Art by Paula Calle Lopez, Courtesy of Jamestown Rediscovery (Preservation Virginia).
Jamestown colonists brought donkeys, not just horses, to North America, old bones reveal
A new study published in Science Advances about centuries-old horse and donkey bones, unearthed in Jamestown, Virginia, is rewriting the story of how these animals first arrived in North America.
While written records from the earliest English explorers show that horses were among the animals brought to Virginia, the new zooarchaeological analysis of animal remains found at Jamestown is the first to show that colonists also brought donkeys to the New World.
The study also reveals a dark ending to these equids in the colony: The horses and donkeys were likely butchered and eaten during Jamestown’s infamous winter of starvation.
“There are no written records of donkeys on ship manifests and reports, yet evidence suggests they were valued as dependable work animals,” said John Krigbaum, Ph.D., professor and chair anthropology at the University of Florida. Krigbaum served as the senior author on this study alongside lead author William Taylor, Ph.D., at the University of Colorado Boulder.
