Hoofprints in the yard: The discovery of bovid, caprid and (large) feline/canid tracks in an external courtyard from the early Iron Age of Tokwa, India

Abstract

Humans and animals have co-existed throughout our evolution, but evidence for this often comes in the form of death assemblages – animal bones. Evidence of the lived experience of animals in human spaces instead often has to come from secondary sources like stress marks on bone, imagery, artefacts and texts. In this paper we report evidence for animals exploring human habitation spaces in the form of hoof and paw prints left in wet plaster floors at the early Iron Age site of Tokwa, India. The tracks come from three separate animal groups – bovid, caprid and large feline/canid – and show presence at different moments in floor use through their presence in different plaster layers. This repeated use of a human habitation space, specifically outside courtyards, shows animals freely roaming through the area, and highlights not only biodiversity hidden from the site's zooarchaeological record, but also the intersection of multi-species lived experiences on a day-to-day basis that would otherwise not be visible over the millennia. © 2025