For decades, historians believed horses did not reach Sicily until around the first millennium B.C.
But new research has overturned that assumption, showing that horses were present on the island much earlier—and that they were an important part of local diets and rituals during the early Bronze Age.
Davide Tanasi, a professor at the University of South Florida and director of the Institute for Digital Exploration, led the study, which was published in PLOS One.
His team’s findings provide the earliest evidence of horses in Bronze Age Sicily and prove that they were being consumed as food nearly 1,000 years earlier than previously thought.
“The horse was one of the most transformative animals in ancient civilizations, shaping mobility, warfare, hunting, agriculture, economy, and religion,” Tanasi explained.
“To prove that the indigenous people of Sicily had access to horses so early has enormous repercussions. It substantially changes our understanding of horse domestication, how horses were used, and their role in diet.”
The discovery not only reshapes views of animal history but also provides new insights into cultural practices in the central Mediterranean during the third millennium B.C. Tanasi’s team, which included USF anthropologist Robert Tykot and Enrico Greco from the Institute for the Advanced Study of Culture and the Environment, analyzed pottery fragments excavated in 2005 from a site near Polizzello mountain in Sicily.
At the time of excavation, archaeological science was not advanced enough to analyze the organic residues on the pottery.
So, although the team recovered footed vessels, pitchers, cups, and a large pedestal basin—objects often used in rituals—they could not determine exactly what they once contained.
Tanasi set the samples aside, turning to other projects, including his groundbreaking discoveries of prehistoric wine in Monte Kronio and traces of hallucinogens in a 2,000-year-old Egyptian cup.
Nearly two decades later, in 2024, Tanasi returned to the Sicilian pottery samples with new proteomic technologies available at his USF lab. These tools allowed him to analyze the microscopic organic residues preserved in the vessels.
The results were clear: many of the vessels carried a distinct biomolecular signature of horse products, including equine serum albumin, a blood protein unique to horses.
The evidence suggests that horse meat, perhaps prepared as a stew, was cooked and consumed during ritual feasts. The large basin may have been placed at the center of a communal gathering, where participants ladled portions into smaller bowls.
Ethnographic parallels indicate that such rituals could have involved prayer, chanting, and dancing. The team also discovered a terracotta phallus at the site, suggesting fertility rites may have been part of the ceremonies.
“This discovery means thousands of pages of history will need to be rewritten,” Tanasi said. “We’ve found the missing piece that proves horses were central to early Bronze Age Sicily much earlier than we ever imagined.”
