of animals to urban development intensified in Hungary since animal hubandry and trading became a major form of accumulating wealth. Through his archaeozoological survey of data he aims to provide illumination of aspects of urban lifeways in the city of Vac which may not be clear from previous examinations that have focused on other cultural data.

The analysis of animal bone assemblages from archaeological sites provides much valuable data concerning economic and husbandry practices in the past, as well as insights into cultural and symbolic or ritual activity. Animal palaeopathology can identify diseases in archaeozoological assemblages but little interest has been expressed in investigating and understanding the cultural aspects of the diseases identified. Such assemblages represent the cumulative effects of human attitudes, decisions and influences regarding the keeping, care, treatment, neglect and exploitation of animals which result in a range of conditions, non-infectious diseases and injuries that can be recognised on ancient skeletal material. Additionally, ever since the domestication of a handful of animal species around 10,000 years ago, close physical proximity has been a mutual source of infectious disease and traumatic injury for humans and animals alike. Shuffling Nags, Lame Ducks provides an invaluable guide to the investigation of trauma and disease in archaeozoological assemblages. It provides a clear methodological approach, and describes and explains the wide range of traumatic lesions, infections, diseases, inherited disorders and other pathological changes and anomalies that can be identified. In so doing, it explores the impact that "man-made" decisions have had on animals, including special aspects of culture that may be reflected in the treatment of diseased or injured animals often incorporating powerful symbolic or religious roles, and seeks to enhance our understanding of the relationship between man and beast in the past. Chapters include: * History of studying pathological animal remains * Differences between human and animal palaeopathology * Methodology * Growth, development and ageing * Traumatic lesions * Inflammatory diseases and bone * Pathological lesions in working animals * Diseases connected to the environment

Sixteen perspectives from archaeology, history and ethnology bring together recent research on the origins, development and eventual demise of transhumant pastoralism. All the papers except one were presented at a symposium during the 12th International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences at Zagreb, July 1988, and one of the ultimate aims of the collection is to present a series of testable models that can be used to help identify the signs of transhumant pastoral adaptation in the archaeological record, given the difficulty of establishing its presence and significance in the study of prehistoric cultural systems. Contributors: Anne-Marie Brisebarre; Frederick Baker; Laszlo Bartosiewicz; Tone Cevc; Ekaterini Chalkea; Claudia Chang; Eugen Comsa; Nikos Efstratiou; Herbert Grassl; Haskel J. Greenfield; Joel Martin Halpern; Marta Moreno Garcia; John G. Nandris; Michael L. Ryder; Jurij Senegacnik and Inja Smerdel.