Warriors used hybrid super donkeys bred for battle before horses

By Stephen Beech via SWNS

Hybrid super DONKEYS were specifically bred to go into battle thousands of years before war horses, reveals new research.

The beasts - known as 'kungas' - were stronger and faster than normal donkeys - and much quicker than horses, say scientists who believe them to be the first-ever animal hybrids.

Texts and carvings from ancient Mesopotamia, dating back 4,500 years, show that the elite used pack animals for travel and warfare.

However, the nature of those animals remained mysterious until now.

French researchers used ancient DNA to show that the animals were the result of crossing domestic donkeys with wild asses.

They say it makes them the oldest known example of animal hybrids, which were produced by Syro-Mesopotamian societies 500 years before the arrival of domestic horses in the region.

Study co-author Doctor Eva-Maria Geigl, of The French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), said: "Equids have played a key role in the evolution of warfare throughout history.

"Although domesticated horses did not appear in the Fertile Crescent until about 4,000 years ago, the Sumerians had already been using equid-drawn four-wheeled war wagons on the battlefield for centuries, as evidenced by the famous 'Standard of Ur' - a 4,500-year-old Sumerian mosaic.

"Cuneiform clay tablets from this period also mention prestigious equids with a high market value called 'kunga'. However, the precise nature of this animal has been the subject of controversy for decades."

Palaeogeneticists addressed this question by studying the equid genomes from the 4,500-year-old princely burial complex of Umm el-Marra, in present-day northern Syria.

These animals, buried in separate installations, have been proposed to be the prestigious "kungas" by an American archaeozoologist.

Dr. Geigl said: "Although degraded, the genome of these animals could be compared to those of other equids: horses, domestic donkeys and wild asses of the hemione family, specially sequenced for this study.

"The latter includes the remains of an 11,000-year-old equid from the oldest known temple, Göbekli Tepe, south-east of present-day Turkey, and the last representatives of Syrian wild asses that disappeared in the early 20th Century.

"According to the analyses, the equids of Umm el-Marra are first-generation hybrids resulting from the cross of a domestic donkey and a male hemione.

"As kungas were sterile and the hemiones were wild, it was necessary each time to cross a domestic female with a previously captured hemione."

She added: "Rather than domesticating the wild horses that populated the region, the Sumerians produced and used hybrids, combining the qualities of the two parents to produce offspring that were stronger and faster than donkeys - and much faster than horses - but more controllable than hemiones.

"These kungas were eventually supplanted by the arrival of the domestic horse, which was easier to reproduce when it was imported to the region from the Pontic Steppe."

The findings were published in the journal Science Advances.