Cattle to settle a€“ bull to rule: on bovine iconography among Late Neolithic Vin??a culture communities

摘要

Bovine iconography is one of the most important components for understanding social identities among Neolithic Vin??a culture communities. It is believed that both wild and domesticated cattle were introduced into Vin??a culture symbolic practice as one of the most powerful and profound metaphors of human perception of the world. I argue that the use of bovine iconography was socially structured, as was the maintenance of animals, and that the vast corpus of bovine iconography should be considered in terms of actual human-animal relationships.