Animating ancient trade routes through primate lifeways

The ancient trade of nonhuman primates is a topic at the intersection of Near Eastern archaeology, Egyptology, and primatology––three fields that rarely interact due to the nature of our disciplinary silos. Yet, there is great promise to working across these subdivisions of anthropology, of merging the study of primate lifeways and afterlives. New knowledge related to primate ecology and life history can inform our understanding of ancient trade networks, whereas archaeological findings and investigations can put new light on primate population structures and behaviors. Recent years have witnessed rapid advances in these topic areas, but always in isolation of the other, and progress of knowledge integration is slow.