Departmental News

Posted:  Dec 02, 2014 - 09:13am

In his dissertation, William aims to clarify the role of the horse in the spread of mobile pastoralism into the Eastern Steppe. Using 3D scanning and study of modern horses, his project has developed new methods for the identification of horse riding and chariotry in the archaeological record. In his entry for the Open Zooarchaeology competition, William produced age and sex estimates for a sample of ancient horses from Mongolia’s late Bronze Age Deer Stone-Khirigsuur (DSK) culture (1300-700 BCE), and studied them for evidence of transport-related changes to skull. His results reveal ancient herd management practices, and point to the selection of adult male horses for use in transport and ritual. William’s work has been supported by the American Center for Mongolian Studies, the Frison Institute Patrick Mullen Award in Archaeological Science, the Society for Archaeological Sciences R.E. Taylor Award, and the ICAZ Stine Rossel Prize.