202 NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 81.3 (2018) T he origin of domestic donkeys (Equus asinus dom.) appears to lie in northeastern Africa, somewhere in the region of Somalia, Sudan, and Ethiopia. They were domesticated from the Nubian ass (Equus asinus fer.) sometime early in fourth millennium b.c.e., or around the end of the Chalcolithic (Kimura et al. 2010; Milevski 2009: 251; Rossel et al. 2008). The donkey rapidly spread into Egypt where it was considered a valuable animal and incorporated into the royal grave goods during the First Dynasty (Rossel et al. 2008). Subsequently, domesticated donkeys spread across the southern Levant (as early as the Chalcolithic) and the rest of the Near East during the Early Bronze Age (Grigson 1993, 1995; Hesse and Wapnish 2002). Wherever domestic asses appeared, they set in motion chang- es to the nature of local cultures since they allowed for revolu- tions in the transportation of people and goods. Donkeys made it much easier and more cost efective to transport goods over great distances and difcult terrain, which resulted in enhanced intra- and interregional exchange of resources and the move- ment of people. New and enhanced short- and long-distance ex- change networks connected the ancient Near East to the regions surrounding it in Asia, Egypt, Anatolia, and elsewhere via the Mediterranean coastal ports (Atici 2014; Larsen 1967; Milevski 2011; Shai, Greenfeld, Brown et al. 2016). Abundant textual and iconographic evidence indicates that donkeys and other equids (e.g., onagers/hemiones or related crossbreeds in Mesopotamia) were used for plowing, threshing, and as draf animals by the early third millennium b.c.e. from Egypt to Mesopotamia (Jans and Bretschneider 1998; Littauer and Crouwel 2001; Partridge 1996; Zarins 1978, 1986, 2014). Tey were also used to pull the vehicles of the elites, to be ridden by them, and to be buried with them (Postgate 1986; Rossel et al. 2008; Zarins 1986). In addition, donkey burials are found scattered across the Near East. Most EB donkey burials are isolated interments in pits whose archaeological context is unclear (Vila 2005), while others may be buried in public contexts (Postgate 1986). In the southern Levant, a few burials have been excavated in recent years in EB Canaan, but their context is usually also unclear. In Site H (Nahal Besor), a donkey burial was found with little associated informa- tion (Horwitz et al. 2002: 110–11, fgs. 112–13; Milevski 2009: 263). At the edge of the EB IB settlement of Tell Lod, in an un- clear depositional context, an articulated and complete donkey burial was discovered in a pit with the cervical area of the verte- bral column broken, that is, just behind the cranium (Milevski 2009: fg. 23.22; Yannai 2008; Yannai and Marder 2001). A clear example of a donkey burial in a domestic residential context is found in the EB III stratum at Tell es-Sakan, in Gaza. A complete donkey (male, 6–9 years old) was buried within the walls of what is thought to have been an already abandoned house (de Miros- chedji et al. 2001: 97). In each of these cases, it is not clear if these donkeys were intentionally sacrifced. Finally, two young (9–12 months old) donkey skeletons were discovered below the foor of an EB house at Tell Azekah; they were placed immediately before the foor was laid down, tail to tail with heads and necks twisted to face each other. Teir pur- poseful and careful layout and depositional context suggests that both were sacrifced and interred as part of a single ritual event associated with the construction of the building (Sapir-Hen, Gadot, and Lipschits 2017). Te absence of butchering marks on any of the reported donkey burials (including those discussed here) suggests that meat consumption was not part of the ritual. Household Rituals and Sacrificial Donkeys Why Are There So Many Domestic Donkeys Buried in an Early Bronze Age Neighborhood at Tell es-Sâfi/Gath? Haskel J. Greenfield, Tina L. Greenfield, Itzhaq Shai, Shira Albaz, and Aren M. Maeir Aerial view of Tell es-Sâf/Gath, viewed from the east. This journal was published by the American Schools of Oriental Research and is available on the University of Chicago Press website at journals.uchicago.edu/nea. You can subscribe to NEA through UCP or an ASOR Membership. For more information, visit: http://www.asor.org/membership/individual-memberships/