Applying habitat suitability modelling to establish the species identity of ambiguous animal depictions in archaeology: new insights into the wild bovids of ancient Egypt

For researchers studying wildlife distributions of the past, the assignment of faunal depictions and remains to species can often present considerable challenges. Regrettably, many studies do not systematically consider all options and sources of evidence and, as a result, questionable identifications are widespread in the literature, which compromises the trustworthiness of meta-analyses of human-animal interactions in an environmental context. Here we present a cross-disciplinary 3-step approach to species identification of ancient animal depictions and remains featuring habitat suitability modelling from the discipline of spatial ecology. By applying the protocol in a case study of selected images of wild bovids from Predynastic and Dynastic Egypt, we provide evidence that the zoogeographic origin of the faunal elements now locally extinct were in the Mediterranean and Sudanian bioregions without the need to invoke also the more distant Somalian and Zambezian bioregions as previously suggested. Such more moderate range shifts may primarily have promoted cultural exchange between Egypt and neighbouring communities in the Levant and Nubia, which is consistent with the archaeological evidence. The study highlights the potential of habitat suitability modelling to contribute to the identification of ambiguous species representations and faunal remains from the past, which in turn can allow testing of hypotheses on a wide range of central archaeological questions pertaining to introduction of animals and indigenous domestication, cultural exchange and trade, as well as human migration and dispersal. • A 3-step protocol aids species identification of ambiguous evidence in archaeology. • Hindcasting species-specific habitat suitability reveals likely misidentifications. • Wildlife species in ancient Egypt unlikely came from further than Sudan and the Levant.