This Element explores the roles of animals in the Iron Age and Persian periods, times of major environmental, social, and political change. It examines how livestock and wild animals were managed, exchanged, and consumed across diverse communities, and how these practices reflected social organization, negotiated identities, and political authority. By integrating zooarchaeological evidence with historical context, the study shows that herding strategies were shaped by political economies and exchange, that identity and ritual were negotiated through dynamic foodways rather than fixed cultural markers, and that climate provided background conditions without determining human choices. Organized thematically around economy, culture, and environment, each examined diachronically from the Iron Age to the Persian period, and concluding with a long-term synthesis, this study demonstrates that human-animal relations were central to processes of decision-making, adaptation, and social change.

This Element explores the roles of animals in the Iron Age and Persian periods, times of major environmental, social, and political change. It examines how livestock and wild animals were managed, exchanged, and consumed across diverse communities, and how these practices reflected social organization, negotiated identities, and political authority. By integrating zooarchaeological evidence with historical context, the study shows that herding strategies were shaped by political economies and exchange, that identity and ritual were negotiated through dynamic foodways rather than fixed cultural markers, and that climate provided background conditions without determining human choices. Organized thematically around economy, culture, and environment, each examined diachronically from the Iron Age to the Persian period, and concluding with a long-term synthesis, this study demonstrates that human-animal relations were central to processes of decision-making, adaptation, and social change.