Prehistoric Steppe Adaptation and the Horse (McDonald Institute Monographs)

M C DONALD INSTITUTE MONOGRAPHS

Prehistoric steppe adaptation and the horse Edited by Marsha Levine, Colin Renfrew & Katie Boyle

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Published by: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research University of Cambridge Downing Street Cambridge CB2 3ER (0)(1223) 339336

Distributed by Oxbow Books United Kingdom: Oxbow Books, Park End Place, Oxford, OX1 1HN. Tel: (0)(1865) 241249; Fax: (0)(1865) 794449; http://www.oxbowbooks.com/ USA: The David Brown Book Company, P.O. Box 511, Oakville, CT 06779, USA. Tel: 860-945-9329; FAX: 860-945-9468

ISBN: 1-902937-09-0 ISSN: 1363-1349

© 2003 McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research

All rights reserved. No parts of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.

Edited for the Institute by Chris Scarre (Series Editor), Dora A. Kemp (Production Editor) and Katie Boyle (Conference Series Editor).

Cover illustration: Przewalski’s horse and a relief map of Eurasia highlighting the area of interest. (Shaded relief map of Eurasia by Maproom44 Ltd., Peterborough, Ontario, Canada.) Printed and bound by Short Run Press, Bittern Rd, Sowton Industrial Estate, Exeter, EX2 7LW.

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CONTENTS Contributors Figures Tables Acknowledgements

v vii xi xii

Chapter 1

Focusing on Central Eurasian Archaeology: East Meets West MARSHA LEVINE

Part I

Environment and Ecology

Chapter 2

Steppe and Forest-steppe Belt of Eurasia: Holocene Environmental History KONSTANTIN V. KREMENETSKI

Chapter 3

Green Grows the Steppe: How can Grassland Ecology Increase our Understanding of Human–Plant Interactions and the Origins of Agriculture MIM A. BOWER

Part II

Horse Exploitation on the Eurasian Steppe

Chapter 4

Organic Residue Analysis of Lipids in Potsherds from the Early Neolithic Settlement of Botai, Kazakhstan STEPHANIE N. DUDD, RICHARD P. EVERSHED & MARSHA LEVINE

1

11

29

45

Chapter 5

Eneolithic Horse Rituals and Riding in the Steppes: New Evidence DAVID W. ANTHONY & DORCUS R. BROWN

55

Chapter 6

Horse Exploitation in the Kazakh Steppes during the Eneolithic and Bronze Age NORBERT BENECKE & ANGELA VON DEN DRIESCH

69

Chapter 7

The Exploitation of Horses at Botai, Kazakhstan SANDRA L. OLSEN

83

Chapter 8

Geomorphological and Micromorphological Investigations of Palaeosols, Valley Sediments and a Sunken-floored Dwelling at Botai, Kazakhstan CHARLY FRENCH & MARIA KOUSOULAKOU

Chapter 9

A Note on the Early Evidence for Horse in Western Asia JOAN OATES Were the Donkeys at Tell Brak (Syria) Harnessed with a Bit? JULIET CLUTTON-BROCK

Chapter 10 Equids in the Northern Part of the Iranian Central Plateau from the Neolithic to Iron Age: New Zoogeographic Evidence MARJAN MASHKOUR

105 115 126

129

Chapter 11 A Walk on the Wild Side: Late Shang Appropriation of Horses in China KATHRYN M. LINDUFF

139

Chapter 12 The Horse in Late Prehistoric China: Wresting Culture and Control from the ‘Barbarians’ VICTOR H. MAIR

163

Chapter 13 Horseback Riding: Man’s Access to Speed? UTE LUISE DIETZ

189

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Part III Subsistence and the Origins of Pastoralism Chapter 14 Origins of Pastoralism in the Eurasian Steppes ELENA E. KUZMINA

203

Chapter 15 The Horse and the Wheel: the Dialectics of Change in the Circum-Pontic Region and Adjacent Areas, 4500–1500 BC ANDREW SHERRATT

233

Chapter 16 The Importance of Fish in the Diet of Central Eurasian Peoples from the Mesolithic to the Early Iron Age TAMSIN O’CONNELL, MARSHA LEVINE & ROBERT HEDGES

253

Chapter 17 Correlations between Agriculture and Pastoralism in the Northern Pontic Steppe Area during the Bronze Age KATERYNA P. BUNYATYAN

269

Chapter 18 Palaeoethnobotanical Evidence of Agriculture in the Steppe and the Forest-steppe of East Europe in the Late Neolithic and Bronze Age GALINA PASHKEVICH

287

Chapter 19 First Cattle-breeders of the Azov-Pontic Steppes VOLODYMYR N. STANKO

299

Chapter 20 Farmers and Pastoralists of the Pontic Lowland during the Late Bronze Age YAKOV P. GERSHKOVICH

307

Chapter 21 The Economic Peculiarities of the Srubnaya Cultural-historical Entity VITALIY V. OTROSHCHENKO

319

Chapter 22 Srubnaya Fauna and Beyond: a Critical Assessment of the Archaezoological Information from the East European Steppe ARTURO MORALES MUÑIZ & EKATERINA ANTIPINA Chapter 23 Yamnaya Culture Pastoral Exploitation: a Local Sequence NATALIA I. SHISHLINA Chapter 24 Problems of Inhabiting Central Eurasia: Mesolithic–Eneolithic Exploitation of the Central Eurasian Steppes GERALD MATYUSHIN

329 353

367

Chapter 25 The Steppes of the Urals and Kazakhstan during the Late Bronze Age SVETLANA ZDANOVICH

395

Index

405

COMPILED BY DORA KEMP & ALEXANDRA HEMMING

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CONTRIBUTORS DAVID W. ANTHONY Anthropology Department, Hartwick College, Oneonta, NY 13820, USA. Email: [email protected]

CHARLY FRENCH Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge, CB2 3DZ, UK. Email: [email protected]

EKATERINA ANTIPINA Laboratory of Archaeology, Academy of Sciences of Russia, 117036 Moscow, Russia.

YAKOV P. GERSHKOVICH Institute of Archaeology, Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Pr Geroew Stalingrada 12, 254655 Kiev 210, Ukraine. Email: [email protected]

NORBERT BENECKE Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, EurasienAbteilung, Im Dol 2-6, D-14195 Berlin. Email: [email protected]

ROBERT HEDGES Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, University of Oxford, 6 Keble Road, Oxford, OX1 3QJ, UK. Email: [email protected]

MIM A. BOWER Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge, CB2 3DZ, UK. Email: [email protected]

MARIA KOUSOULAKOU Associate Member, Fitch Laboratory, British School at Athens, 52 Soudias St, Athens 106 76, Greece. Email: [email protected]

DORCUS R. BROWN Anthropology Department, Hartwick College, Oneonta, NY 13820, USA. Email: [email protected]

KONSTANTIN V. KREMENETSKI Institute of Geography, Russian Academy of Sciences, Staromonetny lane 29, Moscow 109017, Russia. Email: [email protected]

KATERYNA P. BUNYATYAN Institute of Archaeology of Ukrainian National Academy of Sciences, Av. Geroyev Stalingrada,12, UA-254655 Kiev-210, Ukraine. Email: [email protected]

ELENA E. KUZMINA Academy of Science, 20 Bersenevskaya Nab., Moscow 109072, Russia. Email: [email protected]

JULIET CLUTTON-BROCK Department of Zoology, The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London, SW7 5BD, UK. Email: [email protected]

MARSHA LEVINE McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge, CB2 3ER, UK. Email: [email protected]

UTE LUISE DIETZ Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität, Seminar für Ur- und Frühgeschichte, Domplatz 20-22, D-48143 Münster, Germany. Email: [email protected]

KATHRYN M. LINDUFF University of Pittsburgh, 104 Frick Arts Building, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, USA. Email: [email protected]

STEPHANIE N. DUDD School of Chemistry, Cantock’s Close, Bristol, BS8 1TS, UK.

VICTOR H. MAIR Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Suite 200, Room 209, 3701 Market Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104-5502, USA. Email: [email protected]

RICHARD P. EVERSHED School of Chemistry, University of Bristol, Cantock’s Close, Bristol, BS8 1TS, UK. Email: [email protected] v

Contributors Figures

MARJAN MASHKOUR CNRS/MNHN-ESA 8045 ‘Archéozoologie et histoire des sociétés’, Laboratoire d’Anatomie Comprée, 55, rue Buffon, 75005 F- Paris, France. Email: [email protected]

GALINA PASHKEVICH Institute Archaeologii NAN Ukraine, Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, ul. Geroew Stalingrada 12, 254655 Kiev - 210, Ukraine. Email: [email protected]

GERALD MATYUSHIN † Moscow University, Building L, Apt 11, Lengory, MGU, Moscow 117234, Russia.

ANDREW SHERRATT Department of Antiquities, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford OX1 2PH, UK. Email: [email protected]

ARTURO MORALES MUÑIZ Laboratorio de Arqueozoología, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, E-28049 Madrid, Spain. Email: [email protected]

NATALIA I. SHISHLINA State Historical Museum, 1–2 Red Square, Moscow 103012, Russia. Email: [email protected]

JOAN OATES McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge, CB2 3ER, UK.

VOLODYMYR N. STANKO Moscow University, Building L, Apt 11, Lengory, MGU, Moscow 117234, Russia. Email: [email protected]

TAMSIN O’CONNELL Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, University of Oxford, 6 Keble Road, Oxford, OX1 3QJ, UK. Email: [email protected]

ANGELA VON DEN DRIESCH Institut für Paläoanatomie und Geschichte der Tiermedizin, Kaulbachstraße 37, D-80539 Münich, Germany. Email: [email protected]

SANDRA L. OLSEN Associate Curator, Section of Anthropology, Carnegie Museum of Natural History, 5800 Baum Blvd, Pittsburgh, PA 15206-3706, USA. Email: [email protected]

SVETLANA ZDANOVICH ‘Arkaim’ Centre, General Post-Office P/O 283, Cheliabinsk 454899, Russia. Email: [email protected]

VITALIY V. OTROSHCHENKO Institute of Archaeology of Urkainian National Academy of Sciences, Av. Geroyev Stalingrada, 12, UA-04655 Kiev-210, Ukraine. Email: [email protected]

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Figures

Figures 1.1. 1.2. 1.3. 1.4. 2.1. 2.2. 2.3. 2.4. 2.5. 2.6. 2.7. 2.8. 2.9. 2.10. 3.1. 3.2. 3.3. 3.4. 3.5. 4.1. 4.2. 4.3. 4.4. 4.5. 4.6. 4.7. 4.8. 5.1. 5.2. 5.3. 5.4. 5.5. 5.6. 6.1. 6.2. 6.3. 6.4. 6.5. 6.6. 6.7. 6.8. 7.1. 7.2. 7.3. 7.4. 7.5. 7.6. 7.7. 7.8. 7.9. 7.10.

Dereivka age structure. Botai age structure. Age structure of a modern Kazakh horse herd. Pooled Palaeolithic sites age distribution. Location of the Black Sea–Kazakhstan steppe region. Orgeev. Percentage pollen diagram plotted against calibrated age. Kardashinskoe. Percentage pollen diagram plotted against calibrated age. Percentage pollen diagram of Razdorskoe settlement. Lipigi. Percentage pollen diagram plotted against calibrated age. Buzuluk. Percentage terrestrial pollen diagram plotted against calibrated age. Mokhovoe. Percentage pollen diagram plotted against calibrated age. Pashennoe. Percentage pollen diagram plotted against calibrated age. Ozerki. Percentage terrestrial pollen diagram plotted against calibrated age. Human impact on pine Pinus sylvestris L. forests in the steppe belt at the Bronze Age A breckland type ruderal weed community. The grassland ecotope which covers a large part of the Eurasian continent. The modern-day spread of wild cereals within the grassland ecotope is limited. Human–plant interactions include cultivation and domestication. Human interaction with the environment mapped in terms of changes in tree species. Location map showing the Eneolithic settlement of Botai, Kokchetau Oblast in northern Kazakhstan. Site plan of Botai. Plan of the polygonal ‘dwellings’ excavated at Botai. Graph showing the age stucture of the horses from Botai. Examples of typical ceramic vessel forms and decorations. Location of the excavations from which the sherds were recovered. Partial high temperature gas chromatogram of the total lipid extract from potsherd N26. Carbon number distributions of triacylglycerols in total lipid extracts of Eneolithic potsherds. Late Neolithic and Eneolithic sites in the steppes. The Khvalynsk I cemetery with above-grave ritual deposits. Graves 91 and 90, covered by Ritual Deposit 4, with cattle, sheep, and horse bones. Horse figurines made from carved bone, dated 5200–4500 BC. Wear facets or bevels on the mesial (front) edge of horse second lower premolars. The effects of horseback riding on American Indian cultures in the North American plains. Floor plain of the chariot grave at Krivoe Ozero. Composition of selected faunal assemblages from North and Central Kazakhstan. Skeletal element representation of the horse bone assemblages from two sites of Botai. Age structure of the Botai horses according to epiphyseal fusion of postcranial elements on sites 32 and 33. Age structure of the Botai horses from the sites 31–3 according to tooth wear on the incisors. Sex ratio of the Botai horses (sites 31–3) and the Krasnyi Yar horses identified on jaw bones and pelves. Size comparison between horses from Central Europe, East Europe and North Kazakhstan. Size comparison between Eneolithic–Early Bronze Age horses and Middle–Late Bronze Age horses. Map of Kazakhstan locating Botai culture sites. Midden excavated at the site of Botai containing large quantities of horse remains. Wound in horse rib showing a) entry and b) opposite side with deformation and fracture of the bone. Horse cranium with circular depressed fracture in maxilla, possibly from pole-axing. Articulated thoracic vertebrae in situ in midden at Botai. Locations of cut-marks on Botai horse. Fore and hind metapodials and phalanges are combined here. Locations of chopping-marks on Botai horse. Fore and hind metapodials and phalanges are combined here. Major marrow-yielding bones. Sectioned bones with no indication of impact or chopping-marks. a) Incised proximal phalanx; b) bone harpoon. vii

2 2 3 3 12 13 14 16 18 19 20 21 22 24 30 31 32 33 38 45 46 47 48 48 49 50 50 59 60 61 62 64 65 69 73 74 75 75 76 77 80 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 91

Figures

7.11. 7.12. 7.13. 7.14. 7.15. 7.16. 8.1. 8.2. 8.3. 8.4. 8.5. 8.6. 8.7. 9.1. 9.2. 9.3. 9.4. 9.5. 9.6. 9.7. 9.8. 9.9. 9.10. 9.11. 9.12. 9.13. 9.14. 10.1. 10.2. 10.3. 10.4. 10.5. 11.1. 11.2. 11.3. 11.4. 11.5. 11.6. 11.7. 11.8. 11.9. 11.10. 11.11. 11.12. 11.13. 12.1. 12.2. 12.3. 12.4. 12.5. 12.6. 12.7. 12.8.

Artefact raw materials at Botai. Fore and hind metapodials and phalanges are combined here. Harpoons with tip damage and shaft fractures. Thong-smoother made on a horse mandible. Arrow shows where use polish was located. Scanning electron photographs of thong-smoother. Dog burial in extramural pit outside House 139 with cache of horse bones on the west side. Dog skull resting on horse skull in midden. Location map of Botai in Kazakhstan. General plan of the Eneolithic settlement at Botai. Cross-section of excavation site 32 through the sunken-floored dwelling. Excremental/pellety fabric indicative of turf (plane-polarized light: frame width = 4.5 mm) B horizon fabric containing abundant illuvial clay and silty clay indicative of brown soil development. Micritic, very fine sandy clay loam fabric exhibiting fine planar voids in horizontal orientation. Degraded plant and bone remains, partially replaced by amorphous iron in phosphatized fabric. Seal impression rolled on a large jar shoulder, depicting a four-wheeled vehicle drawn by four equids. Seal impressions from Tell Brak (ancient Nagar) and nearby Tell Beydar (Nabada). Early Akkadian seal impression depicting an equid with rider. Modern impression of serpentine cylinder seal showing a ‘contest scene’. Sealing on tablets of SÙu-Sin (2037–2039 BC) from Ur, showing a rider astride (?) an equid. a) Donkey and rider figurine, Tell Selenkahiye (Syria). b) Seal impression from Kültepe Karum II. Early second-millennium clay plaque showing a horse, identified by his mane and tail. Detail from a seal impression from Kültepe (Karum Kanesh II, c. 1950–1850 BC). Detail from a seal impression from Kültepe, eighteenth/seventeenth century BC, perhaps a hunting scene. a) Detail of stone relief of Assur-nasir-pal II from Nimrud; b) seventh-century BC Assurbanipal relief. Notching on the incisor teeth, probably caused by chewing wood. Bony outgrowths on the top of the neural spines probably caused by heavy loading on the spine. Unnatural wear on the first upper right cheek tooth (premolar 2). Three views of the lower right second premolar to show the green staining in the tooth. Geographical location of Qazvin Plain prehistoric sites marked by black squares. Scatter diagram for upper cheek teeth. Scatter diagram for Humerus. Scatter diagram for Calcaneus. Log Ratio Diagram for third Metacarpal. Jade horses from the Tomb of Lady Hao at Yinxu, Anyang, Henan province. Bronzes from M1, Jingjiecun, Shanxi province. Chariot burial of Tomb 175, Dasikong, Anyang, Henan province. Bronze objects associated with horses in burials. Distribution of horse remains in Neolithic China (4000–1500 BC). Copper objects from the Qijia culture. Metal earrings from China and Siberia. Bronze ornaments, Siba culture, from Huoshaogou, Yumen, Gansu. Bronze spatulas (bishou), Siba culture, from Huoshaogou, Yumen, Gansu. Distribution of Chinese sites of late Shang date (c. 1250–1050 BC) with evidence of horses. Sites with horse remains in Anyang, late Shang period. Bronze tools and weapons, Siba culture, from Huoshaogou, Yumen, Gansu. Bronzes of Northern Zone-type unearthed from the Fuhao tomb and their northern counterparts. Map showing archaeological sites in China mentioned in the text. Magnificent, exquisitely wrought bronze halberd showing a bearded, tattooed, cattle-herding Europoid. The first evidence for horseback riding in East Asia. a) Use of the horse-drawn chariot for hunting; b) ancient horseriding hunters in Southwest Asia. Bronze and a gold belt buckle showing mounted warriors on the borders of China in the Western Han. Bronze plaque showing a cavalryman with sword drawn against an enemy. Xichagou. Horseriding in the heartland of China. Scene on a bronze mirror found at Loyang The first concrete evidence for spoked wheels in East Asia. viii

92 93 93 94 99 100 105 106 108 109 109 111 113 115 116 118 118 118 119 119 121 121 122 126 126 127 127 130 132 134 134 135 139 139 140 141 144 146 146 146 147 149 153 154 154 167 169 170 171 171 172 172 173

Figures

13.1. 13.2. 13.3. 13.4. 13.5. 13.6. 13.7. 13.8. 14.1. 14.2. 14.3. 14.4. 14.5. 14.6. 14.7. 14.8. 14.9. 14.10. 14.11. 14.12. 14.13. 14.14. 14.15. 15.1. 16.1. 16.2. 16.3. 16.4. 16.5. 16.6. 16.7. 16.8. 16.9. 16.10. 16.11. 17.1. 17.2. 17.3. 17.4. 17.5. 17.6. 17.7. 18.1. 18.2. 20.1. 20.2. 20.3. 20.4. 21.1. 21.2. 21.3. 22.1. 22.2.

Modern snaffle bit made of a copper alloy with traces of horse teeth. Double-pointed antler tool of the Ostorf type from Tangermünde, Kr. Stendal, Germany. Bone plate of the Sabatinovka type. Copper wire loop of the Maikop type from Maikop. Antler tine of the Dereivka type with two openings from Dereivka, r. Onufrievka, o. Kirovograd, Ukraine. Antler tine of the Dereivka type with cutting marks on the end from Dereivka. Reconstruction of a Late Bronze Age headstall with its specific simple structure. Bitless bridles with rigid noseband. Hobble bones of a horse with incision from Varfolomeyevskaya. Depiction of horse and ox in the area of Volga and the Urals. Stone zoomorphous sceptres. Depiction of horse in the area of Volga and the Urals. Moulds from Lyavlyakan, casts. Pottery and metal artefacts of the cemetery and settlement Zaman-Baba. Pottery of Tanabergen cemetery, kurgan 7. Pottery of Tanabergen cemetery, kurgan 7. Complex of artefacts of Tanabergen cemetery, kurgan 7. Cheek-pieces. Map of the distribution of disc-shaped cheek-pieces with tenons. Complex of Zardcha-Khalifa burial. Horse depictions from Zardcha-Khalifa and their analogies. Cheek-pieces from Zardcha-Khalifa and their analogies. Vessels from the settlement Tugay. Detail of the scarf-joint on one of the large, multi-spoked, bentwood wheels of the carriage from Pazyryk. Human and animal isotopic results from this study. Botai trepanned skull. Ak-Alakha 3, kurgan 1, woman in a wig. Map showing locations of all central Eurasian sites mentioned. Map showing locations of Ukraine sites. Map showing locations of Kazakh sites. Eurasian human and animal isotopic values by time period. The Iman-Burluk river at Botai. Fish hooks and tools. Fish pictures. Possible dietary compositions consistent with isotopic modelling. The earliest Kurgan burial. Town Ordzhonikidze of Dnipropetrovsk district: 1) ochre. The earliest Kurgan burial. Town Ordzhonikidze of Dnipropetrovsk district: 1) bone. Yamnaya culture burial. Town Ordzhonikidze of Dnipropetrovsk district. Catacomb culture burial. Town Ordzhonikidze of Dnipropetrovsk district. Catacomb culture burial. Town Ordzhonikidze of Dnipropetrovsk district. Mnogovalikova culture burial. Town Ordzhonikidze of Dnipropetrovsk district. Mnogovalikova culture burial. Town Ordzhonikidze of Dnipropetrovsk district. Linear pottery spectrum. Composition of cultivated plants in Sabatinovka culture. Map showing Sabatinovka culture settlements and temporary stations from the Northern Pontic area. Correlation of individuals of domestic mammals and camels from the sites of the second millennium BC. Total number of the animals from the northern part (‘manor’) of the Novokievka settlement. Total number of the animals from the southern part (‘manor’) of the Novokievka settlement. Diffusion of cultures of Srubnaya entity. Periods of development of Pokrovskaya Srubnaya culture. Periods of development of the Berezhnovsko-Mayivskaya Srubnaya culture. The East European Steppe zone. Faunal spectra for the main domestic stocks from Srubnaya culture sites of the East European Steppe. ix

193 194 195 195 195 195 196 196 210 210 211 212 215 216 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 245 255 256 257 259 260 260 261 261 263 264 266 272 273 275 277 278 280 281 289 292 308 312 313 313 320 322 324 338 339

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22.3. 22.4. 22.5. 22.6. 22.7. 22.8. 22.9. 23.1. 23.2. 23.3. 23.4. 23.5. 23.6. 23.7. 24.1. 24.2. 24.3. 24.4. 24.5. 24.6. 24.7. 24.8. 24.9. 24.10. 24.11. 24.12. 24.13. 24.14. 25.1. 25.2. 25.3. 25.4. 25.5. 25.6. 25.7.

Faunal spectra for the main domestic stocks from Abashevo culture sites of the East European Steppe. Faunal spectra for the main domestic stocks from Kazan culture sites. Cohort frequencies of cattle for selected sites. Cohort frequencies of ovicaprines for selected sites. Cohort frequencies of horse for selected sites Cohort frequencies of pig for selected sites. Fracturation patterns of cattle metatarsals from Gorny. Kalmykia steppe environment. Horses breaking snow in search of fodder (Kalmykia, January 2000). Kalmykia steppe winter environment: tall grasses (reed) stand high over the surface snow cover. Kalmykia main Yamnaya culture sites and the neighbouring territories. Kalmykia. Yamnaya culture sites. Localization of the Yamnaya culture sites. A modern Kalmyk shepherd on a horse, summer 1999. The main sites and settlements of the southern Urals. The spread of geometrical microliths (village farming). Microliths of a) the Iran Belt, and b) the southern Urals (Yangelkaskaya culture). Davlekanovo man: a) burial; b & c) reconstruction. Disposition of the multi-layered settlement Mullino in a water meadow, river Ik. Excavations at Mullino: a) section showing layers; b) cultural sequence from Mullino artefacts. Appearance of domesticates in the Near East, Central Asia, and the southern Urals. Location of Stone Age sites by the lakes of the eastern Urals. Surtanda and Botai-Tersek sites. Pottery of the Surtanda lakeland and steppe region. The spread of Surtanda culture. Fluctuation in the altitude of sites and settlements in the Mesolithic–Eneolithic period. The correspondence between the fluctuations of sea-level, temperature of the atmosphere, and vegetation. Cultural developments related to the climatic changes of the Holocene. Map of Roller pottery cultures. The borders of Sargary culture are outlined by the author. Sargary settlement. Reconstruction of a Sargary dwelling. Metallic articles of the Sargary culture. Stone implements of the Sargary culture. Pottery from the settlement of Sargary. Pottery from the settlement of Sargary.

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339 339 341 341 342 342 345 356 357 357 358 359 361 362 368 369 370 371 374 375 379 383 384 385 386 389 389 390 396 397 398 399 399 400 400

Tables Figures

Tables 1.1. 4.1. 4.2. 5.1. 5.2. 6.1. 6.2. 6.3. 6.4. 8.1. 8.2. 10.1. 10.2. 10.3. 10.4. 10.5. 11.1. 11.2. 14.1. 14.2. 16.1. 16.2. 18.1. 18.2. 18.3. 18.4. 18.5. 18.6. 18.7. 18.8. 22.1. 22.2. 22.3. 22.4. 22.5. 24.1. 24.2. 24.3. 25.1. 25.2.

Dereivka and Molukhov Bugor taxon list according to Bibikova. Summary of lipid content and components present in solvent-soluble residues from Botai potsherds. δ13C values1 (‰) for fatty acids in lipid extracts. Radiocarbon dates from selected steppe sites. Bevel measurements on the P2s of bitted and never-bitted mature (>3 yrs) horses.3 Selected late prehistoric faunal assemblages from Northern and Central Kazakhstan. New radiocarbon dates from Botai. Composition of selected faunal assemblages from Northern and Central Kazakhstan. Statistical parameters of LSI-distributions in Figures 6.7 and 6.8. Summary of the field descriptions of the sampled profiles. The summary description of the buried soil profiles and excavation 32 sequence. New radiocarbon dates for the Qazvin Plain. Measurements for some of the Qazvin plain upper cheek teeth in (mm). Measurements for humerus in (mm). Measurements for Calcaneus in (mm). Measurement for third metacarpal from Qabrestan (in mm). Neolithic sites in China with reported remains of horses (c. 4000–1500 BC). Sites in China of Late Shang date (c. 1250–1050 BC) with evidence of horses. Absolute and percentage faunal species composition at Ivanovka. Species composition of hoofed animals of Tersek culture. List of samples analyzed and their isotopic results. Isotopic values of all samples discussed, listed by time period. Plant composition from sites of the Bug–Dnestr culture. Plant composition from the sites of Linear pottery. Plant composition from the sites of Volunskaya culture. Plant composition from sites of the Dnepr–Donets culture. Plant composition from the Eneolithic sites. Plant composition from sites of the Bronze Age. Plant composition from the sites of Sabatinovka culture. Plant composition from the sites of the Sabatinovka culture. Archaeological signatures of nomad and sedentary bone assemblages. Late Bronze Age (LBA) faunas from the Azov (2), Orenburg (4) and West Caspian (3) steppe zones. Age ranges, expressed in years, for the conventional cohorts of domestic mammals. Wild mammals from the four steppe zones under consideration. Number of manufactured items, rough drafts and residues and bone types for bone tools at Gorny. Animal remains of the Eneolithic and Neolithic in the South Urals and Central Aisa. Percentage of fauna remains at Neolithic and Eneolithic sites in eastern Urals. Comparisons between settlement, economic and artefact data for the Surtanda and Agidel cultures The correlation of species of domestic animals on single-layer Late Bronze Age settlements. Species composition of the domestic animals based on material of the Developed and Late Bronze Age.

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6 49 51 56 63 70 71 72 77 107 108 130 133 135 135 135 143 150 207 213 254 262 288 289 289 290 292 293 294 294 332 337 338 343 344 372 377 380 401 403

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Acknowledgements

T

he editors would like to thank the British Academy, the Sloan Foundation, the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research and the Soros Foundation for financially supporting the conference ‘Late Prehistoric Exploitation of the Eurasian Steppe’ in January 2000 and particularly the delegates from the CIS. Thanks are also due to Sarah Wright who translated much of the first steppe volume Late Prehistoric Exploitation of the Eurasian Steppe (1999). This acted as a pre-conference volume and formed the stimulus for the symposium from which the papers in the current and its companion volume (Ancient Interactions: East and West in Eurasia) result. In addition the conference organizers would like to thank Irina Matyushina for translating from Russian at the conference — not only for her father but also for gallantly stepping into the breach and helping in interpretation for other Russian-speaking delegates; similarly, Denis Semenov acted as interpreter for Professor Gennady Zdanovich and Dr Svetlana Zdanovich during the conference, and for this we are duly grateful. We are also grateful to Mei Jianjun for looking after Li Shuicheng during the four-day meeting. No meeting such as that held in Cambridge can take place without the help of others during the

months beforehand. We should therefore like to thank Ludmila Koryakova and Yuri Rassamakin for taking financial support to their colleagues from Cambridge to Russia and the Ukraine; Patricia Salazar and Anne Threlkeld for their organizational help during the run-up to the conference; Fraser Sturt, Matthew Brundell and Kevin Lane for invaluable help throughout the meeting; and Victor Paz, who will be sorely missed from Cambridge, coped gallantly with the audio-visual equipment away from the McDonald Institute. The editors would also like to thank Dora Kemp, the series Production Editor, for tackling a particularly challenging set of papers — challenging in content, presentation and format; Jakov Gershkovich for frequently acting as a go-between between the editors and production team in the UK and his Ukrainian colleagues; and two referees whose valuable opinions were welcomed. Many of these opinions were acted upon by both the editors and authors. Finally, Marsha Levine and Katie Boyle would particularly like to thank David Redhouse for the time spent and effort expended late into the evening helping them to produce a massive formatted printout of pre-conference circulation papers, without which neither the conference nor the subsequent publications would have been possible.

xii

East Meets West

Chapter 1 Focusing on Central Eurasian Archaeology: East Meets West Marsha Levine I

t is probably reasonable to suggest that east and west were never so far apart as they were when divided by the Iron Curtain. The Curtain has been torn away and now we can get down to business, working together and learning from one another. With participants from England, Ireland, Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, China, the United States, Germany, France, Spain and Italy, the symposium, ‘Late Prehistoric Exploitation of the Eurasian Steppe’, upon which this volume is based, took up that challenge. Perhaps the most significant achievements of the symposium were: to bring into focus various points of view on Central Eurasian archaeology; to highlight the gaps in our knowledge; and to illustrate the differences in approach used by various scholars — differences which are at least partly related to the academic traditions to which they belong. Most importantly, the symposium makes explicit the obvious advantages of working together in collaborative projects — in the field, in laboratories and at meetings such as this — where differing points of view can be aired and debated. Of the many important issues that were discussed, from my own point of view, the following are of particular interest: 1. the origins of horse domestication: its social, historical and ecological context; 2. the evolution of horse husbandry: the development of riding tack, harnessing and vehicles; the development and dissemination of riding and driving skills; 3. the impact of the horse upon societies to which it was introduced as a domestic animal: for example, changes in demography, settlement size and distribution, trade (distance, intensity, goods), social and political relations and warfare; 4. the development of pastoral nomadism: the political context in which it evolved has long been explored, but more fundamental questions concerning its origins still remain unanswered.

Standing in the way of resolving these questions are practical problems, including: 1. the need to develop methodologies for identifying early horse domestication; 2. understanding the exploitation of other taxa; 3. understanding the relationship of wild to domestic taxa; 4. assessing the importance of plant foods; 5. recognizing the importance of freshwater resources, especially fish; 6. absolute dating of Central Eurasian sites to allow the research focus to move from chronology and typology to understanding human behaviour; 7. defining such concepts as pastoralism and nomadism — particularly in the archaeological context; 8. development of methodologies for identifying pastoralism and nomadism in the archaeological record; 9. development of models to help us interpret changes in site occupation. Central Eurasian settlement change is most usually explained by climatic change or environmental degradation resulting from population growth, but such assertions are rarely supported by evidence; 10. the development of models which will help us to understand the causes of demographic change. Scholars are often polarized into either those who explain everything or those who explain nothing by migration. There are many possible explanations for culture change and some do indeed involve migration of either large or small numbers of people. Identifying such phenomena in the archaeological record is a real challenge. Each of these problems could be tackled using a variety of approaches. Our best chance for progress would be to attack from as many directions as feasible. Co-operative and collaborative interdisciplinary research is the strategy most likely to yield results. It is clear from the symposium that many such projects are in hand. One of the great advantages of such 1

Chapter 1

25

25

% unadjusted

Der% unadjusted Der% adjusted

20

%

% adjusted

20

15

%

15

10

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5

5 0

0 0

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0

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Age in years

Age in years

Figure 1.1. Dereivka (Der) age structure.

Figure 1.2. Botai age structure.

meetings is that they enable researchers to develop further fruitful alliances. It is not necessary here to reiterate arguments already put forward in Levine (1999a). Rather it makes more sense, on the one hand, to clarify a few points which have apparently been misunderstood and, on the other, to highlight other issues which have not yet received sufficient attention.

been herded on foot. I also believe that it is quite impossible for hunters to manage — in terms of controlling their movements — wild horse herds, especially if they were accustomed to being hunted. Various explorers have described how wary even feral horses are of humans. Catlin stated that: ‘they will generally run “at the sight”, when they are a mile distant; being, no doubt, able to distinguish the character of the enemy that is approaching when at that distance’ (Catlin 1841, 57). J. Clutton-Brock (pers. comm.) wisely cautions against direct analogies between the responses of animals used to being hunted with firearms and those which are not. On the African savanna ungulates and their predators can be found in close proximity. Fleeing as soon as their predators appeared would be too disruptive of preyfeeding behaviour. Schaller demonstrates how prey species minimize disruption to crucial activity patterns by carefully observing their predator’s behaviour and by fine-tuning their response to the perceived threat:

Horse domestication In response to some comments, criticisms and observations addressed to me in connection with my symposium contribution and with the preceding paper (Levine 1999a), I would like to offer some thoughts. First of all I would like to reaffirm my belief that we do not know when or where the horse was first domesticated either for food or for riding. Clearly the earliest domestication must have taken place prior to the earliest chariot burials, that is, before the beginning of the second millennium BC (Levine 1999b). Logic dictates that the horse was most probably ridden before being used for traction, but there really is no evidence to prove this (Levine 1999b). The role of the pack-horse and its identification in the archaeological record is another problem which needs to be addressed. I do not believe that the horse was first domesticated for its flesh and other carcass by-products. The population structures of the assemblages from Dereivka (Fig. 1.1) and Botai (Fig. 1.2) are very unlike those resulting from herding for meat production (Fig. 1.3), but fit very well those resulting from hunting (Fig. 1.4) (for further details see Levine 1999b).

. . . zebra may permit wild dog and cheetah to approach to within 20 m or less without fleeing whereas a lion is usually avoided at 40 m. If, however, the herd contains vulnerable young, it may retreat when these predators are still 100 m away . . . zebra are quite casual about the proximity of hyenas, permitting approach to within 10 m or less. Probably the animals can detect from the behaviour of the hyena whether it is hunting. (Schaller 1972, 387)

It is almost certainly impossible to reconstruct the pre-firearm flight behaviour of the ancestor of the domestic horse. For one thing, most studies of equid behaviour are post-firearm. For another, we do not know precisely what that equine ancestor was (for a description of wild horse variability see Heptner et al. 1989). Assuming that the anti-predator behaviour

The management of wild horses It is virtually inconceivable that horses — particularly wild or newly domesticated ones — could have 2

East Meets West

of the earliest domestic horse was probably similar to that of Przewalski’s horse, then the best way to understand this problem is to draw together the information available about equids with a similar social organization — Plains zebra, feral horses, and the Przewalski’s horse. This is not the place for an exhaustive investigation into horse flight behaviour from humans, but a few examples are informative. Mustangs: Catlin’s journey to the Comanche, quoted above, took place in 1834. By this time the Comanches were using firearms in warfare (Secoy 1953). Catlin’s description, however, only mentions lances and bows and arrows. It is not clear whether guns had been used for hunting mustangs either by the Comanches or any of the explorers passing though this region.

60 % survival % mortality

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40

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Age in years

Figure 1.3. Age structure of a modern Kazakh horse herd.

20

Number of teeth = 3455 before adjustment after adjustment

Quagga (Equus quagga): Stow’s description of Bushman quagga hunting in South Africa seems to suggest that humans were seen by their prey as a serious enough threat — even without firearms — that the Bushmen hunted them in camouflage:

% 10

In stalking the quagga the Bushmen generally disguised themselves in skins 0 of the ostrich, with a long 0 5 10 15 20 25 pliant stick run through Age in years the neck to keep the head erect, and which also enaFigure 1.4. Pooled Palaeolithic sites age distribution. bled them to give it its natural movement as they Singling out his victim, the hunter let fly his fatal walked along . . . When they sighted a herd of quaggas which they wished to attack, they did not shaft, and immediately continued feeding; the move directly towards them, but leisurely made a wounded animal sprang forward for a short distance, circuit about them, gradually approaching nearer the others made a few startled paces, but seeing nothand nearer . . . until at length the apparently friendly ing to alarm them, . . . they also resumed their tranostrich appeared, as was its wont in its natural quillity, thus enabling the dextrous huntsman to mark a second head . . . (Stow 1905, 84–5) state, to be feeding among them.

3

Chapter 1

The Przewalski’s horse (or tarpan1): A few points can be made about Przewalski’s horse behaviour, which might be relevant to the question of prehistoric wild horse management. Heptner et al. (1989, 1040) describes this equid as ‘very high-strung and vicious when frightened’. ‘An encounter with a tarpan male in the steppes by a rider, especially one on a mare, could sometimes pose serious danger’ (Heptner et al. 1989, 1052). Regarding their flight behaviour, they write:

only have been domesticated. The authors supporting this theory appear to assume that wild animals would have been of insufficient importance to have been represented in Eneolithic art. This assumption is not supported by the evidence we have of ancient art. Most strikingly, in spite of the complete absence of any convincing evidence for Upper Palaeolithic horse domestication (Levine 1996), some of the most splendid of all artistic representations of horses have been found in the Upper Palaeolithic of southwestern France at such sites as Grottes Chauvet, Lascaux, Pech-Merle, and many others. The hunting of horses and other equids was widespread in Central Eurasia throughout the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic. Wild horses did not become extinct in Central Eurasia until historical times and historical records indicate that they were hunted by the Mongols. Therefore, it should not surprise anyone that horses should have been hunted during the Neolithic and Eneolithic, particularly where hunting, gathering and fishing appear to contribute significantly to the human diet. But, even where crops were raised and livestock husbanded, horse hunting could still have been important. Because of its special nutritional characteristics — for example, being relatively high in polyunsaturated fat and fat-soluble vitamins — at certain times of the year and for particular purposes (for example, as a weaning-food), it might have been especially important and highly valued, just as it is today in Kazakhstan and part of Mongolia (Levine 1998). The artistic depiction of animals — wild or domestic — could probably be taken as evidence of their importance to the society producing the art, but further interpretation of meaning, in the absence of independent evidence, is unwise. Another example should place this argument in perspective: no one takes the Scytho-Siberian representations of elk, snow leopards and griffins as evidence that they were domesticated.

Even foals fell prey to hunters only after a long and persistent chase and it was almost impossible to catch an adult . . . Tarpan were very cautious animals. They came quite close to a man on foot but ran away a few kilometers from one on horseback (Heptner et al. 1989, 1051).

Unfortunately ‘quite close’ is not defined and no further details are given. It is quite clear from the authors’ comments, however, that the true wild horse — like the zebra — based its flight behaviour upon its predator’s identity and actions. Interestingly, Heptner et al. repeatedly observe that Przewalski’s horses were hunted with spears and lances: ‘Groups of hunters on horseback used to chase and spear them’ (Heptner et al. 1989, 1053). They never mention firearms (Heptner et al. 1989). Significantly, ‘the hunting of tarpan was considered a difficult and dangerous sport in which man could exhibit not only his bravery, but also test the quality of his horses’ (Heptner et al. 1989, 1053). That the tarpan did not fear humans on foot lends credence to the possibility that they really were not hunted with firearms at the time described by Heptner and colleagues. These suggestive (though admittedly inadequate) data lend support to my belief that, even without firearms, true wild horses would have been too wary of their hunters to allow their movements to have been ‘managed’. More on the ‘horse-head maces’ For those supporting the theory that the earliest evidence of horse domestication is to be found at Dereivka (Ukraine, c. 4500–4000 BC), the so-called horse-head maces from the North Pontic and adjacent regions are regarded as important because it is assumed that they depict domestic horses (e.g. Anthony & Brown 1991; Gimbutas 1991; Telegin 1986). The ‘mace’ evidence is, of course, only viable if the horses depicted were domesticated. Leaving aside other arguments against this theory which have been discussed in considerable detail elsewhere (Häusler 1994; Levine 1999b; Rassamakin 1999), I would like to deal with the assumption that these horses representations — if horses they were — could

So, what about the origins of horse domestication? As a working hypothesis, I suggest that horse domestication first developed out of horse taming, and that horse taming probably first arose as a by-product of horse hunting for meat (Levine 1999a). Orphaned foals, captured between the ages of perhaps two months and one year, or possibly somewhat later, would sometimes have been adopted and raised as pets. Eventually, and perhaps repeatedly, the discovery was made that these pets could be put to work. This knowledge could have been acquired and lost many times from the Pleistocene onwards. 4

East Meets West

But it was, apparently, only during the Holocene — possibly between the Neolithic and the Early Bronze Age — that it began to influence human social developments. Apparently before this time, the social and economic context necessary for the development of horse husbandry did not exist. Before we can determine just what that context was, however, we need to be able to distinguish wild from domestic horses. I believe that the only chance that we will have of solving this problem will be by using an interdisciplinary, multi-dimensional approach.

the horse was the only species from Dereivka ever to have been intensively studied (Table 1.1). She stated that no detailed work had ever been carried out on the cattle or pig bones. Aside from a few specimens on display, all the osteological material from Dereivka has since then been discarded. Sadly most of the other Neolithic and Eneolithic assemblages described by Tsalkin and Bibikova have met a similar fate. Moreover, archaeozoologists working on material from this region rarely, state the criteria they use for determining whether skeletal material came from wild or domestic animals (Levine & Rassamakin 1996). In addition, not only do they usually assume that the ancient and modern geographical ranges of ungulates are virtually the same, but they also ignore the immense diversity of wild Central Eurasian species belonging to the Bovidae family — including a huge variety of Caprinae (wild sheep, goats, chamois, saiga, gorals) (Heptner et al. 1989). It is also worth noting that most of the assemblages dealt with from these periods were very small (Rassamakin 1999; Tsalkin 1970). The new excavations at Molyukhov Bugor, a Dereivka culture site, neatly illustrate the problem.2 The faunal assemblage from the old excavations, according to Tsalkin and Bibikova, was very similar in composition to that of Dereivka (Table 1.1). I therefore eagerly accepted Y. Rassamakin’s and T. Nerudenko’s invitation to study the horse bones from the new excavations at Molyukhov Bugor, but my heart sunk when I realized that I would need to sort out the horse from the other taxa. The experience, however, was something of a revelation. Even without undertaking a systematic analysis it was clear that there were major discrepancies between published descriptions of the fauna from the old excavations (Tsalkin 1970) and the new assemblage before me. The most numerous taxon from the new excavation is turtle. The bovids and suids are too large for anyone to simply assume that they are domesticates. Caprinae are only represented by a few loose teeth, which are rather large and long-crowned for domestic sheep or goat. It seems more likely that these teeth would belong to saiga, which are virtually never identified from North Pontic Neolithic and Eneolithic sites, though they are found in both earlier and later ones. Other taxa present in the Eneolithic assemblage from Molyukhov Bugor include birds, fish, amphibians, carnivores, beaver and bear. The taxon composition of the Neolithic assemblage from this site is very similar, except that deer are present while Caprinae are not. Doubtless a more detailed analysis would reveal further taxa. Interestingly, Zhuravlev

A few words about everything else Because of its importance both as a food source and for transport, understanding the role of the horse is crucial to our understanding of Central Eurasian steppe and forest-steppe human adaptations. Equally important, however, and even less well understood, are the human exploitation of plants and other animal taxa in this region. Because plant foods are less visible than animal bone in the archaeological record, and because large mammals are usually assumed to be a more important food source, less energy has been invested in collecting palaeobotanical data — Pashkevich’s work on grain impressions in pottery being a notable exception (Pashkevich 1993; this volume). Even without the benefit of large, sieved samples she has been able to recognize clear patterns in the data from the North Pontic region. Her work calls out, figuratively if not literally, for more systematic macrobotanical plant remains sampling programmes to be established. Relationships between people and other aspects of their environment also need to be opened up to new ideas. Throughout the literature and throughout the symposium, we talk about the steppe and steppe adaptations. In fact, most of the steppe populations under consideration occupied river valleys and lake edges and many of their subsistence activities depended upon those biotopes. The work by O’Connell and Hedges (O’Connell et al. this volume) and other specialists should prepare us for further surprises. What about the larger question of animal husbandry? What role did livestock production play in Central Eurasian societies from the Neolithic to the Early Bronze Age? The more we examine these questions, the more insistent their reconsideration will become. Taking a specific example: did any livestock breeding take place at Dereivka at all? The late Natalya Belan, who had helped Bibikova with her study of the bones from Dereivka, informed me that 5

Chapter 1

Table 1.1. Dereivka and Molukhov Bugor taxon list according to Bibikova. (Adapted from Telegin 1986, 84, 88.)

Taxon Horse (Equus caballus) Cattle, domesticated (Bos taurus) Sheep/Goat (Ovis aries/Capra hircus) Pig, domesticated (Sus scrofa) Dog (Canis familiaris)

Dereivka No. of MNI bones

Molyukhov Bugor No. of MNI bones

2412 618 88 114 33

52 18 16 9 5

47 28

3 3

5

2

394 99 50 12 9 5 2 4 26 50 22

18 12 11 3 4 2 2 2 7 15 7

51 24 89 12 6 4 1 1

5 4 6 3 3 1 1 1

1

1

3938

183

269

33

Mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) Pintail (Anas acuta) Duck (Anas sp.) Greylag goose (Anser anser) Teal (Anas querquedula) Coot (Fulica atra)

14 3 3 1 1 3

4 2 2 1 1 2

Total - Birds

25

12

Silurus (Silurus glanis) Perch (Lucioperca lucioperca) Roach (Rutilus rutilus) Rudd (Scardinius erythrophthalmus) Carp (Cyprinus carpio) Asp (Aspius aspius) Pike (Esox lucius)

94 20 11 2 3 1 5

21 5 5 1 2 1 2

Total - Fish

136

37

Terrapin (Emys onbicularis)

177 4276

Red deer (Cervus elaphus) Roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) Wild boar (Sus scrofa) Elk (Alces alces) Badger (Meles meles) Bear (Ursus arctos) Otter (Lutra lutra) Wolf (Canis lupus) Fox (Vulpes vulpes) Beaver (Castor fiber) Hare (Lepus sp.) Stone marten (Martes foina) Total - Mammals

Total - All Taxa

Because of the locations of Molyukhov Bugor, Dereivka and many, if not most, other Eneolithic sites — on river banks, islands and lake edges — it should not be surprising that the primary economic orientation of many should have been towards water rather than steppe, as suggested by O’Connell and colleagues in this volume. Perhaps it was migratory fish rather than ungulates which allowed for the apparently sedentary existence we have observed in the North Pontic region and elsewhere. The bones of ungulates, such as horses and cattle, will always be overrepresented by comparison with those of fish and birds, particularly in areas, such as the Dnepr region, where bone preservation is generally poor. The development of new analytical methods will be crucial to our understanding of these problems. Acknowledgements

95

23

32

156

22

264

520

78

and Markova (unpublished) have identified domestic horse, cattle, pig and sheep from this site. No criteria were given to explain how these identifications were made. Sometimes I feel that I am in danger of sounding as if I believed that nothing on the Central Eurasian steppe was domesticated before 2000 BC. I do not actually believe that. But I do believe that some researchers have assumed too much. I do believe that we have to be more critical of older sources. Imagine telling geneticists that they should not question the results of work carried out in their field 30 years ago. We learn from our predecessors and then move on.

I would like to thank Colin Renfrew, the driving force behind the symposium, ‘Late Prehistoric Exploitation of the Eurasian Steppe’, and its resulting publications, of which this is one. I would like to thank my co-organizer and co-editor Katie Boyle for her cool head and hard work; and Dora Kemp, our production editor, who routinely meets the most impossible deadlines. I would like to express my gratitude to all my research collaborators, both in the CIS and in the UK. Finally I would like to thank all the symposium participants and contributors to the ensuing volumes for making this enterprise so interesting and successful.

Notes 1. 2.

Heptner et al. use ‘tarpan’ as the common name for E. przewalskii (Heptner et al. 1989, 1037). Excavated in 1994 and 1995 by Tatiana Nerudenko, Scientific Director of the Chigirin State Historical Park, Ukraine.

References Anthony, D.W. & D.R. Brown, 1991. The origins of horseback riding. Antiquity 246, 22–38. Catlin, G., 1841. Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs and Conditions of the North American Indians Written

6

East Meets West

during Eight Years’ Travel 1832–1839 amongst the Wildest Tribes of Indians in North America, vol. 2. 1973 edition. New York (NY): Dover Publications Inc. Gimbutas, M., 1991. The Civilization of the Goddess. San Francisco (CA): Harper. Häusler, A., 1994. The North-Pontic region and the beginning of the Eneolithic in South-east and Central Europe, in The Archaeology of the Steppes: Methods and Strategies, ed. B. Genito. Naples: Istituto Universitario Orientale, 123–47. Heptner, V.G., A.A. Nasimovich & A.G. Bannikov, 1989. Ungulates, vol. 1: Mammals of the Soviet Union. Leiden: E.J. Brill. Levine, M.A., 1996. Domestication of the horse, in The Oxford Companion to Archaeology, eds. B.M. Fagan, C. Beck, G. Michaels, C. Scarre & N.A. Silberman. New York (NY): Oxford University Press, 315–17. Levine, M.A., 1998. Eating horses: the evolutionary significance of hippophagy. Antiquity 275, 90–100. Levine, M.A., 1999a. Botai and the origins of horse domestication. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 18, 29– 78. Levine, M.A., 1999b. The origins of horse husbandry on the Eurasian Steppe, in Levine et al. 1999, 5–58. Levine, M.A. & Y.Y. Rassamakin, 1996. Problems related to archaeozoological research on Ukrainian Neolithic to Bronze Age sites [O probleme arkheozoologicheskikh issledovanii pamiatnikov Neolita–Bronzy Ukrainy], in The Don–Donets Region in the Bronze Age System of the East European Steppe and Forest Steppe [Dono–Donetskii Region b

Sisteme Drevnoctei Epokhi Bronzy Vostochnoevropeiskoi Stepi i Lesostepi]. Voronezh: RussianUkrainian Conference and Ukrainian-Russian Field Seminar, 25–9. Levine, M.A., Y.Y. Rassamakin, A.M. Kislenko & N.S. Tatarintseva, 1999. Late Prehistoric Exploitation of the Eurasian Steppe. (McDonald Institute Monographs.) Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research. Pashkevich, G.A., 1993. Features of Eneolithic–Bronze Age palaeoethnobotanical complexes in the territory ot the Ukraine [Osobennosti paleoetnobotanicheskikh kompleksov eneolita–bronzy territorii Ukrainy], in The Fourth Millennium BC, ed. P. Georgieva. Sofia: New Bulgarian University, 99–108. Rassamakin, Y.Y., 1999. The Eneolithic of the Black Sea Steppe: dynamics of cultural and economic development 4500–2300 BC, in Levine et al. 1999, 59–182. Schaller, G.B., 1972. The Serengeti Lion. Chicago (IL): Chicago University Press. Secoy, R.R., 1953. Changing Military Patterns on the Great Plains. Seattle (WA): University of Washington Press. Stow, G.W., 1905. The Native Races of South Africa. London: Swan Sonnenschein and Co., Ltd. Telegin, D.Y., 1986. Dereivka, a Settlement and Cemetery of Copper Age Horse Keepers on the Middle Dnieper, vol. 287. (British Archaeological Reports International Series 287.) Oxford: BAR. Tsalkin, B.I., 1970. The Most Ancient Domestic Animals of Eastern Europe [Drevneishie Domashnie Zhivotnye Vostochnoi Evropy]. Moscow: Nauka.

7

Part I Environment and Ecology

Chapter 2

10

Steppe and Forest-steppe Belt of Eurasia

Chapter 2 Steppe and Forest-steppe Belt of Eurasia: Holocene Environmental History Konstantin V. Kremenetski T

he climatic and environmental situation in the steppe and forest-steppe belt of Eurasia was far from stable during the Holocene. Global warming during the Early Holocene allowed an expansion of broadleaved forest in Eastern Europe. Between 10,000 and 8500 BC in the forest-steppe belt, pine and birch dominated in forests, but there was a significant admixture of broad-leaved trees. Ulmus, Quercus, Tilia and Carpinus grew in the southwest region of the foreststeppe in Eastern Europe from 8500 to 6800 BC. By 7000 BC broad-leaved trees reached the forest-steppe belt in the Middle Russian Hills. From 8500 to 2800 BC pine forests with birch grew on the sandy terraces of the Dnepr, Severskii Donets and Don Rivers. In the Dnepr Valley Pinus, Quercus, Tilia, Carpinus betulus and Fraxinus reached the modern shoreline of the Black Sea between 6800– 6300 BC. The period between 6300 and 4800 BC was characterized by warm climate. The area of valley forests in the steppe belt shrank. The climate became more benign between 4800 and 2800 BC, a period which saw a maximum spread of broad-leaved forests in river valleys and in the forest-steppe belt. Human influence on vegetation cover increased with the expansion of farming, as evidenced by pollen analysis of archaeological sites. There were numerous sharp climate oscillations between 3200 and 600 BC. The climate became drier and more continental after 3200 BC. Peat accumulation rate in mires fell two to four times. Pine forest area decreased. In north Kalmykia the forested area in the Ergeni hills declined from 3400–3200 BC. The most continental phase of climate is dated to between 2800 and 2000 BC. Forest area decreased in the Dnepr, Don and Volga basins. A new phase of moist climate is dated to 1700–900 BC. At that time broad-leaved forests expanded in river valleys and the forest-steppe belt. After 600 BC the vegetation cover became simi-

lar to that of today. After AD 100 pine became extinct in the lower part of the Dnepr Valley. Forest degradation was caused by the combined effects of climatic deterioration and human impact. During the last two millennia pollen indicators of human activities are recorded in pollen diagrams from the south of Moldova, and in the forest-steppe belt in Ukraine. East from the Dnepr Valley human impact on vegetation cover has become evident in pollen data only during the last millennium. Broad-leaved forest area decreased from 600– 100 BC in the lower Volga Valley. A moist phase with expansion of broad-leaved forests occurred in northern Kalmykia at AD 1100–1300. Pine expanded in the Kazakhstan steppe belt until AD 400. Palaeoclimatic evidence derived from pollen data is supported by studies of buried soils and by data concerning the Balkhash lake level changes. Geography of the steppe region The steppe and forest-steppe belt of Eurasia extends from the Danube in the west to the mountains of Central Asia in the east. Broad-leaved and boreal forests border the steppe in the north. Toward the south the steppes are limited by the Black and Caspian Seas, the Caucasus and deserts of Central Asia (Fig. 2.1). Many parts of the steppes still preserved their natural vegetation cover until the middle of the twentieth century, but since then mass-farming activity has restricted natural vegetation to small strips of protected land. The geographic framework of this paper is limited to the area of the former USSR — Moldova, Ukraine, Russia and Kazakhstan. Such an approach is justified by the fact that steppe and forest-steppe in these countries form a single natural area. The region includes the southern part of East Europe and the West Siberian lowlands. In Kazakhstan it 11

Chapter 2

Irtysh

Ob

1 2

10

11

12

Ural

a

5

Vo lg

Dniepr

13

14

7

3 Don

4

Blac

6

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9

k Se

a Aral Sea

ian Casp

forest-steppe

Lake Balkhash Syr

Da

rya

Sea

steppe country border 0

500 km

Figure 2.1. Location of the Black Sea–Kazakhstan steppe region. (After Lavrenko et al. 1991.) Sites mentioned in the text: 1) Dovjok; 2) Orgeev; 3) Kardashinskoe; 4) Saki; 5) Rogalik; 6) Razdorskoe; 7) Lipigi; 8) Kharabuluk; 9) Solenoe Zaimische; 10) Buzuluk; 11) Mokhovoe; 12) Karasye; 13) Pashennoe; 14) Ozerki. also includes the melkosopochnik or Lowhills. The Ural Mountains and Ural River form the boundary between two main climatic regions. Climate in Eastern Europe is continental and temperate. Climate in Siberia and Kazakhstan is continental. Chernozems are the main soil type, while to the south chernozems are replaced by chestnut soils. All changes in climate and other natural parameters are gradual in south–north and west–east directions, without any pronounced thresholds. We will describe here the vegetation and climatic history of the steppe and forest-steppe belt in the main natural regions. The reconstruction is based on welldated key sections of lakes, peatlands and archaeological sites (Fig. 2.1). Soil studies and lake-level studies also provide useful information which indicates changes in humidity in the steppe belt during the Holocene. In the text of this paper we use a calibrated radiocarbon BC/AD chronology, which is in good agreement with calendar age (Stuiver & Reimer 1993). For technical purposes we use a calibrated radiocarbon BP chronology in the pollen diagrams (Figs. 2.2–2.9).

hornbeam dominate in forests (Sheliag-Sosonko et al. 1982). Palynological investigations of loess sequences and archaeological sites (Artushenko 1970; Pashkevich 1981; 1987) demonstrate that during the Late Glacial cold dry steppes were widespread in the Ukraine, while trees were represented by Scots pine and birch. Near the Carpathian Mountains we see spruce, willow and juniper. Trees grew in protected parts of the river valleys — pine and spruce occurred in the Dnestr River Valley much further to the south as compared with their modern limits (Haesaerts et al. 1998). Global warming during the Early Holocene allowed for an expansion of broad-leaved trees. Between 10,000 and 8500 BC pine and birch continued to dominate local forests in the forest-steppe belt but there was a significant admixture of Ulmus, Quercus and Corylus. The broad-leaved forest canopy comprised Ulmus, Quercus, Tilia and Carpinus and grew in the southwest area of the forest-steppe of Eastern Europe from 8500 to 6800 BC. Corylus grew in the undergrowth (Kremenetski 1991; 1995). A core from the Orgeev palaeolake, located in Moldova north of Kishinev, provides the best chronological coverage of the Holocene in the southwest (Fig. 2.2).

Moldova and Ukraine Forests occur only in river valleys and in large ravines in the steppe belt. There are forested watersheds only in the forest-steppe belt. Oaks and 12

Steppe and Forest-steppe Belt of Eurasia

Figure 2.2. Orgeev. Percentage pollen diagram plotted against calibrated age. (After Kremenetski 1991 with modifications.)

There are dated Holocene sequences in the forest belt and in the forest-steppe east of the Dnepr (Bezusko et al. 1988). In regions east of the Dnestr Valley at 8500– 6800 BC pine and birch continued to dominate in the local forests. Expansion of broad-leaved trees to the north and east was gradual; broad-leaved forests did not form a continuous canopy. There were important changes in the vegetation cover and climate between 6800 and 4800 BC. There are two well-dated sequences providing palaeoclimatic and vegetation data starting at 6800 BC. Kardashinskoe mire is located on the left side of the Dnepr Valley in the steppe belt (Fig. 2.3). Dovjok mire is located in the Dnestr basin in the foreststeppe belt in the Ukraine (see Fig. 2.1 for location) (Kremenetski 1991; 1995). Pine forests grew on the sandy terraces of the Dnepr and Don Rivers at 6800–6300 BC (see Figs. 2.3 & 2.4). Pine evidently grew there from the Last Glacial. In the Dnepr Valley Pinus, Quercus, Tilia, Carpinus betulus and Fraxinus reached the modern shore-line of the Black Sea at 6800–6300 BC. The climate in the steppe belt was close to that of today. The period between 6300 and 4800 BC was characterized by warm climate. January and July temperatures were 2°C higher than they are today. Precipitation was close to present-day levels. Warming triggered restriction of the forest area in the steppe belt (Fig. 2.3). Warming between 6300 13

Figure 2.3. Kardashinskoe. Percentage pollen diagram plotted against calibrated age. (After Kremenetski 1995 with modifications.)

Chapter 2

14

and 4800 BC made the expansion of thermophilous trees possible in the Volyn region in western Ukraine. Ulmus, Quercus and Tilia formed the forest cover. Quercus petraea, Quercus pubescens and Tilia cordifolia were present in the Volyn region. Ulmus dominated in forests in Moldova (Fig. 2.2), where Carpinus betulus and Fagus sylvatica also occurred in forests. The Kodry hills of Moldova were probably one of the regions of Early Holocene occurrence of Fagus, as compared with more northern regions of Central Europe. It is thought that the postglacial expansion of Fagus in Central Europe was, to a large extent, provoked by human farming activity (Küster 1997). Pollen evidence from the eastern margin of the beech range does not support this idea. The history of beech in the eastern part of its range was mainly under climate and edaphic control. Carpinus betulus grew in forests eastward to the Dnepr Valley. East from the Dnepr, since 6800 BC, Quercus, Ulmus and Tilia have dominated in broad-leaved forests (Bezusko et al. 1988). Climate became more benign between 4800 and 2800 BC. In the steppe belt January temperatures were 1°C higher and July temperatures 2°C lower; there were 100 mm more annual precipitation than at present. The period saw a maximum spread of broad-leaved forests in the Dnepr and Southern Bug Valleys in the steppe belt (Fig. 2.3). Broad-leaved forests reached the modern Black Sea shoreline in the Dnestr Valley (Khotinsky et al. 1988). The same favourable situation is reconstructed for the forest-steppe belt. Human influence on the vegetation cover increased with the expansion of farming in the steppe and forest-steppe belt (Wasilikowa et al. 1991; Larina & Kuzminova 1994; Pashkevich 1997; this volume). Human influence on the vegetation around settlements became evident according to pollen investigation of Neolithic and Eneolithic archaeological sites (Kremenetski 1997c). Numerous climatic oscillations occurred after 2800 BC (Gerasimenko 1997). Between 2800 and 2000 BC in the steppe belt precipitation was 50 mm lower than at present. The area of forest cover in river

Steppe and Forest-steppe Belt of Eurasia

The Razdorskoe settlement is located in the steppe belt, local tree vegetation being represented by poplars. The nearest Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) is now located in eastern Ukraine in the Donets River basin near Kharkiv (see Fig. 2.10). Birch forests grow on the sandy terraces of the Don River. The section of the Rasdorskoe settlement looks like a layered cake in which dark-coloured archaeological layers with artefacts are divided up by lightcoloured sterile horizons (Fig. 2.4). Archaeological cultures and their ages are indicated, based on personal communication from V.Y. Kiyashko. Two radiocarbon dates were obtained on charcoal. A sample from a layer of Maikop culture material provided an age of 3250±180 BC (5200±180 BP) (IGRAS-723). The layer attributed to the Rakushechnyi Yar culture was dated to 8522±310 BC (10,472± 310 BP) (IGRAS-722) (Fig. 2.4). Fishing and hunting were the main activities of the Razdorskoe settlers. In the Bronze Age herding became important (Kiyashko 1994).

valleys was reduced while steppe cover became more arid. From 1500 to 900 BC precipitation was 100 mm higher than today, July temperature was 2°C lower and January temperature 1°C lower. Forest area in the Dnepr Valley expanded. Hornbeam still grew in the Dnepr Valley (Fig. 2.3). Pollen data correlate rather well with the palaeoclimatic interpretation of annually-laminated lake sediments of Lake Saki in the Crimea (Fig. 2.1). According to these data there was, between 2125 and 1700 BC, a dry phase in the steppe belt. Increased climatic moisture levels of about 20 per cent, as compared to the modern level, can be reconstructed for AD 700–900 (Zolotokrylin & Popova 1995). The climate became colder and drier after 3200 BC, provoking a decline in Ulmus in pollen diagrams (Fig. 2.2). In the forest-steppe belt the forested area was reduced and the steppe area expanded. From 2400 BC Carpinus betulus was present in the foreststeppe belt east of the Dnepr, while during the climatic optimum, at 1500–900 BC in the Volyn region, the broad-leaved forest area increased (Kremenetski 1995). After 600 BC vegetation cover became similar to that of today. After AD 100 pine became extinct in the lower part of the Dnepr Valley where, at AD 1000– 1300, the forest area increased. July temperature was 1°C lower and annual precipitation was 100 mm higher than at present (Kremenetski 1995). At the same time beech expanded in the nearby Carpathian region in western Ukraine (Artushenko et al. 1982). Since the birth of Christ human influence on vegetation cover has increased: Tilia and Corylus species have become extinct in the lower part of the Dnepr Valley over the last few centuries. Degradation of forests was caused by the combined effect of climatic deterioration and human impact. During the last two millennia indications of human activity are observed in pollen diagrams in southern Moldova (Volontir 1989), and in the forest-steppe belt in the Ukraine (Kremenetski 1991; 1995). East of the Dnepr Valley human impact on vegetation cover has become evident in pollen data only during the last millennium.

Results of pollen analysis The pollen diagram is shown in Figure 2.4. The lower part of the diagram (the Rakushechnyi Yar, Mariupol, Khvalynsk, Sredny Stog, Maikop and Konstantinovsk culture layers) is characterized by relatively high percentages of arboreal pollen, which is dominated by Pinus. Pollen of Betula, Alnus, Corylus, Quercus, Tilia, Carpinus and Ulmus is recorded. Among herbaceous pollen the percentage of Compositae is higher than that of Chenopodiaceae. In layers of late Yamnaya, Catacomb and Srubnaya cultures, percentages of arboreal pollen declined. The Chenopodiaceae pollen curve rises and that of Compositae falls. In the Yamnaya culture layer Cerealia pollen is recorded. Maximum spread of Chenopodiaceae and minimum percentage of Compositae are recorded in the Catacomb culture layer. In the Srubnaya culture layer the Chenopodiaceae percentage decreases while Compositae increase. In the Belozer culture layer there is an increase in arboreal pollen, while pollen grains of Cerealia are also recorded. Pollen of Chenopodiaceae dominated in the upper part of the section, in layers attributed to the Scythian-Sarmatian and Saltov cultures. Cerealia pollen is present in both cultural layers.

Southern Russia (the southeast East European plain) The Razdorskoe multi-layer settlement (Fig. 2.4) The Razdorskoe multi-layer settlement in the lower part of the Don River was studied by V.Y. Kiyashko (1994). The settlement section was investigated by the present author in 1984–85 (Kremenetski 1991; 1997b).

Vegetation history From 8500 to 2800 BC pine forests with birch grew on the sandy terraces of the Severskii Donets and Don. 15

Figure 2.4. Percentage pollen diagram of Razdorskoe settlement. (After Kremenetski 1997b with modifications.)

Chapter 2

16

Steppe and Forest-steppe Belt of Eurasia

Tilia, Quercus, Acer, Corylus and Alnus glutinosa grew on the Don floodplain. Carpinus betulus was also more widespread in the Don basin than at present. Steppe and meadow vegetation was widespread near the settlement. At 4300–3700 BC the area of pine forests declined somewhat; between 3700 and 3300 BC the area of valley forest was restricted and from 3300 to 2900 BC forest expansion occurred in the Don Valley. Maximum climatic aridity occurred between 2800 and 2000 BC, at which point forest area was significantly reduced. The first pollen evidence of farming around the Razdorskoe settlement is dated to 2400 BC. At 1700–1400 BC the climate became milder. At 1200–1000 BC the forested area increased and the presence of hornbeam is recorded for the last time in the Don Valley. Farming formed an element of the economic activity of the Belozer culture settlers in the Don Valley. Since 500 BC climate and vegetation cover have differed little from that of today, although human influence on vegetation cover increased at the time of the Scythian-Sarmatian and Saltov cultures.

(Fig. 2.1) demonstrates that dry steppe, as the zonal type of vegetation, has existed in northern Kalmykia without any major changes since at least 7000 BC. The Climatic Optimum occurred between 4800 and 3200 BC, when summer temperatures were lower and annual precipitation higher than today by up to 100–150 mm today. Forest area increased in the Don and Volga Valleys; broad-leaved forests with Tilia, Quercus, Ulmus, Carpinus and Corylus grew in the lower part of the Don Valley (Figs. 2.4 & 2.5). At 4800 and 3200 BC the forested area in the Ergeni hills in northern Kalmykia increased (Kremenetski et al. 1999b). There were numerous sharp climatic oscillations between 3200 and 600 BC. The climate became drier and more continental after 3200 BC, the peat accumulation rate in mires dropping two to four times. Pine forest area decreased; in northern Kalmykia the forested area in the Ergeni hills declined from 3400–3200 BC (Kremenetski et al. 1999b). Forest area was restricted in the Volga Valley after 3200 BC (Bolikhovskaya 1990). In the Don basin climatic aridity was most pronounced after 2700 BC. The most continental phase of climate is dated to between 2700 and 2000 BC, at which point forest area was reduced in the Don and Volga basins. The maximum stage of aridity in eastern Ukraine is dated to 2000 BC (Gerasimenko 1997). In the more northerly regions of the foreststeppe belt in the Middle Russian Hills a phase of broad-leaved forest expansion is dated to c. 2400 BC (Serebryannaya 1979; 1982). The regression of the Caspian Sea is dated to 2486±50 BC and 1199±60 BC (Varuschenko et al. 1987). Aeolian processes were very active in the desert and semi-desert region north of the Caspian Sea between 2400 and 2000 BC. Sands in the regions north from the Caspian Sea were relatively stable between 2000 and 1500 BC (Lavrushin et al. 1991). We must bear in mind, however, the fact that periods of sand formation in the region north of the Caspian Sea can be related not only to climatic change but also to changing human occupation of the area. A new phase of moist climate is dated to between 1700 and 900 BC. At this time broad-leaved forests expanded into the forest-steppe belt in the Middle Russian Hills (Serebryannaya 1979; 1982). In the lower part of the Volga Valley the moist phase is dated to 1800–800 BC (Bolikhovskaya 1990), while in eastern Ukraine the moist phase is dated, according to archaeological data, to 1700–1200 BC (Gerasimenko 1997). Broad-leaved forest area in the Ergeni hills in northern Kalmykia increased at 1500–900 BC (Krem-

South Russian steppes and forest-steppes Until 9000 BC spruce grew in the central part of the Don River basin. At around 8500 BC Tilia and Quercus expanded in the middle part of the Don basin (Voronezh region of Russia), with steppe formations dominating on the watersheds (Spiridonova 1991). The amount of available palynological data increases for the period after 8500 BC (Bolikhovskaya 1990; Spiridonova 1991; Gerasimenko 1993; 1997; Kremenetski 1991; Kremenetski et al. 1999b). Pine forests grew on sandy terraces in river valleys. In the forest-steppe belt birch forests with mixed lindentree and oak were widespread. Quercus, Tilia, Ulmus and Corylus grew in the steppe belt in river valleys. The climate was similar to that of today but winter temperatures were probably lower than at present. After 7000 BC broad-leaved trees expanded into the forest-steppe belt in the Middle Russian Hills (Serebryannaya 1979; 1982). Warm continental climate has been reconstructed for 6800–4800 BC, at which point the area of valley forests in the steppe belt is reduced; such changes are recorded by pollen data in the lower part of the Don Valley and in northern Kalmykia (Ergeni hills) (Kremenetski et al. 1999b). Similar trends in forest area reduction can be reconstructed for the lower part of the Volga Valley and in the middle part of the Don Valley. Palynological investigation of the Kharabuluk mire in northern Kalmykia (Kremenetski et al. 1999b) 17

Figure 2.5. Lipigi. Percentage pollen diagram plotted against calibrated age. (After Kremenetski et al. 1999b with modifications.)

Chapter 2

18

enetski et al. 1999b); at the same time Ulmus expanded in the lower part of the Volga Valley (Bolikhovskaya 1990). The vegetation cover in the Don basin became similar to that of today at c. 400 BC. The area of broad-leaved and birch forests increased in the lower part of the Don Valley at AD 50–600 (Fig. 2.5). From 500 BC there were serious changes in the vegetation and climate in the lower part of the Volga Valley and Kalmykia. Broadleaved forest area decreased at 600–100 BC in the lower Volga Valley. A moist phase with expanding broad-leaved forests occurred in northern Kalmykia at AD 1100– 1300 (Kremenetski et al. 1999b). AD 600–1300 is characterized by a moist climatic phase in the region north of the Caspian Sea (Lavrushin et al. 1991). In the forest-steppe belt of the Middle Russian Hills soon after the birth of Christ a phase of restriction of forest area is recorded which can, at last partly, be related to increased human impact (Serebryannaya 1979; 1982). Middle Volga region — Buzuluk pine forest A well-dated full Late Glacial and Holocene sequence has been studied in the Buzuluk pine forest area of the steppe belt in the eastern part of the Samara region (Kremenetski et al. 1999a) (Fig. 2.6). At 9200 BC pine expanded in the Samara River Valley and pine forest with birch developed. During the Late Glacial pine probably persisted in protected parts of the Volga Valley. The environmental situation between 9500 and 4800 BC was relatively stable. At 8000 BC Ulmus, Quercus and Corylus penetrated as far as the Buzuluk area, while alder (Alnus glutinosa (L.) Gaertn.

Figure 2.6. Buzuluk. Percentage terrestrial pollen diagram plotted against calibrated age. (After Kremenetski et al. 1999a with modifications.)

Steppe and Forest-steppe Belt of Eurasia

19

and Alnus incana (L.) Moench) has been growing in the Buzuluk forests since 5800 BC. For both species the area is the southeast limit of their continuous range. Tilia and Acer appeared in the Buzuluk forest at c. 4800 BC, and we should point out that the relatively late penetration of Tilia in the forest cover is recorded also in the neighbouring steppeand forest-steppe regions of western Siberia and northern Kazakhstan (Kremenetski 1997a; Kremenetski et al. 1997a). After 4800 BC the role of pine in the Buzuluk forest increased dramatically and the total area of the forest expanded. A decline in Artemisia and Chenopodiaceae pollen curves indicates that the climate became less continental and more humid (Fig. 2.6). Between 3200 and 1800 BC the forested area in the Buzuluk region declined and the role of steppe formation increased. These processes can be related to a phase of arid climate recorded in the steppe and forest-steppe belts in the Ukraine and southern Russia. In many parts of the forest belt in northern Eurasia climatic deterioration is also recorded at that time (Velichko et al. 1997; Kremenetski et al. 1998b). Forest area in the Buzuluk region increased between 1800 and 400 BC. Between 400 BC and 0 BC the area of pine forest declined, probably due to climatic deterioration. After AD 100 forest area increased and since then the shape of the Buzuluk pine forest has been similar to that of today (Fig. 2.6). Sharp oscillations in percentages of Pinus and Betula in the pollen diagram are partly related to forest fires. For example, forest fires are indicated by levels at about AD 0 and AD 1000 (Fig. 2.6). Pine forests suffer from relatively frequent fires (Agee 1998). After fire birch usually forms the primary canopy and is subsequently replaced, once again, by pine. Similar changes in the pollen spectra related to forest fires are also recorded in southern Ukraine and in Kazakhstan (Kremenetski 1995; Kremenetski et al. 1997a, figs. 3 & 7). Kazakhstan A few well-dated Holocene sequences from Kazakhstan make it possible to describe

Figure 2.7. Mokhovoe. Percentage pollen diagram plotted against calibrated age. (After Kremenetski et al. 1997a with modifications.)

Chapter 2

20

the vegetation and climatic history of the forest-steppe and steppe belt in that country. Mokhovoe mire, on the watershed of the Tobol and Ubagan Rivers (Fig. 2.1), is the thickest peat mire in northern Kazakhstan. Sedimentation in the Mokhovoe sequence started at c. 5800 BC (Fig. 2.7). At that time regional vegetation was represented by steppe and birch-poplar forest. Pine, together with birch, grew on the sandy terraces of the Tobol River. It also penetrated into the Tobol region, most likely between 5400 and 4800 BC. At 1000–900 BC Tilia, Quercus and Ulmus grew on the watershed of the Tobol and Ubagan (Fig. 2.7). The general structure of vegetation was the same as at 5400–4800 BC. At AD 100–400 the climate became less continental and pine forests, with a pure pine canopy, expanded onto the sandy terraces of the Tobol and Ubagan Rivers. Broad-leaved trees were still present as components of the regional pine and birch forests. Soon after AD 500 broad-leaved trees became extinct in the regional forests. Pashennoe lake is located in the Karkaralinsk Mountains in the highest part of the southeast region of the Kazakhstan Lowhills (Fig. 2.8) (Kremenetski et al. 1997b). Dry grass-wormwood and wormwood steppes were widespread in the region at 9500–7000 BC. Picea obovata and Hippophäe rhamnoides occurred in protected parts in the intermontane valleys of the Karkaralinsk Mountains, Salix and Betula also occurring in valleys. Between 6800 and 4800 BC forest vegetation in the Karkaralinsk Mountains was represented by birch forest. Pine penetrated the mountains between 4800 and 4300 BC but did not form large forests.

Figure 2.8. Pashennoe. Percentage pollen diagram plotted against calibrated age. (After Kremenetski et al. 1997b with modifications.)

Steppe and Forest-steppe Belt of Eurasia

21

At the same time the geographical spread of Alnus glutinosa reached its maximum. The general structure of the regional vegetation was stable up to AD 500. At around AD 500 pure pine forests expanded over the Karkaralinsk Mountains and around Lake Pashennoe. A number of lakes have been investigated in the Borovoe Mountains in the south of the Kokchetav region of Kazakhstan (Davydova et al. 1995; Kremenetski et al. 1997a). In the Early Holocene birch forests dominated the regional vegetation. Pine expanded in Borovoe at c. 5800 BC. The well-dated sequence from the Karasye lake demonstrated that pine forests have dominated the regional vegetation since 4100–3900 BC (Kremenetski et al. 1997a; Fig. 2.1). A section of lakebog sediment from the Ozerki mire in the Irtysh River Valley represents the history of vegetation and climate on the southern margin of the West Siberian Lowland since 14,000 BC (Fig. 2.9) (Kremenetski et al. 1997a). Dry cold steppe communities grew in the Irtysh Valley at 14,000 BC. Picea obovata and Hippophäe rhamnoides occurred in the Irtysh Valley together with Betula and Salix. The climate became slightly warmer between 12,000 and 8500 BC. After 8500 BC Picea became extinct in the Irtysh

Figure 2.9. Ozerki. Percentage terrestrial pollen diagram plotted against calibrated age. (After Kremenetski et al. 1997a with modifications.)

Chapter 2

22

Valley and the regional vegetation was represented by dry steppe and birch forests with willow near streams and lakes. At c. 5400 BC Ozerki lake was transformed into the peat mire. At 5100–5000 BC pine penetrated the Irtysh Valley around the Ozerki mire. Pure pine forests have been dominant in the Ozerki region since 4300 BC and the general structure of the regional vegetation was very similar to that of the modern one. Buried soil studies Investigations of soils buried under barrows provide an important source of palaeoclimatic information for the period from c. 3700 BC. Soil studies allow us to recognize changes in the soil types which have occurred since the establishment of a barrow and thereby make estimates of changes in the climatic situation possible. It is not easy, however, to correlate soil data with other palaeoproxy evidence because the time involved in soil formation is very long and the chronological framework for palaeosoil reconstruction is larger than that for palynological investigations. The most spectacular moist climatic phase for the region is observed north of the Caspian Sea in the Ryn sands (west Kazakhstan, in the Volga–Ural watershed). In Ryn sands, at 4000–3000 BC, soil cover was represented by dark chestnut soils. Such a zonal shift suggests that annual precipitation was 100–150 mm higher than at present (Ivanov 1992; Lukovskaya & Ivanov 1997), and at the same time an increase in humidity is observed

Steppe and Forest-steppe Belt of Eurasia

for the steppe belt of northern Kazakhstan (Ivanov 1992). These data correlate well with palynological investigations. Features of the drier climate, reconstructed from buried soils of the Kazakhstan steppe, can probably be related to a phase of arid climate dated to 3200– 1900 BC. At that time chernozem soils were replaced by dark-chestnut solonet soils (Ivanov 1992). Increased soil salinity is seen between 3200 and 1800 BC in the area of the Elton saline lake in a lowland area north of the Caspian Sea (Demkin et al. 1997).

South of western Siberia and Kazakhstan The climate between 4800 and 3200 BC was benign for Neolithic and Eneolithic settlers. The number of archaeological sites dated to this period is higher than the number of sites known for the period 6800– 4800 BC. Between 3700 and 3200 BC cultures practising animal husbandry appeared on the steppes of Kazakhstan (Levine et al. 1999). The Arkaim area in the southern Urals represents a network of Bronze Age settlements with animal husbandry (Zdanovich this volume). Archaeozoological investigations demonstrate that hunting was still important during the Eneolithic and Bronze Age; forest animals such as elk, deer and bear were hunted. These data correlate well with results of pollen investigations (Figs. 2.6– 2.9). After 3200 BC cattle-herding cultures spread over the steppe and forest-steppe belt. The importance of hunting, however, was much greater in the foreststeppe zone than in the steppe belt. In the Ishim River basin in northern Kazakhstan animal husbandry became dominant only at about 1800 BC, which is much later than the first-known evidence of domestication of horse at Botai in north Kazakhstan (Zaibert 1993; Levine et al. 1999; Olsen this volume). Archaeological data suggest that by about 1800 BC settlers of the Andronovo culture practised animal husbandry and farming (Levine et al. 1999).

Balkhash Lake level changes Lake Balkhash is located in southern Kazakhstan in the semi-desert belt (Fig. 2.1). Its water level was not stable during the Holocene: oscillations reflect changes in precipitation and humidity in Kazakhstan. These data are very useful for correlation with other proxy data (Khrustalev & Chernousov 1992). The transgressive phase of Balkhash lake occurred until 3200 BC. Subsequent climate aridization provoked the Balkhash regression which is dated to 2990±150 BC (4960±150 BP). According to B.G. Venus (1983) submerged peat layers related to the Balkhash regression are dated to 2314±120 BC (4264±120 BP), when the lake level was 2–3 m lower than at present. The Novobalkhash transgression started after 1910±120 BC (3860±120 BP), when the Balkhash lake level was 2–3 m above its modern equivalent. The Novobalkhash regression started after 821±120 BC (2771±120 BP), while the modern transgressive layer is dated to AD 84±100 (1866±100 BP).

The environmental effect of early metallurgy With the beginning of the Bronze Age, settlements with evidence of bronze-smelting workshops appeared. As charcoal was necessary for bronze smelting, metal workshops are concentrated near forests where the wood supply was sufficient to support metal production. Recent history of metalwork plants in the Urals supports this statement: until the nineteenth century the regional industry used charcoal without any problem (Chernykh 1998). The situation was quite different in the foreststeppe and especially in the steppe belt. As a result pine forests and valley forests which grew in the steppe belt were very important for successful metal production. Figure 2.10 shows the modern location of pine forests in the steppe and forest-steppe belt together with the major centres of metallurgy in the steppe and forest-steppe belt during the Bronze Age. Archaeological data demonstrate three main centres of copper ore production in the steppe belt of Eurasia: the Donets basin in eastern Ukraine, the southern Urals and the Kazakh Lowhills (Chernykh 1998; Fig. 2.10).

Palaeoeconomic evolution of human communities South of East Europe Farming and animal husbandry expanded in Moldova and southeast Ukraine after 5500 BC, although hunting and fishing dominated in the forest belt. Representatives of the Eneolithic Tripolye culture used copper (Yanushevich 1989; Benecke 1993; this volume; Larina & Kuzminova 1994; Pashkevich 1997; this volume; Levine et al. 1999). We can see that climate and environment were favourable for early farming communities (Figs. 2.2–2.5). The transition to the Bronze Age occurred at c. 3200/2900 BC. The economy remained complex in Moldova and Ukraine, while in south European Russia animal husbandry began to dominate (Anthony & Brown this volume; Levine this volume; Morales-Muñiz & Antipina this volume; Otroschenko this volume; Rassamakin this volume; Shishlina this volume). 23

Chapter 2

Irtysh

Ob

Ural

Vo lga

Dnepr on

D

Blac

k Se

a Syr

Lake Balkhash

Dar

ya

Aral Sea

Casp ian

limit of the steppe belt

Sea

country border boundary between the steppe and the forest-steppe pine forests in the steppe and forest-steppe belt main regions of mining and metal production

0

500 km

extinct pine forests

Figure 2.10. Human impact on pine Pinus sylvestris L. forests in the steppe belt at the Bronze Age. The limit of the steppe and forest-steppe belt is shown (after Lavrenko et al. 1991). Locations of pine forests in the steppe and foreststeppe belts are shown (after Gribanov 1960; Pravdin 1964 and Gribova et al. 1980). Main regions of mining and metal production in the steppe and forest-steppe belt are shown (after Chernykh 1978). Locations of extinct pine forests in the steppe belt are shown (after Kremenetski et al. 1999b). The region of the Lower Dnepr (Oleshki) sands was the largest area of concentration of workshops of bronze-smelters in the steppe belt in the Ukraine (Berezanskaya & Sharafutdinova 1985). The settlements are dated to 1800–1000 BC. The Donets basin in the eastern Ukraine was another important Srubnaya culture (1500–1400 BC) centre of metallurgy. Numerous copper mines and bronze workshops have been discovered here (Tatarinov 1993), the location of these centres being easily explained from a palaeoecological viewpoint. The restriction of forest area in the river valleys of southern Ukraine and Russia and the extinction of pine from the lower parts of the Don and Dnepr Valleys, recorded in pollen and other palaeobotanical data, was, to a great extent, caused by human pressure on regional forests. The use of wood for metal production was one of major factors involved in the extinction of pine (Kremenetski 1995; Kremenetski et al. 1999b; see Fig. 2.10). The Buzuluk forest (Figs. 2.1, 2.6 & 2.10) lies within the Greater Ural region of bronze production. There is no direct proof, but changes in the wooded area of the Buzuluk forest after 3200 BC may be re-

lated not only to climatic changes but also to human activity. Numerous features of ancient copper mines and bronze workshops have been recorded in the Kazakh Lowhills since the late nineteenth century (Kuznetsova 1988; Kadyrbaev & Kurmankulov 1992). The source of the charcoal for metal production consisted of pine, birch and poplar from regional forests. Numerous archaeological sites of bronze-smelters are known in the vicinity of modern pine forests. Archaeological reconstruction demonstrates that the volume of ancient copper and bronze production was quite large (Kuznetsova 1988; Chernykh 1998). In known pollen diagrams, however, there are no traces of human-induced deforestation (Figs. 2.7– 2.9): we can suggest that the volume of ancient wood cutting for metal production requirements was within the natural long-term rate of tree growth and never created catastrophic ecological problems. A similar situation also prevailed during the Iron Age. Human influence on the environment was very important however in the area of copper mines and open casts (Chernykh 1998). 24

Steppe and Forest-steppe Belt of Eurasia

ence and provided the necessary financial support. I am grateful to S.V. Kuzminykh for very helpful consultation and discussion of ecological problems relating to ancient mining and metal work in the forest-steppe and steppe zones.

As we can see in Figure 2.10 the effect of human impact on vegetation cover was significant in the southern part of Eastern Europe. In the Urals and Kazakhstan human impact was not important. In the Don basin, where a more continental climate prevailed, pine became extinct earlier than in the Dnepr basin where the climate was less continental. In the lower part of the Dnepr Valley pine was extinct only in the early Iron Age, at around AD 0.

References Agee, J.K., 1998. Fire and pine ecosystems, in Richardson (ed.), 193–218. Artushenko, A.T., 1970. Vegetation of Steppe and Foreststeppe of Ukraine in Quaternary [Rastitelnost lesostepi i stepi Ukrainy v chetvertichnom periode]. Kiev: Naukova dumka. Artushenko, A.T., R.Y. Arap & L.G. Bezusko, 1982. Vegetation History of Western Ukraine in Quaternary [Istoria Rastitelnosti Zapadnykh Oblastei Ukrainy v Chetvertichnom Periode]. Kiev: Naukova Dumka. Behre, K.-E., 1998. Landwirtschaftliche Entwicklungslinien un die Veründerung der Kulturlandschaft in der Bronzezeit Europas, in Hänsel (ed.), 91–109. Benecke, N., 1993. Tierdomestikationen in Europa in vorund frühgeschichtlicher Zeit — Neue Daten zu einem alten Thema. Bericht der Römisch-Germanischen Kommission 74, 5–47. Berezanskaya, S.S. & I.N. Sharafutdinova, 1985. Sabatinovka culture [Sabatinovskaya kultura], in Telegin (ed.), 489–99. Bezusko, L.G., V.A. Klimanov & Y.R. Sheliag-Sosonko, 1988. Climate change in Ukraine in Lateglacial and Holocene [Klimaticheskie usloviya Ukrainy v pozdnelednikovye i golotsene], in Holocene Palaeoclimates of the European Territory of the USSR [Paleoklimaty Golotsena Evropeiskoi Territorii SSSR], eds. N.A. Khotinsky & V.A. Klimanov. Moscow: Institute of Geography USSR Academy of Sciences, 125– 35. Bolikhovskaya, N.S., 1990. Palaeoindicators of environmental changes in the low part of the Volga River basin for the last 10,000 years [Paleoindikatsiya izmeneniya landshaftov Nizhnego Povolzhya v poslednie 10 tysiach let], in Caspian Sea: Problems of Geology and Geomorphology [Kaspiiskoe More: Voprosy Geologii i Geomorfologii], eds. L.I. Lebedev & E.G. Maev. Moscow: Nauka, 52–68. Chapman, J. & P. Dolukhanov (eds.), 1997. Colloquia Pontica 3. Landscape in Flux: Central and Eastern Europe in Antiquity. Oxford: Oxbow Books. Chernykh, E.N., 1978. Metallurgic provinces and periodization of early metal age in the USSR [Metallurgicheskie provintsii i periodizatsya epokhi rannego metalla na terriitorii SSSR]. Soviet Archaeology [Sovetskaya Arkheologiya] 4, 53–81. Chernykh, E.N., 1998. Ancient mining and metalurgy in Eastern Europe: ecological problems, in Hänsel (ed.), 129–33. Dalfes, H.N., G. Kukla & H. Weiss (eds.), 1997. Third Millennium BC Climate Change and Old World Collapse.

Conclusion We can see that the main stages of climatic and environmental history are synchronous in the large area covered by the Eurasian steppe and forest-steppe belt. The climate and environmental situation was far from stable in the Holocene. Mild climatic conditions at 4800–3200 BC were followed by sudden changes in humidity and vegetation cover at 3200– 900 BC. There is a relatively good correlation between different palaeoproxy approaches to environmental reconstruction. There is currently no complete compatibility in chronology of wet/dry climatic phases in different remote parts of the steppe and forest-steppe belt. This difference can be explained partly by the specific climatic history of different regions. Another problem may be the insufficient absolute dating of some archaeological cultures. In other cases it is difficult to a separate climatic signal of a past event from human-induced changes. Such problems may be resolved by future investigations. From this viewpoint we should bear in mind that environmental palynology of lake and peat sediments can be a useful tool, as it provides independent, well-dated palaeoclimatic and ecological information. Since the Neolithic there has been considerable difference between the European and Siberian/ Kazakhstan sectors of the steppe and forest-steppe belt. In the forest-steppe belt in the Ukraine and Moldova human impact on the environment, as recorded in pollen diagrams, is much less pronounced in comparison to that of South East and Central Europe (Willis & Bennett 1994; Behre 1998). On the other hand, human influence on the vegetation cover in the steppe and forest-steppe belt of the Ukraine and southern Russia is much better recorded than in western Siberia and Kazakhstan. Acknowledgements I should like to thank Colin Renfrew and Marsha Levine who invited me to participate in the confer25

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(NATO ASI Series I, 49.) Berlin: Springer. Davydova, N.N., G.N. Berdovskaya, I.J. Neustrueva, M.J. Pushenko & D.A. Subetto, 1995. Lakes of the ‘Borovoe’ nature reserve [Ozera zapovednika ‘Borovoe’], in The History of Lakes of Northern Asia [Istorya Ozer Severa Asii], eds. N.N. Davydova, G.G. Martinson & D.V. Sevastjanov. Saint Petersburg: Nauka, 143–75. Demkin, V.A., Y.G. Ryskov, T.S. Demkina & R.F. Khakimov, 1997. Palaeosoils and palaeoenvironment of the Ural steppe region during the Bronze and early Iron Ages. ISKOS (Finska Fornminnesföreningen) 11, 266–70. Gerasimenko, N.P., 1997. Environmental and climatic changes between 3 and 5ka BP in Southeastern Ukraine, in Dalfes et al. (eds.), 371–99. Gribanov, L.N., 1960. Steppe Pine Forests of the Altaiski Krai and Kazakhstan [Stepnye Bory Altaiskogo Kraya i Kazakhstana]. Moscow-Leningrad: Goslesbumizdat. Gribova, S.A., T.I. Isachenko & E.M. Lavrenko (eds.), 1980. Vegetation of the European Part of the USSR [Rastitelnost Evropeiskoi Chasti SSSR]. Leningrad: Nauka. Haesaerts, P., I. Borziak, J. van der Plicht & F. Damblon, 1998. Climatic events and Upper Palaeolithic chronology in the Dniestr basin: new 14C results from Cosautsi. Radiocarbon 40, 649–57. Hänsel, B. (ed.), 1998. Mensch und Umwelt in der Bronzezeit Europas/Man and Environment in European Bronze Age. Kiel: Oetker-Voges Verlag. Ivanov, I.V., 1992. Evolution of Soils in Steppe Zone at Holocene [Evolutsiya Pochv Stepnoi Zony v Golotsene]. Moscow: Nauka. Kadyrbaev, M.K. & Z. Kurmankulov, 1992. Culture of Ancient Herders and Metal-Workers of Sary-Arka [Kultura Drevnikh Skotovodov i Metallurgov Sary-Arki]. AlmaAta: Gylym. Khotinsky, N.A., A.L. Chepalyga & N.N. Volontir, 1988. Palynological data on the vegetation history in lower part of Dnestr River basin in Holocene [Palynologicheskie dannye po istorii rastitelnosti Nizhnego Pridenstrovya v golotsene], in Environment of Moldova SSR and its Economic Significance [Prirodnye Usloviya Moldavskoi SSRi Ikh Khoziaystvennoe Znachenie], ed. M.F. Koshkodan. Kishinev: Stiinta, 71–80. Khrustalev, Y.P. & S.Y. Chernousov, 1992. On the Holocene history of the Balkhash Lake [K golotsenovoi istorii razvitiya ozera Balkhash]. Proceedings of Russian Geographical Society [Izvestia Russkogo Geographicheskogo Obschestva] 124(2), 164–71. Kiyashko, V.Y., 1994. Between stone and bronze (Lower Don region in V–III millennia BC) [Mezhdu Kamnem i Bronzoi (Nizhnee Podonye v V–III tys. do n.e.]. Donskye Drevnosti 3, 8–83. Kremenetski, C.V., 1991. Palaeoecology of the Earliest Farmers and Herders of the Russian Plain [Paleoekologiya Drevneishikh Zemledeltsev i Skotovodov Russkoi Ravniny]. Moscow: Institute of Geography. Kremenetski, C.V., 1995. Holocene vegetation and climate history of the southwestern Ukraine. Review of Palaeobotany & Palynology 85, 289–301.

Kremenetski, C.V., 1997a. The Late Holocene environmental and climate shift in the Russia and surrounding lands, in Dalfes et al. (eds.), 351–70. Kremenetski, C.V., 1997b. Environment of the Razdorskoe multilayer settlement (Rostov region, southern Russia). ISKOS (Finska Fornminnesföreningen) 11, 236– 41. Kremenetski, C.V., 1997c. Human impact on the Holocene vegetation of the South Russian plain, in Chapman & Dolukhanov (eds.), 275–88. Kremenetski, C.V., P.E. Tarasov & A.E. Cherkinsky, 1997a. Postglacial development of Kazakhstan pine forests. Géographie Physique et Quaternaire 51, 395–409. Kremenetski, C.V., P.E. Tarasov & A.E. Cherkinsky, 1997b. The Latest Pleistocene in southwestern Siberia and Kazakhstan. Quaternary International 41/42, 125–34. Kremenetski, C.V., K. Liu & G.M. MacDonald, 1998a. The late Quaternary dynamics of pines in northern Asia, in Richardson (ed.), 95–106. Kremenetski, C.V., L.D. Sulerzhitsky & R. Hantemirov, 1998b. Holocene history of the northern range limits of some trees and shrubs in Russia. Arctic and Alpine Research 30, 317–33. Kremenetski, C.V., T. Böttger, F.W. Junge & A.G. Tarasov, 1999a. Late- and postglacial environment of the Buzuluk area, middle Volga region, Russia. Quaternary Science Reviews 18, 1185–203. Kremenetski, C.V., O.A. Chichagova & N.I. Shishlina, 1999b. Palaeoecological evidence for Holocene vegetation, climate and land-use change in the low Don basin and Kalmuk area, southern Russia. Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 8, 233–46. Küster, H., 1997. The role of farming in the postglacial expansion of beech and hornbeam in the oak woodlands of Central Europe. The Holocene 7, 239–42. Kuznetsova, E.F., 1988. Ancient mining and metal production in the Central Kazakhstan in Bronze and early Iron Ages [Gornoe delo i drevnaya metallurgiya Tsentralnogo Kazakhstana v epokhu bronzy i rannego zheleza], in Problems of Palaeoeconomy of Kazakhstan According to Archaeological Data [Problemy Paleoekonomiki Kazakhstana po Arkheologicheskim Dannym], ed. A.V. Margulan. Alma-Ata: Nauka KazSSR, 50–62. Larina, O.V. & N.N. Kuzminova, 1994. The late Neolithic farming on the territory of the Prut–Dnestr interfluve. Préhistoire Européenne 7, 225–40. Lavrenko, E.M., Z.V. Karamysheva & R.I. Nikulina, 1991. Steppes of the Eurasia [Stepi Evrazii]. Leningrad: Nauka. Lavrushin, Y.A., E.A. Spiridonova & L.D. Sulerzhitsky, 1991. Geological and palaeoecological events in the north of the arid belt during the last 10,000 years [Geologo-paleoekologicheskie sobytiya severa aridnoi zony v poslednie 10000 let], in Quaternary Geology and Palaeoecology [Geologo-Paleoekologicheskie Obstanovki Chetvertichnogo Perioda], ed. Y.A. Lavrushin. Moscow: Geological Institute, 87–104. Levine, M., Y. Rassamakin, A. Kislenko & N. Tatarintseva,

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and revised CALIB 3.0 14C calibration program. Radiocarbon 35, 215–30. Tatarinov, S.I., 1993. Ancient Metal of Eastern Ukraine [Drevni Metall Vostochnoi Ukrainy]. Artemovsk: Ukrainian National Academy of Sciences. Telegin, D.Y. (ed.), 1985. Archaeology of Ukrainian SSR, vol. 1 [Arkheologiya Ukrainskoi SSR]. Kiev: Naukova Dumka. Varuschenko, S.I., A.N. Varuschenko & R.K. Klige, 1987. Changes in the Regime of the Caspian Sea and Interior Basins in the Past [Izmenenie Rezhima Kaspiiskogo Moria i Besstochnykh Vodoemov v Paleovremeni]. Moscow: Nauka. Velichko, A.A., A.A. Andreev & V.A. Klimanov, 1997. Climate and vegetation dynamics in the tundra and forest zone during the Late Glacial and Holocene. Quaternary International 41/42, 71–96. Venus, B.G., 1983. On the Lake Balkhash evolution in the late Holocene [O razvitii ozera Balkhash v pozdnem golotsene]. Proceedings of Russian Geographical Society [Izvestia Russkogo Geographicheskogo Obschestva] 1, 58–64. Volontir, N.N., 1989. About the history of the southern Moldavia vegetation in Holocene [K istorii rastitelnosti yuga Moldavii v golotsene], in Quaternary Age. Paleontology and Archaeology [Chetvertichny Period. Paleontologiya i Arkheologiya], ed. A.L. Yanshin. Kishinev: Stiintsa, 90–97. Wasilikowa, K., M. Carciumaru, E. Hajnalova, B.P. Hartyani, G.A. Pashkevich & Z.V. Yanushevich, 1991. East-Central Europe, in Progress in Old World Palaeoethnobotany, eds. W. van Zeist, K. Wasilikova & K.-E. Behre. Rotterdam: Balkema, 207–39. Willis, K.J. & K.D. Bennett, 1994. The Neolithic transition — fact or fiction? Palaeoecological evidence from the Balkans. The Holocene 4, 326–30. Willis, K.J., K.D. Bennett & J. Birks, 1998. The late Quaternary dynamics of pines in Europe, in Richardson (ed.), 107–21. Yanushevich, Z.V., 1989. Agriculture evolution north of the Black Sea from the Neolithic to the Iron Age, in Foraging and Farming: the Evolution of Plant Exploitation, eds. D.R. Harris & G.C. Hillman. London: Unwin & Hyman, 607–19. Zaibert, V.F., 1993. The Eneolithic of the Ural–Irtysh Interfluve [Eneolit Uralo-Irtyshskogo Mezhdurechya]. Petropavlovsk: Republic of Kazakhstan Academy of Sciences. Zolotokrylin, A.N. & V.V. Popova, 1995. Reconstruction of humidity changes after lake sediments [Rekonstruktsiya izmeneniya uvlazhnennosti po ozernym otlozheniyam], in Variability of European Climate in the Historic Past [Izmenchivost Klimata Evropy v Istoricheskom Proshlom], ed. A.N. Krenke. Moscow: Nauka, 131–3.

1999. Late Prehistoric Exploitation of the Eurasian Steppe. (McDonald Institute Monographs.) Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research. Lukovskaya, T.S. & I.V. Ivanov, 1997. Parameters of ecosystem and interaction of man and nature in sand deserts during different prehistorical periods. ISKOS (Finska Fornminnesföreningen) 11, 225–9. Otroshchenko, V.V., 1985. Belozerska culture [Belozerskaya kultura], in Telegin (ed.), 519–26. Pashkevich, G.A., 1981. Dynamics of vegetation cover of Northwest to the Black Sea region in the Holocene and its modification by human impact [Dinamika rastitelnogo pokrova severo-zapadnogo Prichernomorya v golotsene, ego izmenenya pod vliyaniem cheloveka], in Anthropogenic Factors in the History of the Modern Ecosystems Evolution [Antropogennye Faktory v Istorii Razvitiya Sovremennykh Ekosystem], ed. L.G. Dinesman. Moscow: Nauka, 74–86. Pashkevich, G.A., 1987. Palynological analysis of the multilayer site Molodova V sediments [Palynologicheskaya kharakteristika otlozheniy mnogosloinoi stoyanki Molodova V], in Multilayer Palaeolithic Site Molodova V. Stone Age People and Environment [Mnogosloinaya Paleoliticheskaya Stoyanka Molodova V. Liudi Kamennogo Veka i Okruzhaiuschaya Sreda], eds. I.K. Ivanova & S.M. Zeitlin. Moscow: Nauka, 141– 51. Pashkevich, G.A., 1997. Early farming in the Ukraine, in Chapman & Dolukhanov (eds.), 263–73. Pravdin, L.F., 1964. Scots Pine [Sosna Obyknovennaya]. Moscow: Nauka. Richardson, D.M. (ed.), 1998. Ecology and Biogeography of Pinus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Serebryannaya, T.A., 1979. On the holocene history of forests in western part of the Middle Russian hills [K golotsenovoi istorii lesov zapada Srednerusskoi vozvyshennosti]. Bulletin of the Commission for Quaternary Studies [Bulleten Komissii po Izucheniu Chetvertichnogo Perioda] 50, 178–85. Serebryannaya, T.A., 1982. On holocene dynamics of forest-steppe in central Russian plain [O dinamike lesostepnoi zony v tsentre Russkoi ravniny v golotsene], in Environment Evolution of the USSR Territory in Late Pleistocene and Holocene [Razvitie Prirody Territorii SSSR v Pozdnem Pleistotsenei Golotsene], ed. A.A. Velichko. Moscow: Nauka, 179–86. Sheliag-Sosonko, Y.R., V.V. Osychniuk & T.L. Andrienko, 1982. Geography of Vegetation Cover of Ukraine [Geografiya Rastitelnogo Pokrova Ukrainy]. Kiev: Naukova Dumka. Spiridonova, E.A., 1991. Evolution of the Vegetation Cover in the Don River Basin in Upper Pleistocene and Holocene [Evolutsiya Rastitelnogo Pokrova Basseina Dona v Verkhnem Pleistotsene–Golotsene]. Moscow: Nauka. Stuiver, M. & P.J. Reimer, 1993. Extended 14C data base

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Green Grows the Steppe

Chapter 3 Green Grows the Steppe: How can Grassland Ecology Increase our Understanding of Human–Plant Interactions and the Origins of Agriculture Mim A. Bower The ecotope referred to as the grassland zone cov-

region. Instead it is intended to spark discussion and to broaden horizons by suggesting a different framework for thinking about human ecology in a grassland ecotope.

ers large tracts of the Eurasian continent stretching from Turkey to China. It encompasses key areas of archaeological importance and areas which are among those with the highest species diversity in the world. Thus it is this ecoform which may illustrate humankind’s long symbiosis with grasses (Poaceae) from which many of the domesticated species of grains were drawn and which still form a significant part of the human diet. An in-depth study of the ecology of the grassland zone may yield information that would make a valuable contribution to our understanding of those human–plant relationships, which have lead to the formation of the agricultural systems that uphold our current civilizations. Grassland is an important biotype and an important human environment. Humans have had a long and complex relationship with grasses over time. It is important to understand how this relationship functions and what affect this has on the environment, it is also crucial to understand how this might be recognizable in the landscape and in the archaeological record. Recent research in botany, human and plant genetics and modern field experiments in plant domestication may make important contributions to solving these issues. This paper examines our current perception of the human use of steppe in the light of grassland ecology. It will highlight the potential that the steppe zone might hold for enriching our comprehension of the spread of agriculture across Eurasia and show how a greater awareness of grassland ecology, and the role of humans within this ecosystem, would enrich our understanding of the human use of grassland in the past. This paper is not intended as a comprehensive description of all the archaeological and botanical data from the whole of the steppe

Biological communities Until recently, ecology has been dominated by the concept of biological communities, based on three central ideas: that biota can be categorized by recognizable communities; that these communities are at or close to equilibrium; and that inter-specific competition is the main determinant of community structure (Lavers & Haines-Young 1993). Thus, in past ecological research, it was common that only communities perceived to be at or near to equilibrium were viewed as legitimate objects of study. Changes in ecological thinking (Worster 1990; Sinton 1993; Zimmerer 1994; Turner 1998), however, influenced in part by quantum physics (Nicolis & Prigogine 1977; Prigogine & Stengers 1987), have caused us to consider whether a community equilibrium is a normal state of affairs in nature. Apparent equilibria may, after all, simply be a function of the scale, both spatial and temporal, at which a community is examined. Stable environments, in so-called equilibrium, probably exist only in a very restricted spatial and temporal range. Within ecology, the equilibrium concept is countered with a non-equilibrium view of nature (de Angelis & Waterhouse 1987; Carpenter 1998). Rather than in balance, nature is now suggested as being a chaotically shifting complex system of interacting structures (Schaffer 1985; Worster 1990). Ecologists now recognize that disturbance is pervasive even in the absence of humans (Veblen 1985; Botkin 1990; Sprugel 1991); plants establish, grow and die in such 29

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and that whole communities did not shift as homogeneous blocks of vegetation as climate changed (Blumler 1996). This forces a move away from the uniformitarian principles, which pervade ecological and archaeological thinking about agricultural origins and begs the development of non-analogue data on past biotic systems. A further concept experiencing rapid revision, generally regarded as the most important in plant ecology, is that of succession to climax (Glenn-Lewin et al. 1992). Ecologists now recognize that the notion of a final stable condition is dubious, however thinking about vegetation as if climax were a real phenomenon is still prevalent in ecological writing. The notion of stable climax also dominates the literature on agricultural origins especially in its emphasis on weedy or so-called early successional plants (Flannery 1969; Hawkes 1969; Harlan 1975; Rindos 1984). There are many agricultural developmental models with successional tendencies that assume a long progressive sequence of increasingly complex manipulations of wild or semi-wild plants, culminating in agriculture and domestication (Harlan 1975; Rindos 1984; Ford 1985). So far, ecologists have had only a minimal input into archaeology, consequently archaeologists have depended on second-hand renderings of ecology and evolutionary theory (Orlove 1980; Flannery 1968; Harris 1969; Rindos 1984); biology’s contribution to the debate on agricultural origins, in particular, has come primarily from crop geneticists and European palynologists. Even ecologically-minded archaeologists have generally viewed nature as a static, passive backdrop to human activity and cultural change and as a series of systems used and altered by humans (Blumler 1996). Archaeology needs to take a fresh look at ecology as it re-invents itself and to examine the new paradigm. Notions of equilibrium should be treated with caution. Assumptions that plant population structure can be understood in terms of a single factor such as climatic conditions or human impact, or even several factors across its range, should be modified. More information about past environments needs to be gathered from non-analogue contexts and interpreted on non-uniformitarian principles.

Figure 3.1. A breckland type ruderal weed community: is the pattern truly predictable or a product of our desire to find order in the natural world? a way that even the most apparently stable ecosystem is dynamic, with measurable changes over time (Fuller 1983). As with the equilibrium concept, so the plant community concept (Braun-Blanquet 1965) is being questioned (McIntosh 1985). This follows the rejection of the Lamarckian/Spencerian basis of the community concept (McIntosh 1985), but is also a result of an overwhelming accumulation of contemporary empirical data, which has caused a re-thinking of the approach to plant communities. In particular, pollen and other palaeoecological evidence have demonstrated that species associations change over time (Davis 1981; de Angelis & Waterhouse 1987; Parker 1993). The major implication of the passing of the community concept for the study of agricultural origins is that present-day plant communities almost certainly were not identical to those 10,000 years ago,

Steppe The arid temperate climate in Eurasia, which supports steppe vegetation, stretches from the mouth of the Danube across Eastern Europe and Asia to the Yellow Sea (Walter 1973). 30

Green Grows the Steppe

Up to two hundred years ago steppes were only lightly grazed, since nomads were constantly on the move with their herds and it was assumed that their vegetation remained almost unaltered. During the past two centuries the changeover to cultivation and intensive grazing has significantly affected the steppe ecosystem. Present-day steppe is maintained, in part, by anthropogenic influences, often by mowing or close grazing by domestic animals, or by burning and light grazing by wildlife and ungulates (Knapp 1979). Because grassland most commonly occurs along the climatic gradient between desert and forest, it has many dak del contacts with various other vegetation types. Boundaries Figure 3.2. The grassland ecotope covers a large part of the Eurasian continent are difficult to decide on, be- and encompasses many areas of archaeological importance. cause local variations in topography, soil characteristics and elevation result in and grow in only a few parts of the world. Weed a diversity of microclimates and vegetation types. ecology of past ruderal situations can be referenced Where the terrain is more regular, the choice of from archaeobotany, but there are taphonomic probboundaries along the vegetational continuum is very lems and interpretations are unavoidably based on subjective (Coupland 1992). uniformitarian principals. Current cereal ecological Steppe and desert occupy continental regions associations are strongly affected by the use of fertiand are extensive over the northern hemisphere, lizers and weed killers, which alter plant associawhere the temperature amplitude is greater, accomtions in ruderal situations. It is possible, however, to panied by a decrease in annual rainfall and arid discuss wheat and wild cereal ecology in general summers. The southern Urals interrupt the Asiatic terms in that, like other grasses, they are annuals steppe, the steppes then continue into the more conwith similar environmental requirements and so most tinental climate of Asia. In its major features, the probably perform similarly to other grasses. climate of mountain steppes is like the steppe zone Individual plant species have evolved different in the plains. Steppes frequently develop on the floor adaptations to seasonal rainfall. The annual habit is of mountain basins, which have forested slopes one such adaptation. Annual plants, which complete (Sochava 1979). Forest-steppe is not a homogeneous their entire life cycle in one year, store their reprovegetation formation like tropical savannas; it is a ductive abilities for the next wet season in abundant macro-mosaic of deciduous forest stands and seeds, which are scattered upon ripening. Since their meadow steppe. seeds do not germinate until the advent of sufficient rain, annual species escape summer drought by comWild cereals as part of the grassland ecotope pleting annual flowering and fruiting by late spring. By late summer the individual plants have died but The place of wild cereals in the grassland ecotope the gene pool for new populations is viable in seed can only be understood in general terms. Currently, banks in the soil. In unpredictable climates annuals grain crops are known in ruderal situations only and are best adapted to survive until the rainfall is adas monoculture; wild cereals are no longer common equate for germination and they may lie dormant 31

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variables which affected the patterning of plant communities in the past may well be different from those prevalent in the present day. Therefore, modern plant community data must be used with caution, as they may not be reflective of past plant communities. Patterns of associations, which are present today, may not have been found in the past. Furthermore, these patterns of associations, which may have been present in the wild tetraploid wheat past, may be not recognizable wild einkorn in the archaeological record. Aegilops squarosa The influence of humans dak del is detectable almost everywhere in the biosphere to a Figure 3.3. The modern-day spread of wild cereals within the grassland ecotope is greater or lesser degree; howlimited, but was this the case in the past? (After Zoharg & Hopf 1988, 34, 41 & 51.) ever, in the case of grasslands these influences are recognizable only on a large for more than twenty years (McCorriston & Hole scale, i.e. at the level of presence or absence of an 1991). A requirement of all grass species, whether entire ecotope. A greater understanding of past grasscultivated or not is that the seeds should survive the land ecology may allow the effects of natural and dry season in a well-baked, thin soil. This may have anthropogenic factors to be distinguished from each constituted a strong selection pressure for large seeds, other. For example, it would be useful to understand with large food reserves, to resist drying out and how many Poaceae species occupy the same habitat, grow quickly when the rains finally came. Large in order to elucidate what factors limit the geographifood reserves are of particular interest to humans cal range of individual species. This might throw who would choose them in preference to smaller light on how the ranges of the progenitors of domesseeded plants (Hawkes 1969). ticated crops have changed during the course of history. Some plants, particularly wild wheats, are Understanding past grassland ecology and human thought to be confined in their distribution to the and plant interactions areas in which they evolved and to which they are endemic; this forms the basis of many past theories The palaeoecology of grassland communities is on the geographical origin of domesticated plants. poorly understood at the present time and is hard to The assumption behind this theory is that species elucidate from such a great distance in time. Even if are adapted to live in the fixed set of physical condiuniformitarian principles can be relied on, there are tions of their particular microclimate. It is not clear, almost no occurrences of natural grasslands anyhowever, that such a specialized microclimate is necwhere in the world that could provide useful comessary for wild cereals. Their assumed confinement parative data. In this case ‘natural grassland’ should may be due to their mode of dispersion or to recent be taken as: grassland, which has not been affected evolution, i.e., the idea that they had recently evolved by some form of human agency. and not had time to spread from their centres of Human and plant ecology in the temperate origin. A greater understanding of past grassland grassland zone is a complex issue and one which has situations and the past range of wild cereal species not yet been addressed to any great extent, though may help to address such issues. current research is beginning to explore this area. In In the past it was believed that plant species a non-equilibrium, non-uniformitarian perspective, form close dependent unions with certain other it is difficult to identify a reliable information source plants, and that such associations are necessary for which can be used for the reconstruction of past the existence of communities of plants and animals plant communities. The biotic and environmental 32

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in nature. Furthermore, it was thought that, within a geographical area, these associations may be repeated in similar topographic and environmentally comparable sites. Although it is undoubtedly true that species interact, and that no species can be understood in terms of ecology and distribution in isolation from other species, these associations may be weaker than have been assumed. Plants and animals, including humans, come into contact at certain times in history, but have also been periodically separated when climates have changed. A greater understanding of the species composition of ancient grasslands might throw light on what associations and patterns of interaction may have existed in the past and which of those patterns were repeated and under what conditions.

Figure 3.4. Human–plant interactions include cultivation and domestication, which brought about genetic changes in exploited cereals.

Human–plant interaction within the grassland ecotope

still one of unpredictable surpluses and lean years, with considerable reliance on local wild products (Flannery 1969). Agricultural plant resources, compared to wild plant resources, however, are relatively concentrated and predictable in time and space (Harris 1989). They grow where they are planted and ripen at known times. The unpredictable aspects are crop yields, which can vary from year to year due to weather or diseases. Such activities as field clearance, fencing, planting, weeding establish the environmental conditions for their growth and development (Ingold 1996). Humans act as a corridor or pathway for the spread of domesticates as species, by the management of the immediate environment of the individual plants and by reducing competition from other plants. Humans enlarged and multiplied areas in which domesticates grew productively, providing more opportunities for plants to spread and increase. They acted as an agent for ecological change by burning vegetation and clearing or trampling near camps and trails (Sauer 1952).

Subsistence can be viewed as the fundamental survival mechanism of the human organism. It is, and most probably always has been, dependent in no small part on the efficient use of plant resources. The dimensions of the human ecological niche are set by availability of land, water, labour, critical capital, space and time. Decisions are made to allocate these resources, which make up various behavioural subsystems. Scarcity of resources leads to problems, whose solutions may force evolutionary change in human culture. These choices in human adaptation and the effects of human behaviour are reflected in the vegetational ecotope to a greater or lesser extent. Thus human–plant interactions are central to human subsistence and can be recognized as such in the archaeological record. Two of the most notable human–plant interactions must be cultivation and domestication. Cultivation may have begun as an attempt to artificially produce dense stands of cereals. But domestication led to a change in the means of production in human society. It made possible divisions of labour not usually characteristic of hunter-gatherer societies as we understand them (Flannery 1969). It also brought about significant genetic changes in the cereals being exploited. Eventually, domesticated plants lost their ability to disseminate their seeds effectively and now are dependent on humans for dispersal. The view of early cultivation as a drastic change or improvement in man’s diet may well be erroneous, as may be the frequently cited notion that early agriculture gave humans a more stable food supply. For example, given the erratic nature of rainfall in Southwest Asia, the era of early dry farming was

Human ecology The equilibrium view of ecology uses a combination of physical and biological components linked by a flow of energy, nutrients, water, etc. in a fixed structure of ecological populations and communities. Climatic, biological or human activity is viewed as disturbance or perturbation around equilibrium, exogenous to the system, driving it eventually to some new equilibrium state (Perez-Trejo 1993). But humans are part of the landscape dynamic, and not separate from it. Humans not only affect the biome but also 33

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are affected by it. The natural environment presents a set of conditions to which humans must respond and adjust and, conversely, humans present a set of conditions to which the environment must respond. The human dimension is important to landscape ecology, but its place in the ecological system is not necessarily obvious. It is simple to view humans as the top predators in a complex food web, however, human social systems have been seen to represent a completely separate level of energy flow and organization. Human social groups with weapons were thought to have primitively acted as top predators (Cousins 1993), but human interaction with the environment is considerably more complex; humans exchange energy and materials between ecosystems, thereby creating a new larger entity or organization. Instead of thinking about plants as part of the natural environment for humans, humans and their activities should be considered as part of the environment for plants. It is no longer considered appropriate to think of humans as inhabiting a social world of their own, over and above the world of nature (Ingold 1996). Humans and animals and plants are fellow participants in the same natural world of which human ‘social’ behaviour is also a part. Humans do not so much transform the material world as play a part in the world’s transformation of itself (Ingold 1993). As a species, we cannot help but modify our environment, this is a characteristic we share not just with humans in the past, but with all other organisms. There are examples of hunters practising selective cull, altering the environment, or removing other predators to sustain and increase the productivity of their wild animal resources (Mithen 1990). Equally, gatherers can manipulate their plant resources through clearances, ground preparation, planting and harvesting (Rindos 1984; Harris & Hillman 1989). Humans over the course of their evolutionary trajectory have adapted a clever system of manipulation of the environment, deflecting energy from other parts of the natural food web into the support of one species (Thomas et al. 1979; Jochim 1979).

grain-based agriculture became important to the region and which grain crops were most significant? Various sources of information are brought to bear in addressing these questions, but currently the most informative data set is charred plant remains from archaeological sites. Charred plant remains, however, are not always found in the archaeological record, either due to problems with preservation or because of a lack of sampling in the excavation methodology. An extensive flotation and wet-sieving program is one of the most reliable methods of extracting sufficient archaeobotanical material to be able to reconstruct human environments and human–plant interactions in the past. The impression gained from the archaeology of the Eurasian steppe region is that this intensive flotation program may not have been implemented on a wide scale (Levine pers. comm.), leaving lacunae in the potential data base from which we can develop hypotheses on plant use in the past grassland ecotope. Much of the evidence on which hypotheses are based is from sites dug in 1930s and 40s, when archaeobotany was not widely known, however, even more recent excavations are not yielding the evidence needed. At Dereivka, for example, specialist analyses were not conducted which could have shed light on plant-based aspects of the subsistence economy (Rassamakin 1999) Besides the presence of archaeozoological material, traces of possible past human plant use appear to be described chiefly from discoveries of grain impressions on pottery. For example, emmer wheat, barley and millet have been identified from pottery impressions (Pashkevich 1991; 1992; 1993), as have einkorn wheat and rye (Rassamakin 1999). Some finds of preserved seeds are recorded, however, though this material appears to be scarce. For example, finds of spelt are recorded in Georgia (Janushevich 1984) and unusually preserved sacks of emmer and spelt in an early Catacomb burial in the Crimean steppe (Korpustova & Lyashko 1990). Finds of preserved seeds, however, are sporadic and identifications are uncertain. For example, attempts to find evidence of cultivated grain to the East of the Dnepr have not been successful (Lebedeva 1996). Furthermore, Nesbitt (in press) calls into question identifications of the grains described, for example, finds described as spelt from Moldavia, Ukraine and the Crimea (Janushevich 1984) are more likely to be Aegilops cylindrica or Ae. tauschii both grasses which are found abundantly in these regions. In addition to these forms of evidence, there have been finds of tools, which are interpreted as signs of agriculture. For example, the discovery of

Subsistence and human ecology in the Eurasian steppe zone — where is their daily bread? One of the focal points in archaeological research is the identification of subsistence activity and agricultural practices in the landscape. For example, how do we recognize the human ecology of the steppe zone? How can we tell if wild grass resources were being exploited? How can we tell accurately when 34

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an object described as a wooden plough point in a late Catacomb burial in the Dnepr region (Bidzilya & Yakovenko 1973), and the finds of a great number of antler hoes, querns, pestles, grindstones and flint tools similar to Tripolye sickle blade elements from Dereivka (Rassamakin 1999). The interpretation of these finds, however, is fraught with difficulties. For example, these may be indicative of pre-domestication cultivation of wild grasses rather than any form of developed agricultural system. Neither do any of these tools show what plant materials were being exploited and to what intensity. Finally, it is impossible to know whether the plants exploited would have been reflective of local resources or whether they are representative of imported crops. Only detailed study of weed flora from archaeobotanical material sampled by flotation could hope to address these issues. Sedentism has also been associated with the development of agricultural systems (Ucko & Dimbleby 1969). Early Eneolithic steppe peoples are suggested to have been sedentary. Available data supports the assertion that a stable type of aboveground dwelling had already emerged in the Neolithic throughout most of the Eurasian steppe (Kislenko & Tatarintseva 1999) leading to a broadly sedentary way of life for the majority of the population (Rassamakin 1999) with a notable absence of nomadic forms of economy (Kislenko & Tatarintseva 1999). However, ethnography shows that although sedentism may be a sign that crops are being cultivated in some cases to the point of an organized agricultural system, nomadism does not preclude the planting of crops, neither does sedentism mean that grain-based agriculture is being carried out. For example, contemporary food collectors of the tropical forest are not particularly nomadic and need not be. If suitable food sources are available, then a remarkable degree of sedentism is possible and with it the mobilization of large amounts of food for social purposes. In Mesoamerica domesticated crops are known to have preceded permanent settlements by several millennia (Ellen 1994). Populations dependent on fishing may also achieve a sedentary lifestyle, ranging from the modest settlements of the Andaman islanders to the substantial villages of certain peoples of the North American Northwest Coast. Additionally, there is increasing evidence for the nucleation of settlement in the absence of animal or plant domestication from the prehistoric Near East. For example, Natufian data from the Levant have revealed permanent settlements supported by the reaping and storage of wild cereal grains (Henry 1983).

Models of steppe economy A number of models of Eurasian steppe economies are described. Each of the models, however, describe the advent of agriculture as occurring relatively late in the archaeological sequence compared to the rest of Europe. A second theme, which these models also have in common, is that the economies are dominated by pastoral agriculture as opposed to arable or mixed. For example, on the north coastal region of the Black Sea the foundations for the practice of grain agriculture are thought to have been laid by the Tripolye culture tribes as late as the Middle Eneolithic. This form of agriculture, however, based on the Anatolian model, was adapted to changing circumstances in the steppe region, presumably climatic fluctuations, with an increase in the significance of millet until the end of the Bronze Age. The Danilenko model (1974) describes agriculture as a cultural phenomenon originating in the east in the zone of contact between the primitive agriculturalists of the Near East and the primitive pastoralists of Central Asia and Caspian region, and as being swiftly diffused through the steppe of the Black Sea coast. The Volga–Ural model characterizes a mobile way of life with the opening up of the steppes and the rearing of sheep and goats throughout the Eneolithic and the Bronze Age. The North Caucasian model, however is a sedentary model involving the pasturing of cattle and the rearing of pigs. The Black Sea model is also sedentary, with horse breeding as an important focus, and long-term settlements with cattle breeding and mobile sheep breeding (for detailed description of these models see Rassamakin 1999). Archaeology of the Pontic steppe region has, in the past, found itself constricted by an overemphasization of culture history and a need to identify the current dwellers of the region with a noble warrior cult which relied on breeding and herding horses. Thus the focus of research has been turned away from subsistence and towards the warrior élite and the migration of socio-cultural groupings. This is linked to a perceived past in which the steppes were occupied by horse-based nomadic tribes, who were somehow outside the steppe ecotope, living on the edge of the grassland zone. These culture historical ideas may, however, be more reflective of the present-day ethnicity of the region and a need for the current inhabitants of the steppe to have ownership of their past (Bower 1995). This paradigm, however, is being challenged. For example, Rassamakin (1999) suggests that the 35

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early Eneolithic steppe region did not see warlike migrations of steppe peoples from the Volga and the Caspian region, but rather the emergence of a mutually-beneficial system of exchange between steppe populations and the production centres of the agricultural world. He notes evenly distributed settlements through the southern zone of the Black Sea steppes, with a complex architecture and standard burial rite (Rassamakin 1999), suggesting that these settlements must have been based on some form of agro-pastoral economy. He suggests that despite a long tradition, the idea that the Eneolithic and Early Bronze Age saw socio-cultural migrations from the steppes of the Volga and North Caspian region into the North Caucasus and the Black Sea is not proven (Rassamakin 1999). The appearance of stock breeding is now being associated with later periods and the factors relating to its emergence are considered within the structure of pre-existing agricultural cultures (Kislenko & Tatarintseva 1999). Without more data from the regions in question, however, new models will be difficult to construct, in particular they cannot be upheld without a greater emphasis on archaeobotanical data and models, which are not based solely on pastoralism. Compared to other parts of the world there is relatively little information on Pontic steppe economies and subsistence thus the precise nature of the economic systems of steppe peoples remains unknown. Because much of the subsistence data is in the form of animal bones, previous economic descriptions may be reduced to the simple assertion of the existence of various forms of mobile pastoralism. The steppe inhabitants are usually characterized as seasonal, semi-nomadic or nomadic without close attention being paid to defining the actual mechanisms by which they functioned within particular societies and cultures (Rassamakin 1994). Many arguments focus on the domestication of the horse, which is unarguably of great importance to the steppe economy (Levine 1999). Connected with this is the assumption that steppe pioneers were pastoralist horsemen, before which the steppe was a barren and uninhabited wasteland. Although the settlement of the steppe, however, may have been dependent on the horse, before its domestication the steppe is unlikely to have been empty. Neither will it have been uninhabitable, as grassland, in particular a forest-steppe-type environment, is rich with food resources for the hunter-gatherer. Although there may well have been a period when horse-based mobile groups existed and where pastoralism was favoured, it must surely be true to

say that these groups did not operate in a vacuum. No-one can really be suggesting that steppe peoples had no vegetal or carbohydrate part to their diet. If steppe nomads did not grow their own plant foods, these social groupings must have obtained them from somewhere, if not directly from their environment then from other social groups who were practising agriculture. Ethnographic examples of nomadic groups show them functioning next to developed mixed economies, separate from them but reliant on them for grain and other essentials. It is now known that the Ural and Kazakh steppe was characterized during the Eneolithic and the Bronze Age by large well-developed sites such as Botai, Sintashta and Arkaim (Kislenko & Tatarintseva 1999). But where did these sites develop from? What was there before and what was the subsistence base both during the Eneolithic and before? It is possible that a mixed agricultural economy existed and was more widespread that previously thought, but it has yet to be identified archaeologically. We need to consider the agricultural exploitation of the steppe prior to 2000 BC. Was it purely pastoral or was there cultivation of grain crops going on? If so, where did these grain crops come from? Although archaeologists have identified the Southern Levant as one of the locales for early agriculture, they have not generally considered it to have been the only possible locale (Bar-Yosef & Kislev 1989; Moore 1989). Only for the Levantine Near East, however, are there sufficient relevant data to constrain explanatory hypotheses significantly and to enable truly substantive attempts to explain the transition to agriculture, based on the genetics and ecology of crucial species, archaeology, chronology, stratigraphy and palaeoenvironment (Watson 1995; Bar-Yosef & Belfer-Cohen 1992; Cauvin & Cauvin 1982; Kaufmann & Ronen 1987). This situation could also exist for early agriculture on the steppe if a comparable amount of material was obtained, for example, by intensive sampling and flotation of archaeobotanical material from archaeological sites. There are many important issues to address through studying ancient grassland-culture interactions on the steppe. For instance was there a rapid eastwards dispersal of a mixed farming economy from the Ukraine or did the early farming communities of the Caucasus make little contribution to the early farming and pastoral economies of the steppe to the north? Was the advent of farming in the Ukraine from the West (Greece and Balkans and prior to that Anatolia) or was it based on a completely separate route from China, about which we 36

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can only guess because of the lack of excavated sites? If there was a mixed farming subsistence base, what was its nature and was it based on the Old World ‘Neolithic package’ domesticates which were domesticated in Anatolia and the Balkans according to genetic modelling (Heun et al. 1997; Allaby et al. 1998). Or was it based on a different group of domesticates, for example, barley (Hordeum sp.) and millets (Panicum milliaceum, Setaria italica) for which the domestication history is as yet unclear? We are now in an excellent position to be able to address some of these issues partly because of the information revolution which allows almost instant communication across large distances, but also because of many years spent forging relationships and working partnerships among the many research communities involved. In addition to this, the increasing reliability of ancient biomolecular techniques has given us a new tool with which we can examine the archaeology of any region. Some of the questions posed above can be addressed using molecular genetic techniques on both modern and ancient material.

Ancient DNA and grassland ecology In addition to the research work described above, a methodology for the extraction and amplification of ancient DNA from pollen preserved in sediments is under development (Bower 1998). This methodology has great potential to make a contribution to understanding past grassland ecotopes and the patterning of human behaviour within these ecotopes. It aims to enhance the level of information that can be gained from the pollen record and thus make more accessible a data set which stretches beyond the site level and can encompass whole landscapes and thus human biomes. Grassland projects carried out by botanists and ecologists over the past twenty years have documented the effects of the various biotic components on the modern grassland ecotope. Research has quantified the effects of grazing, fire, flood and anthropogenic factors. Although the functioning of a modern grassland system is reasonably well understood, the link between how the biotic landscape performs on the ground and how that translates into a pollen spectrum from a preserved sediment is made only in very broad terms. This is due in no small part to the perceived impossibility of separating the pollen of Poaceae species, which are uniformly spherical and monoporate, differentiated only by size or pollen index. Consequently when the need arises to describe grassland and human interactions, the characterisation falls to the small collection of so called indicator species, pollen of herbaceous species, which are more easily identified than those of Poaceae. Using this new methodology for the extraction and amplification of ancient DNA from pollen, a genetic test for the identification of cereal and grass species, which is not reliant on morphological characters, could be developed allowing for the location of a locus of sufficient polymorphism between the desired species. Such a genetic test would enrich the information available from pollen assemblages in lake sediment cores and make it possible to study past grassland ecology and human interaction without overly relying on inappropriate modern analogues. Human interaction with the environment is usually mapped in terms of changes in tree species. As tree species tend to be slow to respond to environmental influences there must be a delay in the impression of human impact. Grasses are annuals and so are more responsive to environmental changes. If it were possible to map changes in the species composition of grasslands it would be possible to gain more immediate information on human impact us-

Examining human–plant interactions through phylogenetics and ancient DNA Ancient biomolecule research has established itself as a useful tool to address significant issues in archaeology. In particular, contributions have been made to arguments surrounding the human use of plants. Recent research by Allaby et al. (1998) and Heun et al. (1997) has greatly advanced the discussion of the geographical location of the domestication of emmer and einkorn wheats respectively. Their research identified biogeographical distributions of DNA lineages in current cultivated wheats (Brown 1999). Hopefully, further research will extend these spatial patterns back into the past using archaeological material to see if the past phylogenetic relationships are similar to those identified in the research described above. Research on ancient DNA from plant remains has, thus far, focused mainly on two key issues; the domestication of wheat and sorghum (Renfrew 1998). Now, however, research has begun on the elucidation of the complex issues surrounding barley phylogenetics and the biogeography of its domestication and subsequent spread. This research will prove to be of some importance to archaeology in the steppe zone, for, as described above, the spread of this grain crop may well have preceded the use of wheats in the area. 37

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logues that project observed patterns of modern plant behaviour and modern ecological associations into the past. These problems are augmented further once uniformitarian principles are imposed on past grassland communities, as there are very few modern analogues for Holocene grasslands, that is to say ‘natural’ grasslands remaining in the world. Indeed it is possible that there are in actuality no natural grasslands, i.e. grasslands that have been unaffected by humans in one way or another, currently in existence. As it is not possible, at the present time, to create a coherent picture of past grassland composition from palynology owing to the associated problems with the identification of fossil Poaceae pollen, or from archaeology owing to the lack of data, it is not possible to judge whether present grasslands are representative of past grasslands and vice versa. It is necessary to gather data on a particular ecotope for significant periods of time before patterns of change and behaviour can be recognized. Different elements in the biosphere function at different rates spatially and temporally. To a certain extent it has been possible to gather data on the spatial and temporal patterning of other ecotopes, such as forests, within the limitations of palynology by developing past patterns through pollen analysis. It has not been possible, however, to do the same with grasses and grasslands as yet, except to observe their spatial and temporal pattern as a homogeneous block of vegetation, which, according to the complex systems paradigm, grasslands cannot have been. If the methodology for the molecular identification of grasses can be designed in such a way as to be a usable tool, then the spatial and temporal mapping of grass species could be carried out in a similar way to the mapping of tree species. Furthermore, it may be possible to chart the action of humans within that ecotope and to form hypotheses on the cultural decisions that humans in the past made about the choices of plant resource to be utilized. In the mean time it is essential that archaeological research in and on the edges of the steppe zone include archaeobotanists in their excavation teams and undertake systematic sampling and flotation regimens. It is a requirement for the understanding of the beginnings of cultivation and the development of agricultural practices to understand how and where humans fit into the ecotope in general and in particular how they function as part of the grassland ecotope which gave rise to the most important economic food plants currently in use. It is generally recognized that humans have a significant effect on

Figure 3.5. Human interaction with the environment is usually mapped in terms of changes in tree species but grasslands may provide more sensitive information. ing signature species or associations. This is particularly important in the steppe zone, where without the presence of the forests which occurred over a large part of Europe and which are currently used as an indicator of human activity, there is only the grouping of herbaceous plants, a greater part of which is taken up by a homogeneous block of grasses and cereals, with which to characterize the human use of the ecotope. The palaeoecology of grasslands, as described above, is poorly understood and yet they cover a significant area of the Eurasian continent. There is, at present, little information to allow the reconstruction of these grasslands or to model their responses to human influences. Where can future research take us? In the present day, eighty per cent of edible plant material used by humans is derived from only eleven species of which eight are cereals (Langer & Hill 1991). Grasslands are an important resource, they gave rise to the cereals we use today through the domestication of the most common plant species: the Poaceae. Thanks to recent publications (Zohary & Hopf 1988) the genetic history of the wheats in use today and their genetic links with wild grasses are better understood. Little is known, however, about the ecology and the ecological associations of these plant species in the past or the ecological associations of humans with these species in the past. That which is known is based in very broad terms on assumptions made from observations of grasslands currently in existence. As described earlier, there are problems with using uniformitarian principles and modern ana38

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Bar-Yosef, O. & A. Belfer-Cohen, 1992. From foraging to farming in the Mediterranean Levant, in Transitions to Agriculture in Prehistory, eds. A.B. Gebauer & T.D. Price. (Monographs in World Archaeology 4.) Madison (WI): Prehistoric Press, 21–48. Bar-Yosef, O. & M. Kislev, 1989. Early farming communities in the Jordan Valley, in Harris & Hillman (eds.), 632–42. Bidzilya, V.I. & E.V. Yakovenko, 1973. Ralo iz pozdeneyamnogo pogrebeniya kontsa III – nachala II tys.do n.e. Sovetskaya Arkheologiya 3, 146–52. Blumler, M.A., 1996. Ecology, evolutionary theory and agricultural origins, in Harris (ed.), 25–51. Botkin, D., 1990. Discordant Harmonies: a New Ecology for the Twenty-first Century. New York (NY): Oxford University Press. Bower, M.A., 1995. Marketing nostalgia: an exploration of heritage management and its relation to human consciousness, in Managing Archaeology, eds. M.A. Cooper, A. Firth, J. Carman & D. Wheatley. London: Routledge, 33–9. Bower, M.A., 1998. A Critical Path to the Characterisation of Agriculture through the Pollen of Cereals. Unpublished PhD Thesis, University of Cambridge. Braun-Blanquet, J., 1965. Plant Sociology: the Study of Plant Communities. 3rd edition, translated, revised and edited by S.D. Fuller & H.S. Conard. London: Hafner Publishing Co. Brown, T.A., 1999. How ancient DNA may help in understanding the origins and spread of agriculture. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London Series B 354 (1379), 89–98. Carpenter, S.R., 1998. Ecosystem ecology, in Dodson et al. (eds.), 123–62. Cauvin, J. & M.C. Cauvin, 1982. Origines de l’agriculture au Levant. Facteurs biologiques et socio-culturels, in The Hilly Flanks, eds. T. Cuyler Young, P. Smith & P. Mortensen. Chicago (IL): Chicago University Press. Coupland, R.T., 1992. Natural Grasslands: Introduction and Western Hemisphere. (Ecosystems of the World 8a.) Amsterdam: Elsevier. Cousins, S.H., 1993. Hierarchy in ecology: its relevance to landscape ecology and geographic information systems, in Haines-Young et al. (eds.), 75–86. Danilenko, V.N., 1974. Eneolit Ukrainy. Kiev: Naukova dumka. Davis, M.B., 1981. Quaternary history and the stability of forest communties, in Forest Succession, eds. D.C. West, H.H. Shugart & D.B. Botkin. New York (NY): Springer Verlag, 132–53. de Angelis, D.L. & J.C. Waterhouse, 1987. Equlibrium and non-equilibrium concepts in ecological models. Ecological Monographs 57, 1–21. Dodson, S.I., T.F.H. Allen, S.R. Carpenter, A.R. Ives, R.L. Jeanne, J.F. Kitchell, N.E. Langston & M.G. Turner (eds.), 1998. Ecology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ellen, R., 1994. Modes of subsistence: hunting and gathering to agriculture and pastoralism, in Companion

grasslands, but it would be valuable to know how and what alterations in the pattern of species and the ecological function of the biome occur in the presence of humans. In the absence of genetic or palynological data, traditional archaeobotanical methods can provide extremely informative data. Conclusions Until relatively recently the Western view of the archaeological world has been highly Eurocentric. However, as information technology expands all our horizons it brings archaeologists from many and varied cultures together and allows the sharing of information which was hitherto difficult, if not impossible to access. Thus our view of the world changes and it begins to be necessary to reassess some of the big archaeological questions that form the central focus of so many discussions, for example the rise of sedentism, the origins and spread of agriculture, the source of domesticated plants and animals. In particular, our archaeological understanding of southwest and central Asia, Eastern Europe, Russia and the Far East needs to be integrated so that chronologies can be brought into line and largescale models of social and ecological human behaviour can be developed. Understanding of the human use of the steppe zone is central to advancing the debate and would be useful, both for the elucidation of the subsistence patterns of past steppe peoples, and the broadening of our knowledge of general human–plant interactions in the past. Conventional archaeology and culture history have a contribution to make, but the contribution of archaeobotany, ancient DNA research and phylogenetics should not be ignored. Acknowledgements The author wishes to thank the McDonald Institute and NERC for supporting this research. Martin Jones, Chris Howe and Colin Renfrew are thanked for their continuing support. Mark Nesbitt, Chris Stevens, Dorian Fuller and Dan Leighton are thanked for their contributions to this paper. Transmite me sursum Caledonii. References Allaby, R.G., E.J. Hogben, C.J. Howe, M.K. Jones & T.A. Brown, 1998. Biogeographical distributions of glutenin allele lineages in cultivated wheats: evidence for two independent agricultural expansions. Science 279, 302–3.

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Encyclopedia of Anthropology, ed. T. Ingold. London: Routledge, 162–97. Flannery, K.V., 1968. Archaeological systems theory and early Meso-America, in Anthropological Archaeology in the Americas, ed. B.J. Meggers. Washington (DC): Anthropological Society of Washington, 67–87. Flannery, K.V., 1969. Origins and ecological effects of early domestication in Iran and the Near East, in Ucko & Dimbleby (eds.), 73–100. Ford, R.I., 1985. The processes of plant food production in prehistoric North America, in Prehistoric Food Production in North America, ed. R.I. Ford. (Anthropological Paper 75.) Ann Arbor (MI): University of Michigan, Museum of Anthropology, 1–18. Fuller, R.M., 1983. Aerial photographs as records of changing vegetation patterns, in Ecological Mapping from Ground, Air and Space, ed. R.M. Fuller. (ITE Symposium 10.) Cambridge: NERC, 57–68. Glen-Lewin, D.C., R.K. Peet & T.T. Velben, 1992. Prologue, in Plant Succession, eds. D.C. Glen-Lewin, R.K. Peet & T.T. Velben. Austin (TX): Texas University Press, 1–10. Haines-Young, R., D.R. Green & S. Cousins (eds.), 1993. Landscape Ecology and Geographical Information Systems. London: Taylor and Francis Publishing Company. Harlan, J.R., 1975. Crops and Man. Madison (WI): American Society of Agronomy. Harris, D.R., 1969. Agricultural systems, ecosystems and the origins of agriculture, in Ucko & Dimbleby (eds.), 3–17. Harris, D.R., 1989. An evolutionary continuum of people plant interaction, in Harris & Hillman (eds.), 11–24. Harris, D.R. (ed.), 1996. The Origins and Spread of Agriculture and Pastoralism in Eurasia. London: UCL Press. Harris, D.R. & G.C. Hillman (eds.), 1989. Foraging and Farming: the Evolution of Plant Exploitation. London: Unwin and Hyman. Hawkes, J.G., 1969. The ecological background of plant domestication, in Ucko & Dimbleby (eds.), 17–31. Henry, D.O., 1983. Adaptive evolution within the Epipaleolithic of the Near East. Advances in World Archaeology 2, 99–160. Heun, M., R. Schafer-Pregl, R. Klawan, R. Castagna, M. Accerbi, D. Borghi & F. Salamini, 1997. Site of einkorn domestication identified by DNA fingerprinting. Science 278, 1312–14. Ingold, T., 1993. The temporality of the landscape. World Archaeology 25, 152–74. Ingold, T., 1996. Growing plants and raising animals: an anthropological perspective on domestication, in Harris (ed.), 12–24. Janushevich, Z.V., 1984. The specific composition of wheat finds from agricultural centres in the USSR, in Plants and Ancient Man: Studies in Palaeoethnobotany, eds. W. van Zeist & W.A. Casparie. Rotterdam: AA Balkema, 267–70. Jochim, M.A., 1979. Breaking down the system: recent ecological approaches in Archaeology, in Advances

in Archaeological Method and Theory, ed. M.B. Schiffer. Orlando (FL):Academic Press, 77–117. Kaufmann, D. & A. Ronen, 1987. La sépulture Kébarienne Géométrique de Névé-David, Haifa, Israel. L’Anthropologie 91, 335–42. Kislenko, A. & N. Tatarintseva, 1999. The Eastern Ural steppe at the end of the Stone Age, in Levine et al. (eds.), 183–216. Knapp, R., 1979. Climate and soils of grassland areas in Europe, in Numata (ed.), 49–50. Korupstova, V.N. & S.N. Lyashko, 1990. Katakombnoe pogrebenie s pshenitsei v Krymu. Sovetskaya Arkheologiya 3, 166–75. Langer, R.H.M. & G.D. Hill, 1991. Agricultural Plants. 2nd edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lavers, C.P. & R. Haines-Young, 1993. Equilibrium landscapes and their aftermath: spacial heterogeneity and the role of new technology, in Haines-Young et al. (eds.), 57–75. Lebedeva, E.Y., 1996. O zemledelii v stepyakh i lesostepyakh Vostochnoi Evropy v epokhu bronzy. XIII Uralskoe Arkheologicheskoe Soveshchanie I, 53–5. Levine, M., 1999. The origins of horse husbandry on the Eurasian steppe, in Levine et al. 1999, 5–58. Levine, M., Y. Rassamakin, A. Kislenko & N. Tatarintseva, 1999. Late Prehistoric Exploitation of the Eurasian Steppe. (McDonald Institute Monographs.) Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research. McCorriston, J. & F. Hole, 1991. The ecology of seasonal stress and the origins of agriculture in the Near East. American Anthropologist 93, 46–69. McIntosh, R.P., 1985. The Background of Ecology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mithen, S., 1990. Thoughtful Foragers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Moore, A.M.T., 1989. The transition from foraging to famring in Southwest Asia: present problems and future directions, in Harris & Hillman (eds.), 620– 31. Nesbitt, M., in press. Wheat evolution: integrating archaeological and biological evidence, in Wheat Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, ed. P. Caligari. (The Percival Symposium.) London: Linnean Society. Nicolis, G. & I. Prigogine, 1977. Self-organization in Nonequilibrium Systems. New York (NY): Witey Interscience. Numata, M. (ed.), 1979. Ecology of Grasslands and Bamboolands in the World. Boston (MA) & The Hague: Dr W. Junk Publisher. Orlove, B.S., 1980. Ecological anthropology. Annual Review of Anthropology 9, 235–73. Parker, K.C., 1993. Climatic effects on regeneration trends for two columnar cacti in the northern Sonoran Desert. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 83, 452–74. Pashkevich, G.A., 1991. Paleobotanicheskie Nakhodki na Territorii Ukrainy (Neolit–Bronza). Kiev: Catalogue (preprint). Pashkevich, G.A., 1992. Do rekonstruktsii asortymentu

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kulturnykh roslyn epokhy neolitu–bronzy na terytorii Ukrainy, in Starodavne Vyrobnytstvo na Terytorii Ukrainy, eds. S.V. Pankov et al. Kiev: Naukova dumka, 179–94. Pashkevich, G.A., 1993. Osobennosti paleobotanicheskikh kompleksov eneolita–bronzy tertitorii Ukrainy, in The Fourth Millennium BC, ed. P. Georgieva. Sofia: New Bulgarian University, 99–108. Perez-Trejo, F., 1993. Landcape response units: processbased self-organising systems, in Haines-Young et al. (eds.), 87–98. Prigogine, I. & I. Stengers, 1987. Order Out of Chaos. New York (NY): Bantam Books. Rassamakin, Y.Y., 1994. The main directions of the development of early pastoral societies of the northern Pontic zone: 4500–2450, in Nomadism and Pastoralism in the Circle of Baltic-Pontic Early Agrarian Culture: 5000–1650 B C , ed. A. Koskó. Poznán: Adam Mickiewicz University, Eastern Institute, Institute of Prehistory, 29–70. Rassamakin, Y.Y., 1999. The Eneolithic of the Black Sea Steppe: dynamics of cultural and economic development 4500–2300 BC, in Levine et al. 1999, 59–182. Renfrew, C., 1998. Applications of DNA in archaeology: a review of the DNA studies of the Ancient Biomolecule Initiative. Ancient Biomolecules 2, 107–16. Rindos, D., 1984. Symbiosis, instability and the origins and spread of agriculture: a new model. Current Anthropology 21, 751–2. Sauer, C.O., 1952. Agricultural Origins and Dispersals. New York (NY): American Geographical Society. Schaffer, W.M., 1985. Order and chaos in ecological systems. Ecology 66, 93–106. Sinton, J., 1993. When Moscow looks like Chicago: an essay on uniformity and diversity in landscapes and communities. Environmental History Review 17, 23–41.

Sochava, V.B., 1979. Climate and soils of the grassland distribution area in the USSR, in Numata (ed.), 43– 8. Sprugel, D.G., 1991. Disturbance, equilibrium and environmental variablilty — what is natural vegetation in a changing environment? Biological Conservation 58, 1–18. Thomas, R.B., B. Winterhalder & S.D. McRae, 1979. An anthropological approach to human ecology and adaptive dynamics. Yearbook of Physical Anthropology 22, 1–46. Turner, M.G., 1998. Landscape ecology, in Dodson et al. (eds.), 77–122. Ucko, P. & G.W. Dimbleby (eds.), 1969. The Domestication and Exploitation of Plants and Animals. London: Gerald Duckworth and Company. Veblen, T.T., 1985. Stand dynamics in Chilean Nothofagus forests, in The Ecology of Natural Disturbance and Patch Dynamics, eds. S.T.A. Pickett & P.S. White. Orlando (FL): Academic Press, 31–51. Walter, H., 1973. Vegetation of the Earth and Ecological Systems of the Geo-biosphere. 2nd edition, translated by J. Wieser. New York (NY): Springer-Verlag. Watson, P.J., 1995. Explaining the transition to agriculture, in Last Hunters, First Farmers, eds. T.D. Price & B.A. Gebauer. Santa Fe (NM): SAR Press, 21–34. Worster, C., 1990. The ecology of order and chaos. Environmental History Review 14, 1–18. Zimmerer, K.S., 1994. Human ecology and the ‘new ecology’: the prospect and promise of integration. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 84, 108–25. Zohary, D. & M. Hopf, 1988. Domestication of Plants in the Old World: the Origin and Spread of Cultivated Plants in West Asia, Europe and the Nile Valley. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

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Part II Horse Exploitation on the Eurasian Steppe

Chapter 4

44

Organic Residue Analysis of Lipids in Potsherds

Chapter 4 Organic Residue Analysis of Lipids in Potsherds from the Early Neolithic Settlement of Botai, Kazakhstan Stephanie N. Dudd, Richard P. Evershed & Marsha Levine

Condamin et al. 1976; Passi et al. 1981; Rottländer 1990). The widespread occurrence of animal fat residues The most common class of analytes in pottery and their preservation in the archaeological record are the solvent extractable lipids, since their nonin association with pottery vessels is now well-espolar, hydrophobic nature means they are relatively tablished (Evershed et al. 1992; Heron & Evershed resistant to decay and dissolution over archaeologi1993). The entrapment of residues within the clay cal time compared with other biochemical compomatrix of vessels facilitates their preservation by pronents. Lipid residues have been used to derive viding protection from dissolution and chemical and information relating to the nature of commodities microbial decay. Although absorbed residues are the processed or stored in vessels during their use most common find, information has also been ob(Evershed et al. 1992; 1994; 1995a; Charters et al. 1993; 1995; Heron & Evershed 1993; Condamin et al. 1976). tained from the analysis of carbonized residues adDegraded animal fat residues are by far the hering to the inner or outer surfaces of sherds (e.g. most commonly identified natural products found in association with archaeological ceramics (Evershed et al. 2002 and refs. therein). Fresh animal fats consist predominantly of intact triacylglycerols; however, the Le na processing of animal fats at high Ukraine temperatures, e.g. in cooking or Russian Federation to modify their properties in a manufacturing process, and Ob diagenetic alterations during Kam a Ir t ysh burial, result in the hydrolysis of triacylglycerols to their component free fatty acids, mono- and Botai Is h i m diacylglycerols. The distribution Kazakhstan Sy of these components is very charr acteristic and degraded animal Mongolia fats are readily recognizable by high temperature-gas chromatogChina raphy (HT-GC). Remnant fats have been detected in between 0 2000 km 60 and 80 per cent of sherds from assemblages dating from the Figure 4.1. Location map showing the Eneolithic settlement of Botai, early Neolithic to the late Saxon/ Kokchetau Oblast in northern Kazakhstan. To bo l

ga

Do n

V ol

Dn ep r

y Yenise

Ob

Organic residues as a source of new information

ya ar D

Caspian Sea

ea

kS

U ra

l

ac Bl

45

Chapter 4

Dwelling Excavated area Eroded riverbank Modern woodland

N

Site 31

Iman

-Bur

0

luk

properties of fats, including distributions of C18:1 positional isomers. It has been demonstrated that distinctions can be drawn between degraded fat extracts from medieval lamps and dripping dishes on the basis of the positional isomers of the monounsaturated fatty acids (Evershed et al. 1997). Further work (Mottram 1995; Mottram et al. 1999) has shown that the natural variation in the 13C/12C isotope ratios of animal fat components can been utilized to differentiate between fats, allowing distinctions to be drawn between a marine or terrestrial source, and further, to identify fats of ruminant or non-ruminant origin. Recent studies have substantiated the use of these criteria in drawing clear distinctions between degraded animal fats and, furthermore, have succeeded in developing a robust technique for the unambiguous identification of ancient dairy fats (Dudd 1999; Dudd & Evershed 1998). Botai (North Kazakhstan)

60 m

Botai is an Eneolithic settlement located in Kokchetau Oblast in the forest-steppe region of northern Kazakhstan (Fig. 4.1). It was excavated by the North Kazakhstan Archaeological Expedition, under the overall direction of V.F. Zaibert (A.Kh. Margulana Institute of Archaeology, Petroplavlovsk). The site covers approximately 15 hectares, of which 10,000 square metres of land on the high, right bank of the ImanBurluk, a tributary of the river Ishim, had been excavated by 1992 (Fig. 4.2). Although some remains of Pleistocene mammals have been discovered eroding out of the river bank, the prehistoric human occupation of Botai apparently only extended from the Mesolithic to the Eneolithic. Substantial Neolithic

dak del

Figure 4.2. Site plan of Botai. early medieval period (Dudd & Evershed unpublished data) although preservation is variable and dependant upon both geographical location and age. Few detailed studies have been undertaken previously to classify ancient animal fats where the original lipid signature has been altered as a result of degradation, the exception being work by Morgan and co-workers who analyzed the fatty acid composition of fatty materials from archaeological contexts using GC (e.g. Morgan et al. 1973; 1983; 1984; Thornton et al. 1970; Rottländer & Schlichtherle 1979). More recent analyses have exploited other chemical 46

Organic Residue Analysis of Lipids in Potsherds

R S T U F Kh Ts Ch Sh E remains are probably present, but excavation has so far been largely Dwelling 30 confined to the Eneolithic occupaPit 18 Yu Ya Pit 14 tion, dated to around 3500 BC (Levine Dwelling 101 36 & Kislenko 1997). Dwelling 15 Dwelling 31 Pit 4 Botai comprises around 300 100 Pit 15 semi-subterranean, polygonal 2a Pit 19 ‘dwellings’ which show up on the 2b surface of the ground as rows of shalPit 20 Pit 21 98 low depressions. They are packed Pit 6 Pit Pit 5 Pit 22 23 closely together in a ‘honeycomb’ Pit 13 97 Pit 9 Pit 8 pattern, and are oriented in parallel Dwelling 18 Dwelling 17 96 rows on either side of ‘streets’, 4 to 8 Dwelling 14 metres wide (Fig. 4.3; Kislenko 1993). Pit 95 24 Over 140 of these structures, each Pit 7 ranging in area from 30 to 70 square Pit 17 94 Pit Pit Pit 16 Pit 12 metres, have been excavated so far. 26 25 Pit 29 Pit 11 Pit 1 Pit 2 It has been estimated that in the 93 Pit 32 course of over 15 years of excavaPit 27 Pit 10 92 tions at Botai, starting in 1980, more Pit 30 Pit 31 Dwelling Dwelling 32 than 300,000 artefacts and ten tonnes 17 Pit 33 91 Pit 28 of bones, 99 per cent of which bePit 3 Pit 35 longed to horse, had been uncov90 ered (V.F. Zaibert pers. comm.). More Pit 36 contours of foundation trenches & pits 89 Pit 34 than 40 first phalanges, mainly horse, hearths and calcination polished and covered with geomet88 stones ric designs, have been found in vari0 3m ous dwellings, as has a carved carbonaceous remains human figurine. Although no cemetery has been discovered at Botai, Figure 4.3. Plan of the polygonal ‘dwellings’ excavated at Botai. (From some human remains have been re- Levine et al. 1999, fig. 4.17.) covered from the settlement, including a sawn piece of occipital bone (Levine et al. 1999), tion XXXI (Fig. 4.2), that the vast majority, if not the a trepanned human skull covered with ochre found totality, of horses from that assemblage were from a in a pit between two houses, and a skeleton in a pit hunted population and were probably killed in herd surrounded by horse skulls (Rykushina & Zaibert drives (Fig. 4.4; Levine 1999). The bones were found 1984). in large, dense concentrations within the fill of ruSome archaeologists and archaeozoologists have ined dwellings and within pits both inside and out concluded, largely on the basis of osteometric analyof the dwellings. Limb bones and sections of verteses and the presence of artefacts interpreted as hobbral columns were found articulated, indicating that bles, that the horses from Botai must have been butchery was not very intensive and considerable domesticated (e.g. Kuzmina 1993; Makarova & waste was tolerated. Nurumov 1989; Zaibert 1993). Kuzmina (1996) sugFrom 1980 until 1993, around 12,300 ceramic gests that they were raised for meat alone; according potsherds were recovered from Botai. The ceramics, to Zaibert (1993), they were domesticated for riding examples of which are shown in Figure 4.5, were and meat production. Anthony & Brown’s position made from local clay. (1998; Anthony 1996), on the basis of their bit wear The sherds used for this study were located as study (of 36 lower second premolars) is that at least follows (see Fig. 4.6): some were domesticated for riding. Ermlova (1993), 1. Excavation XVIII, Sector 1s/16, depth 60–70 cm on the other hand, takes the position that the horses 2. Excavation I were wild. 3. Excavation II, Sector 2, depth 50–70 cm Levine concluded from a detailed analysis of 4. Excavation III, Sector 2, depth 50–70 cm the population structure of the horses from excava5. Excavation VII, Dwelling no. 21, floor

47

Chapter 4

6. Excavation XXXI, Dwelling no. 26, Sector S-35/a, depth 70–80 cm The specific aims of these analyses were to screen for the presence or absence of lipid residues in solvent extracts of both the ground potsherd itself (absorbed residues) and the visible surface deposits (carbonized residues), and to investigate the distributional and isotopic characteristics of lipid components present. From this data can be gleaned reliable evidence relating to the identity of the natural commodities originally processed in the vessels. It was anticipated that through these analyses we would be able to determine the function of the ceramics recovered from the settlement site of Botai and obtain evi-

dence to indicate the types of animals being exploited during this Eneolithic phase in North Kazakhstan. Analytical protocol Lipid analyses of potsherds have been performed using our established protocol, whereby approximately 2 g samples were taken and their surfaces cleaned using a modelling drill to remove any contaminants (e.g. soil or finger lipids owing to handling by excavators). The samples were then ground to a fine powder, accurately weighed and a known amount (20 µg) of internal standard (n-tetratriacontane) added. The lipids were extracted with a mixture of chloroform and methanol (2:1 v/v). Following separation from the ground potsherd, solvent was evaporated to obtain the total lipid extract (TLE). Aliquots were subsequently derivatized using N,O-bis(trimethylsilyl)trifluoroacetamide (BSTFA) for analysis by high temperature gas chromatography (HTGC) and HTGC/mass spectrometry (HTGC/MS). Carbonized surface residues were ground to a fine powder, weighed and analyzed as for the absorbed residues. Selected extracts were saponified and converted to their fatty acid methyl ester derivatives as follows: extracts were saponified using methanolic sodium hydroxide (1 ml; 5% v/v) at 70°C for 1 hour. Following acidification to pH 3, lipids were extracted into hexane and the solvent reduced under nitrogen. Fatty acid methyl esters (FAME) were prepared by reaction with BF 3-methanol (14% w/v; 100 µl; 70°C; 1 hour). The methyl esters were extracted with diethyl ether and the solvent removed under nitrogen. The FAME were redissolved into hexane for analysis by GC and GC-combustion-isotope ratio MS (GCC-IRMS).

Botai age structure 25 % unadjusted % adjusted

20

%

15 10 5 0

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18

Age in years Figure 4.4. Graph showing the age stucture of the horses from Botai.

Results

Figure 4.5. Examples of typical ceramic vessel forms and decorations. 48

The samples studied are listed in Table 4.1 together with the quantitative and qualitative results of the lipid analyses. Lipid residues (>5 µg g–1) were detected in 4 out of 6 potsherds analyzed for absorbed residues and 2 out of 3 carbonized surface deposits, the preservation

Organic Residue Analysis of Lipids in Potsherds

of lipid in these latter residues Table 4.1. Summary of lipid content and components present in solvent-soluble residues from Botai most likely attributable to the potsherds. degree of carbonization dur- Sample Type Lipid Lipid components present ing vessel use. Lipid content content (µg g–1) ranges between <5 µg –1 Excavation I Absorbed residue 513 Free fatty acids, including C14:0, C15:0, (undetectable) to 513 µg g of C16:0, C17:0. C18:0 and C18:1; C16:0 and C18:0 powdered potsherd and <5 µg monoacylgylcerols in trace amounts (undetectable) to 2955 µg g–1 Excavation I Carbonized residue ud* – Excavation II Absorbed residue ud – of charred surface deposit. Carbonized residue 2955 Free fatty acids, including C14:0, C15:0, The lipid distributions Excavation II C16:0, C17:0. C18:0 and C18:1 observed in extracts of ground Excavation III Absorbed residue ud – potsherd from excavations Excavation III Carbonized residue 835 Free fatty acids, including C14:0, C15:0, C16:0, C17:0. C18:0 and C18:1; mono-, di- and XVIII and N26 and the carbontriacylgylcerols in trace amounts ized surface residue from exExcavation VII/N21 Absorbed residue 349 Free fatty acids, including C14:0, C15:0, cavation III are characteristic C16:0, C17:0. C18:0 and C18:1; of degraded animal fats. The mid-chain ketones Absorbed residue 99 Free fatty acids, including C14:0, C15:0, ranges of components present Excavation XVIII C16:0, C17:0. C18:0 and C18:1; mono-, di- and in these extracts are listed in triacylgylcerols (C44-C54) Table 4.1. Figure 4.7 shows a N26 Absorbed residue 351 Free fatty acids, including C14:0, C15:0, partial high temperature gas C16:0, C17:0. C18:0 and C18:1; mono-, di- and triacylgylcerols (C44-C54); mid-chain chromatogram illustrating the ketones distribution of lipid compo*ud = undetectable, < 5µg g–1 nents found in the total lipid extract of sample N26. This N 13 sample represents one of the best preserved animal fat residues from Botai since it still 6 2 contains a range of high mo11 lecular weight triacylglycerols, representing the last remains 15 5 8 of the intact storage lipids from 16 the original fat. The nature of 10 9 the lipid distributions in carbonized surface residues from 4 excavation I and II, and ab17 14 3 3 sorbed residues from VII/N21 Iman-B url indicate that the original comuk 12 modities processed in the ves18 1 sels have been highly degraded, possibly owing to exposure of the lipid components to high temperatures during processing, and subsecontours of foundation trenches & pits carbonaceous remains quently during burial. No lihearths and calcination pid residues were detected in excavation 1 stones the carbonized residue from dak del excavation I, or the solvent extracts of potsherds from exca- Figure 4.6. Location of the excavations from which the sherds were recovered. vations II or III. The extracts, including both absorbed and caracid (3 to 7 per cent of total free fatty acids). The bonized surface residues, are all characterized by a branched-chain C17:0 fatty acid is only present in trace higher abundance of the C16:0 fatty acid than the C18:0 amounts in these samples, whereas the straight-chain with a relatively high abundance of the C14:0 fatty C17:0 component is present in relatively high abunDwelling 30

Dwelling 36

Dwelling 15

Dwelling 31

Dwelling 17

Dwelling 18

Dwelling 14

Dwelling 17

0

0

49

Dwelling 32

64 m

3m

Chapter 4

Figure 4.7. Partial high temperature gas chromatogram of the total lipid extract from potsherd N26. Key: FFas = Free fatty acids; MAGs = monoacylglycerols; MCKs = mid-chain ketones; DAGs = diacylglycerols; TAGs = triacylglycerols; IS = internal standard. A 100

N26

XVIII

dance (3 to 7 per cent of total free fatty acids). This distribution compares well with the distributions typical of modern reference horse fats which have a C16:0:C18:0 ratio of c. 4:1 (Dudd 1999). The C18:1 fatty acid components in the remnant fats were absent or only present in very low abundance, reflecting their comparatively low preservation potential. Mid-chain ketones (containing 31, 33 and 35 carbon atoms) have been identified in extracts from VII/N21 and N26; these components are known to be produced from free fatty acids in a condensation reaction during heating to temperatures in excess of 300°C and in the presence of clay minerals (Evershed et al. 1995b). The identification of mid-chain ketones in the Botai sherds is therefore of great significance

Relative abundance (normalized)

0

B 100

Internal fat (peritoneal)

Subcutaneous fat

Bovine adipose

Ovine adipose

Porcine fat

Equine adipose

0

C 100

Figure 4.8. Histograms showing the carbon number distributions of triacylglycerols (acyl carbon number) in total lipid extracts of Eneolithic potsherds recovered from excavations at Botai, compared with distributions in tissue extracts from horses recovered from a prehistoric permafrost burial, Ak-Alakha 3, Kurgan 1, and modern reference animal fats: A) archaeological pot extracts; B) horse fats from Early Iron Age Ak-Alakha; C & D) fresh reference fats. Owing to the complexity of triacylglycerols in fresh fats, these samples have been fractionated using silver ion TLC (Gunstone & Padley 1965) in order to remove the highly unsaturated components which are more readily lost during decay, yielding a distribution more comparable with the archaeological fats.

0

D 100

0 42 44 46 48 50 52 54

42 44 46 48 50 52 54

Number of acyl carbon atoms

50

Organic Residue Analysis of Lipids in Potsherds

in that they indicate the potTable 4.2. δ13C values1 (‰) for fatty acids in lipid extracts. tery vessels were strongly Samples Fatty acid heated in order to process C16:0 C18:0 and/or cook animal comExtracts from Eneolithic vessels from Botai, Kazakhstan modities, or possibly owing to I POT –27.6 –27.0 VII (N21) POT –27.2 –27.2 a pot failure. The chemical evi(N26) POT –27.9 –28.1 dence correlates with the II CR –26.2 –27.4 physical evidence of sooting III CR –27.0 –27.3 and the presence of thick (2–3 Flesh and stomach contents from the ‘ice princess’Ak-Alakha 3, burial, mm) carbonized surface Kurgan 1, Ukok Plateau, Altai Mountains residues. The evidence sugHorse 1 Skin –28.1 –27.4 Horse 2 Sacrum –27.2 –29.9 gests that the release of abunStomach contents (grass) –28.3 –29.5 dant free fatty acids, by Modern reference samples2 hydrolysis of intact acyl lipids Horse fats from animals bred in the UK (mean of 8) –30.4 –29.8 (e.g. triacylglycerols) in the Sheep fat from animals bred in the UK (mean of 13) –29.6 –32.2 Botai pottery extracts, may Porcine fats from animals bred in the UK (mean of 9) –25.9 –24.9 have been accelerated by heatDiet (typical values for UK grasses; mean of 4) –33.4 –31.0 Saltwater fish (mean of 3 species) –25.0 –24.5 ing of the vessels. Since the mid-chain ketones are thought 1 Corrected for the additional methyl carbon added during derivatization of fatty acid to have formed during vessel methyl esters. 2 use, the distribution of these Corrected for changes in the δ13C values of C02 which have occurred since the Industrial Revolution (Friedli et al. 1986). components will reflect the original distribution of their precursor fatty acids, even if the ratio of free fatty triacylglycerol distributions in the residues, the staacids is altered over time (Dudd et al. 1998). The C31 ble carbon isotope ratios (δ13C values) of the C16:0 and and C35 ketones in all of the extracts show that the C18:0 fatty acids have been determined. Stable carbon original distributions of C16:0 and C18:0 fatty acids comisotope ratios of natural fats are largely determined prised a significantly higher abundance of the C16:0 by the diet of the animal, although ‘ecological varifatty acid, a distinctive characteristic of modern horse ability’ and metabolic and physiological makeup also fat (Dudd 1999). affect fat synthesis (Lajtha & Marshall 1994 and refs. Only two of the six extracts from Botai which therein). The δ13C values (a measure of the ratio of 13 yielded lipid residues contained intact triacylglycerols C/12C relative to an international standard) for C16:0 (Table 4.1). These ranged between C46 to C54 in samand C18:0 fatty acids in the six samples containing ple N26 and C48 to C54 in the sample from excavation organic residues are given in Table 4.2. The data are XVIII. Neither extract contained the lower carboncompared with values obtained for a selection of number (C40 and C42) components characteristic of modern reference fats, including subcutaneous adidairy fats, but the range and relative abundance of pose and peritoneal fat samples from pasture-fed the components indicates an equine or ruminant orihorses raised in the UK, and remnant horse tissues gin, rather than a porcine origin (Fig. 4.8). Equine from Ak-Alakha 3, Kurgan 1, an Early Iron Age pertriacylglycerols are characterized by a relatively high mafrost burial in the Altai Mountains, South Siberia abundance of the C50 component and lower abun(Polosmak 1994). The values obtained for the Botai potsherd extracts group together with a mean value dances of the C52 and C54 (Fig. 4.8). In comparison, of –27.1‰ and –27.5‰ for the C16:0 and C18:0 fatty bovine and ovine fats are characterized by a relatively high abundance of the C52 triacylglycerol. Poracids, respectively. The clustering of the isotope valcine adipose fat comprises a predominance of only ues together with the similarity of their relative abunthe C50 and C52 components compared with the broad dances is strong evidence that only one species of distributions in ruminant and equine fats. The triacylanimal is represented. The modern reference horse glycerols in sample N26 would appear to have been fats have δ13C values, which are more depleted by more severely affected by decay than sample XVIII approximately 2–3‰ (for both the C16:0 and C18:0 fatty as reflected in the preferential loss of the C52 and C54 acids) than the archaeological potsherd extracts. The components which comprise a high percentage of δ13C values of the diets for the modern horses are readily-degradable unsaturated fatty acid moieties. more depleted (e.g. by approximately 5‰ for the In addition to the free fatty acid ratios and C16:0 fatty acid) than that of the Ak-Alakha horses 51

Chapter 4

versity) are acknowledged for providing us with information and samples from Botai; and N.V. Polosmak for providing us with samples from Ak-Alakha. Julian and Eliza Ridge of Manor Deer Farm, Brockley, Backwell, UK and Potters abattoir, Cappard’s Farm, Wick Road, Bishop Sutton, UK are gratefully acknowledged for providing reference fats.

which would largely account for the differences in δ13C values of the tissues of the animals. There is a close correlation, however, between the δ13C values obtained for the archaeological extracts from Botai and the remnant horse fats from Ak-Alakha. In addition, slight variations between the values obtained for the remnant fats from Botai and the Ak-Alakha fats are most likely owing to variations in the diets of the animals. The δ13C values obtained for the Botai extracts do not correlate with any of the other species analyzed, which include ovine, porcine and marine species (Table 4.2). Previous analyses of carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes in bone collagen and hair keratin (O’Connell et al. this volume) have shown that freshwater fish were an important component of the diet amongst central Eurasian peoples at this time; however, the data obtained from analyses of the lipids associated with pottery vessels in this study does not provide any evidence that they were used for processing fish.

References Anthony, D.W., 1996. Bridling horse power: the domestication of the horse, in Horses Through Time, ed. S.I. Olsen. Lanham (MD): Roberts Rinehart Publishers for Carnegie Museum of Natural History, 57–82. Anthony, D.W. & D.R. Brown, 1998. Bit wear, horseback riding and the Botai site in Kazakhstan. Journal of Archaeological Science 25, 331–47. Charters, S., R.P. Evershed, L.J. Goad, A. Leyden, P.W. Blinkhorn & V. Denham, 1993. Quantification and distribution of lipid in archaeological ceramics: implications for sampling potsherds for organic residue analysis and the classification of vessel use. Archaeometry 35, 211–23. Charters, S., R.P. Evershed, P. Blinkhorn & V. Denham, 1995. Evidence for the mixing of fats and waxes in archaeological ceramics. Archaeometry 37(1), 113–27. Condamin, J., F. Formenti, M.O. Metais, M. Michel & P. Blond, 1976. The application of gas chromatography to the tracing of oil in ancient amphorae. Archaeometry 18, 195–201. Dudd, S.N., 1999. Molecular and Isotopic Characterisation of Animal Fats in Archaeological Pottery. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Bristol. Dudd, S.N. & R.P. Evershed, 1998. Direct demonstration of milk as an element of archaeological economies. Science 282, 1478–81. Dudd, S.N., M.R. Regert & R.P. Evershed, 1998. Assessing microbial contributions to absorbed acyl lipids during laboratory degradations of fats and oils and pure triacylglycerols absorbed into ceramic potsherds. Organic Geochemistry 29(5–7), 1345–54. Ermlova, N.M., 1993. Mammal remains from the site of Botai (from the 1982 excavation) [Ostatki mlekopitayushchikh iz poselenya Botai (po raskopkam 1982)], in Zaibert et al. (eds.), 87–9. Evershed, R.P., C. Heron, S. Charters & L.J. Goad, 1992. The survival of food residues: new methods of analysis, interpretation and application. Proceedings of the British Academy 77, 187–208. Evershed, R.P., K.I. Arnot, J. Collister, G. Eglinton & S. Charters, 1994. Application of isotope ratio monitoring gas chromatography-mass spectrometry to the analysis of organic residues of archaeological origin. Analyst 119, 909–14. Evershed, R.P., S. Charters & A. Quye, 1995a. Interpreting lipid residues in archaeological ceramics: preliminary results from laboratory simulations of vessel use and burial. Materials Research Society Symposium

Conclusions Although significantly altered from their original composition, comparison of the isotopic and distributional data obtained for the samples from Botai with data obtained for modern and prehistoric reference horse fats have confirmed that the archaeological residues all derive from horse meat and/or fat. The Eneolithic pots thus functioned as vessels for the processing (e.g. cooking) of horse meat or fatrecovery from tissue or bones with chemical evidence that they reached temperatures in excess of 300°C. The lack of chemical markers for leafy vegetables is also notable, indicating that the vessels were not used for cooking such products. This investigation has further demonstrated the significance of isotopic measurements in providing robust chemical signals, even when the original lipid distributional characteristics are severely altered by decay. This study has also shown the importance of analysing reference materials originating from the same geographical location as the archaeological samples, due to the effect of variations in the diet on fat composition. Acknowledgements We would like to thank the NERC for funding (GR3/ 10/53) and for providing mass spectrometry facilities (F14/6/13). V.F. Zaibert (A.Kh. Margulana Institute of Archaeology, Petropavlovsk) and A.M. Kislenko (‘Arkaim’ Centre, Chelyabinsk State Uni52

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Proceedings 352, 85–95. Evershed, R.P., A.W. Stott, A. Raven, S.N. Dudd, S. Charters & A. Leyden, 1995b. Formation of long-chain ketones in ancient pottery vessels by pyrolysis of acyl lipids Tetrahedron Letters 36(48), 8875–8. Evershed, R.P., H.R. Mottram, S.N. Dudd, S. Charters, A.W. Stott, G.J. Lawrence, A.M. Gibson, A. Conner, P.W. Blinkhorn & V. Reeves, 1997. New criteria for the identification of animal fats preserved in archaeological pottery. Naturwissenschaften 84, 1–6. Evershed, R.P., S.N. Dudd, M. Copley, R. Berston, A.W. Stott, H. Moffram, S.A. Buckley & Z. Crossman, 2002. Chemistry of archaeological animal fats. Accounts of Chemical Research 35(8), 660–68. Friedli, H., H. Lotscher, H. Oeschger, U. Siegenthaler & B. Stauffer, 1986. Ice core record of the 13C/12C ratio of atmospheric CO2 in the past two centuries. Nature 324, 237–8. Gunstone, F.D. & F.B. Padley, 1965. Glyceride studies III. The component glycerides of 5 seed oils containing linolenic acid. Journal of the American Oil Chemists Society 42(11), 957–61. Heron, C. & R.P. Evershed, 1993. The analysis of organic residues and the study of pottery use, in Archaeological Method and Theory, vol. 5, ed. M. Schiffer. Tucson (AZ): University of Arizona Press. Kislenko, A.M., 1993. An experimental reconstruction of an Eneolithic dwelling [Opit rekonstruktsii eneoliticheskogo zhilishcha], in Zaibert et al. (eds.), 117– 37. Kuzmina, E.E., 1993. The horse of Botai [Loshadi Botaya], in Zaibert et al. (eds.), 178–88. Kuzmina, E.E., 1996. The ecology of the Eurasian steppe and the origins of nomadism [Ekologiia stepei Evrazii i problema proiskhozhdeniia nomadizma]. Bulletin of Ancient History [Vestnik Drevnei Istorii] 1996 N2, 73–85. Lajtha, K. & J.D. Marshall, 1994. Stable Isotopes in Ecology and Environmental Science. Oxford: Blackwell Scientific Publications. Lawrence, G.J., 1994. Degradations of Lipids in Archaeological Contexts. Unpublished BSc Thesis, University of Bristol. Levine, M.A., 1999. Botai and the origins of horse domestication. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 18, 29– 78. Levine, M.A. & A.M. Kislenko, 1997. New Early Neolithic and Early Bronze Age radiocarbon dates for Northern Kazakhstan and South Siberia, in Ancient Interactions: East and West in Eurasia, eds. K. Boyle, C. Renfrew & M. Levine. (McDonald Institute Monographs.) Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, 131–4. Levine, M.A., Y.Y. Rassamakin, A.M. Kislenko & N.S. Tatarintseva, 1999. Late Prehistoric Exploitation of the Eurasian Steppe. (McDonald Institute Monographs.) Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.

Makarova, L.A. & Nurumov, 1989. The problem of horse breeding in Neolithic–Eneolithic Kazakhstan [K probleme konevodstva v Neolit–Eneolite Kazakhstana], in Interactions between Nomadic Cultures and Ancient Civilisations [Vzaimodeistvie Kochevikh Kultur I Drevnikh Tsivilizatsii]. Alma-Ata: Nauka, 122–31. Morgan, E.D., C. Cornford, D.R.J. Pollock & P. Isaacson, 1973. The transformation of fatty material buried in soil. Science and Archaeology 10, 9–10. Morgan, E.D., L.Titus, R.J. Small & C. Edwards, 1983. The composition of fatty material from a thule eskimo site on Herschel Island. Arctic 36(4), 356–60. Morgan, E.D., C. Titus, R.J. Small & C. Edwards, 1984. Gas chromatographic analysis of fatty material from a thule midden. Archaeometry 26(1), 43–8. Mottram, H., 1995. Stable Isotope Analysis as an Aid to Determining the Origin of Fats Absorbed in Ancient Pottery. Unpublished BSc Thesis, University of Bristol. Mottram, H.R., S.N. Dudd, G.J. Lawrence, A.W. Stott & R.P. Evershed, 1999. New chromatographic, mass spectrometric and stable isotope approaches to the classification of degraded animal fats preserved in archaeological pottery. Journal of Chromatography 833, 209–21. Passi, S., M.C. Rothschild-Boros, P. Fasella, M. NazzaroPorro & D. Whitehouse, 1981. An application of high performance liquid chromatography to analysis of lipids in archaeological samples. Journal of Lipid Research 22, 778–84. Polosmak, N., 1994. Siberian mummy unearthed. National Geographic 186(4), 80–103. Rottländer, R.C.A., 1990. Die Resultate der modernen Fettanalytik und ihre Anwendung auf die prähistorisches Forschung. Archaeo-Physika 12, 1–354. Rottländer, R.C.A & H. Schlichtherle, 1979. Food identification of samples from archaeological sites. ArchaeoPhysika 10, 260–67. Rykushina, G.V. & V.F. Zaibert, 1984. A preliminary report on the human skeletal remains from the Eneolithic settlement of Botai [Predvaritelnoe soobshchenie o skeletnykh ostatkakh liudei s eneoliticheskogo poseleniia Botai], in The Bronze Age Ural–Irtysh Interfluve [Bronzovyi Vek Uralo–Irtyshskogo Mezhdurechiia]. Cheliabinsk: Cheliabinsk State University, 121–36. Thornton, M.D., E.D. Morgan & F. Celoria, 1970. The composition of bog butter. Science and Archaeology 2–3, 20–25. Zaibert, V.F., 1993. The Early Neolithic of the Ural–Irtysh Interfluve [Early Neolithic Uralo–Irtyshskogo Mezhdurechia]. Petropavlovsk: Republic of Kazakhstan Academy of Sciences. Zaibert, V.F., H.A. Aleksashenko & O.V. Myaksheva (eds.), 1993. Problems in the Reconstruction of Economy and Technology from Archaeological Data [Problemi Rekonstruktsii Khozyaistba I Tekhnologii po Dannim Arkheologii]. Petropavlovsk: Republic of Kazakhstan Academy of Sciences.

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Eneolithic Horse Rituals and Riding in the Steppes

Chapter 5 Eneolithic Horse Rituals and Riding in the Steppes: New Evidence David W. Anthony & Dorcas R. Brown I

n 1964 archaeologists discovered the remains of a horse and two dogs at the bottom of a 1-m-deep Eneolithic archaeological deposit near Dereivka, Ukraine (Telegin 1973; 1986). The bones of the three animals lay together in a compact group. The horse, a 7- to 8-year-old stallion, consisted of a skull, mandible and left foreleg. ‘Head-and-hoof’ deposits like this are well known across Eurasia from later prehistory; they were created when a horsehide was buried with the head and hooves attached, often after a ritual horse feast (Piggott 1962; Bökönyi 1980; Mallory 1981; Jones & Pennick 1995, 139–40). The bones of the two dogs also seemed to be from pelts with the head attached: one consisted of the skull and mandible with two forelegs; the other was a skull and mandible connected to the articulated vertebrae of the backbone. Bibikova’s metric analysis of the horse’s skull indicated that it was domesticated (Bibikova 1967; 1969). Her conclusion was supported by the association of the horse with domestic dogs and the apparent ritual character of the deposit. Its stratigraphic location, near the base of a thick layer of Eneolithic artefacts, made its antiquity seem secure. Its absolute age was indicated by radiocarbon dates on bone and shell taken from the Eneolithic layer, of which there are now ten (Table 5.1:1–10). Eight of these average between 4300–3900 BC.1 In 1990 the authors detected wear made by a bit on the lower second premolars (P2s) of the Dereivka stallion. Comparative studies of bit wear and natural occlusal wear on the teeth of feral, domesticated, and ancient horses left no doubt that the Dereivka horse had been bitted, probably with a hard bit of either bone or metal, for hundreds of hours of use. The bit wear on the premolars of the Dereivka horse was announced as the earliest direct evidence for the use of the horse as a transport animal (Anthony & Brown 1991; Anthony et al. 1991).

Three new radiocarbon dates (Table 5.1:12–14; date no. 11 in Table 5.1 is anomalous) issued by the Oxford and Kiev laboratories on the skull, bit-worn tooth, and surroundings of the ‘cult stallion’ indicate that it does not date to the Eneolithic (Anthony & Brown 2000). The Dereivka horse died between about 700–200 BC. In Ukraine, this would suggest a Scythianperiod Iron Age deposit. Apparently the remains of the horse, and probably the dogs as well, were placed in a pit dug into the Eneolithic layer during the Iron Age. The Dereivka ‘cult stallion’ is irrelevant to discussions of Eneolithic horse-keeping. But the great majority of the other artefacts and animal bones from Dereivka, including the bones of many horses, remain important in discussions of the Eneolithic. The Dereivka bitted horse was important because it was discovered at a well-dated site that has been central in discussions of horse domestication since 1967 (Bibikova 1967; 1969; Nobis 1971; Bökönyi 1974, 238; Levine 1990; Anthony & Brown 1991; Azzaroli 1998). Bit wear seemed to provide the ‘smoking gun’ that was missing from earlier arguments about the origins of horseback riding. But Dereivka is not the only Eneolithic site that contains horse teeth with bit wear. Bit wear has been discovered also at Botai, an Eneolithic site in Kazakhstan dated about 3500–3000 BC, and new evidence continues to support the hypothesis that horses were domesticated and ridden by at least 3500–3000 BC — probably earlier — in the Eurasian steppes. Before turning to this evidence we should comment on the implications of the new dates for the chronology of the Ukrainian Eneolithic. Bit wear and Eneolithic chronology at Dereivka The chronology of Dereivka has recently been a matter of surprising dispute. The site is well-dated com55

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Table 5.1. Radiocarbon dates from selected steppe sites. Lab Date bp Context Dereivka, Late Eneolithic, Sredny Stog culture 1. Ki-2195 6240±100 settlement, shell 2. UCLA-1466a 5515±90 settlement, bone 3. Ki-2193 5400±100 settlement, shell 4. OxA-5030 5380±90 cemetery, grave 2 5. Ki-6966 5370±70 settlement, bone 6. Ki-6960 5330±60 settlement, bone 7. Ki-6964 5260±75 settlement, bone 8. Ki-2197 5230±95 settlement, bone 9. Ki-6965 5210±70 settlement, bone 10. UCLA-1671a 4900±100 settlement, bone 11. Ki-5488 4330±120 cult horse skull 12. Ki-6962 2490±95 cult horse skull 13. OxA-7185 2295±60 cult horse tooth with wear 14. OxA-6577 1995±60 bone near cult horse

Calibrated 5270–5058 BC* 4470–4240 BC 4360–4040 BC 4350–4040 BC 4340–4040 BC 4250–4040 BC 4230–3990 BC 4230–3970 BC 4230–3960 BC 3900–3530 BC 3300–2700 BC 790–520 BC 410–200 BC 90 BC–AD70

Osipovka, Early Eneolithic, Dnepr–Donets (Mariupol) culture 15. Ki-517 6075±125 cemetery, bone 16. Ki-519 5940±420 cemetery, bone

5210–4900 BC 5280–4350 BC*

Nikolskoe, Early Eneolithic, Dnepr–Donets (Mariupol) culture 17. Ki-523 5640±400 cemetery, bone

4950–4000 BC

Yasinovatka, Early Eneolithic, Dnepr–Donets (Mariupol) culture 18. Ki-1171 5650±700 cemetery, bone 5300–3900 BC Rakushechnyi Yar, Late Neolithic, Lower Don group 19. Bln-704 6070±100 level 8, charcoal 20. Ki-955 5790±100 level 5, shell

5210–4900 BC 4790–4530 BC

Khvalynsk cemetery, Early Eneolithic, Khvalynsk culture 21. AA-12571 6200±85 cemetery II, grave 30 22. AA-12572 5985±85 cemetery II, grave 18 23. OxA-4314 6015±85 cemetery II, grave 18 24. OxA-4313 5920±80 cemetery II, grave 34 25. OxA-4312 5830±80 cemetery II, grave 24 26. OxA-4311 5790±80 cemetery II, grave 10 27. UPI-119 5903±72 cemetery I, grave 4 28. UPI-120 5808±79 cemetery I, grave 26 29. UPI-132 6085±193 cemetery I, grave 13

5250–5050 BC* 5040–4780 BC 5060–4790 BC 4940–4720 BC 4840–4580 BC 4780–4570 BC 4900–4720 BC 4790–4580 BC 5242–4780 BC*

Varfolomievka settlement, Late Neolithic, North Caspian 30. Lu2642 6400±230 level 2B, ? 31. Lu-2620 6090±160 level 2B, ?

5570–5070 BC* 5220–4840 BC*

Kozhai I settlement, Eneolithic, Tersek culture, North Kazakhstan 32. IGAN-656 4600±320 ? 3700–2900 BC 33. IGAN-748 4570±40 ? 3380–3130 BC Kumkeshu settlement, Eneolithic, Tersek culture, North Kazakhstan 34. IGAN-749 4570±270 ? 3650–2900 BC Botai settlement, Eneolithic, Botai culture, North Kazakhstan 35. OxA-4315 4630±75 lower level, bone 36. OxA-4316 4620±80 pit 5, bone 37. OxA-4317 4630±80 house 44, pit 10, bone 38. IGAS-4234 4900±80 house 50, bone 39. IGAS-4235 4160±40 house 48, ? 40. IGAS-4236 4540±60 house 55, ? 41. IGAS-4237 4430±60 pit 9, between h. 49/56

3600–3190 BC 3600–3140 BC 3610–3140 BC 3790–3540 BC 2880–2620 BC 3360–3100 BC 3310–2920 BC

Sergeëvka, Terminal Botai/Early Bronze Age, North Kazakhstan 42. OxA-4439 4160±80 settlement, bone 2830–2610 BC Utyevka VI, kurgan 6, grave 4, Middle Bronze Age, Potapovka group 43. OxA-4306 3510±80 K6(4), bone 1920–1740 BC* 44. AA-12568 3760±100 K6(4), bone 2310–2030 BC* Krivoe Ozero, Kurgan 9, grave 1, Middle Bronze Age, Sintashta culture 45. AA-9874a 3580±50 chariot horse skull 1 2012–1785 BC* 46. AA-9874b 3740±50 chariot horse skull 1 2198–2037 BC* 47. AA-9875a 3700±60 chariot horse skull 2 2176–1977 BC* 48. AA-9875b 3525±50 chariot horse skull 2 1890–1759 BC* * Starred dates were calibrated using CALIB, not OxCal.

56

pared with many other less controversial Eneolithic sites. Dereivka is one of about 80 known sites of the Sredny Stog culture (Telegin 1973; 1986). Nine radiocarbon dates from various parts of the settlement and a tenth radiocarbon date and an imported bowl, usually typed as Tripolye B2, from the associated Sredny Stog cemetery clearly establish the age of the Eneolithic occupation at Dereivka. The central range of dates, 4300–3900 BC (Table 5.1:2–9), corresponds with independent radiocarbon dates for the Tripolye B2 period in western Ukraine and Moldova (Gimbutas 1991, 458). Sredny Stog potsherds from different parts of the settlement were cross-mended in the laboratory, confirming that much of the excavated area was in use during a single Eneolithic episode of occupation (Telegin 1986, 36). Two currents of thought have eroded confidence in the chronology of the Eneolithic deposits at Dereivka. One of these flowed from investigators who were not convinced that horses were domesticated as early as the Eneolithic. Many western and Central European archaeozoologists now seek the origins of horse domestication in western or central Europe at around 3000–2500 BC (Uerpmann 1990; 1995; Benecke 1994). The presence of bit wear on a horse mandible from Dereivka suggested that there was something wrong with the dating of the mandible or the Eneolithic deposit where it was found (Häusler 1994). The other current of doubt issued from Yuri Rassamakin, a Ukrainian archaeologist who has questioned the utility of the Sredny Stog culture as a general concept and the chronology of the deposits at Dereivka in particular (Rassamakin 1993; 1994; 1995; 1999). Because the new dates might add to the debate over the chronology of Dereivka, we should state our views on the subject. Interpretive shifts in the chronology of horse domestication During the 1960s and 70s Bibikova’s zoological argument for horse domestication at Dereivka (Bibikova 1967; 1969) was widely accepted, as was Telegin’s (1973; 1986) dating of the site. Bibikova’s identi-

Eneolithic Horse Rituals and Riding in the Steppes

chaeologist at the Ukrainian Institute of Archaeology. Rassamakin has proposed a general reanalysis of the Ukrainian Eneolithic (Rassamakin 1988; 1993; 1994; 1999). In some respects his system extends the earlier ideas of Danilenko (1974). Rassamakin suggested that the principal influence on cultural development during the Ukrainian Eneolithic came from the civilizations of Varna and the Cucuteni-Tripolye culture during Tripolye B1 (about 4500–4100 BC), through the medium of a spectacular Ukrainian group he consolidated from various archaeological sources, the ‘Skelya culture’. The ‘Skelya culture’ combines archaeological entities whose chronological placement is actively debated, including ‘Extended-position graves’, Lower-Mikhailovka-type graves, ‘Ochre-graves’ of the Suvorovo type from the lower Danube, Novodanilovka-type graves, and some elements of the Khvalynsk and Mariupol cultures. Some of these certainly belong earlier than Tripolye B1 and some probably are later (Dergachev 2002; Table 5.1 dates for Khvalynsk and Dnepr– Donets of Mariupol type). After this florescence Rassamakin saw a period of stagnation in the Ukrainian steppes connected with the decline of Varna and the Balkan Eneolithic tell cultures (equivalent to Tripolye B2/early C1). This was followed by another burst of western influence, including migrations eastward into the steppe by Tripolye populations during Tripolye C1/C2 (3500–3000 BC), the period to which he assigned most of the Dereivka settlement. Rassamakin’s system tied the Ukrainian Eneolithic to the west and dismissed any significant influence from Russia, either from the Volga steppes (Khvalynsk and Yamnaya) or from the Caucasus (Maikop), both of which have traditionally been seen as important centers of cultural innovation. He also reorganized the chronology and relationships of archaeological cultures. He split Telegin’s Sredny Stog culture into four separate typological-chronological groups. One was termed the ‘Dereivka culture’. Rassamakin dismissed the ‘cult stallion’ deposit at Dereivka as a Late Bronze Age or medieval intrusion (1994, 69). He redated the Eneolithic settlement to a period equivalent to Tripolye C1/early C2, about 3700–3150 BC (1994, 41–2; 1999, 117). He based this chronology on the imported Tripolye bowl from the Dereivka cemetery, assigned by him to Tripolye C1; and on several figurine fragments from the settlement, which he compared to Tripolye C1 and C2 types. Other figurine fragments from Dereivka, not discussed by Rassamakin, could be compared to Tripolye A types, dated some 1500 years earlier (Telegin 1973, figs. 19:2 & 27:11). These should not

fication of domesticated horses at Dereivka was used by other archaeologists to support the hypothesis that Indo-European-speakers on horseback migrated in several ‘waves’ from the Ukrainian steppes into eastern and central Europe at the end of the Eneolithic (Gimbutas 1970; 1977; Bökönyi 1978). But the archaeozoological evidence for domestication reported by Bibikova was not compelling under close examination (Uerpmann 1990; Levine 1990; Anthony 1991). The hypothesis of massive ‘Kurgan-culture’ invasions into Central Europe also was discredited (Häusler 1981; 1985; 1986; Anthony 1986; Renfrew 1987; Whittle 1996, 140–43). Many remain persuaded by the evidence for a targeted Yamnaya migration stream that flowed from the steppes into the lower and middle Danube valley during the Danubian Late Eneolithic, about 2800 BC, but the connection between this event and a larger ‘Kurgan culture’ or steppe Indo-European identity requires specific supporting arguments — it is not assumed (Ecsedy 1979; Mallory 1989, 238– 41; Panaiotov 1989; Anthony 1990; Nikolova 1994). Intellectual discomfort with the very idea of Indo-European migrations underlies some of the debate about Dereivka. Häusler went to some length to discredit the idea of an Eneolithic ‘horse cult’ in Ukraine principally because other archaeologists had used the ‘horse cult’ as evidence to identify Ukraine as the Indo-European homeland (Häusler 1994, 231– 4). He described the horse-and-dog deposit at Dereivka as a jumble of fragments more reminiscent of a garbage pit or a medieval disturbance (1994, 232), observing incorrectly that the horse skull lacked its jaw. The jaw had appeared in a photographic figure in Bibikova’s first publication on the site (1967), and our bit-wear analysis depended on the mandibular P2s. He said that the head and the left foreleg found beside it came from two different horses, so it could not have been a ritual ‘head-and-hoof’ deposit. The evidence for this was a passing comment by Bibikova (1969) that the fusing of bones in the foreleg might possibly suggest a younger age than that indicated by the teeth, hardly firm proof that they were from different horses. We agree with Häusler that the traditional evidence for riding (‘cheekpieces’, ‘horse’-head maces) is not convincing. This was why we chose to study bit wear. We suggest, however, that the question of horseback riding and the question of ‘Kurgan-culture’ migrations should be separated. Interpretive shifts in Ukrainian Eneolithic chronology Doubts about the age of the stallion-and-dog deposit at Dereivka were amplified by Rassamakin, an ar57

Chapter 5

be used to suggest a Tripolye A date for Dereivka; they only emphasize the danger in basing a typological chronology on a few fragmentary objects selected from a complex stratigraphy. Rassamakin rejected almost all of the Dereivka radiocarbon dates, which indicate an age of about 4300–3900 BC for the principal Eneolithic occupation. Instead he equated Dereivka chronologically with Botai (1999, 128), which is dated by radiocarbon to the period 3500– 3000 BC (Table 5.1:32–41). Rassamakin also reinterpreted the economy of Dereivka. He rejected the idea that the Dereivka people were mobile horse-riding pastoralists. Initially he wrote that the Dereivka subsistence economy was based on sedentary farming and stock breeding in permanent settlements (1994, 54). More recently he and Levine (Levine & Rassamakin 1996; Levine 1999, 33) have argued that ‘. . . there is little or no evidence that the Dereivka people were pastoralists, while on the other hand there is good reason to believe that they were hunter-gatherers’. Given Rassamakin’s chronological arguments, this would imply that the people of Dereivka remained hunter-gatherers until around 3700–3150 BC.2

On the question of chronology, our new dates should not be interpreted as a challenge to the overall chronology of the Sredny Stog culture as Telegin has presented it (Telegin 1973; 1986). The Sredny Stog occupations at Dereivka are firmly dated by radiocarbon (Table 5.1:1–10). The Dereivka dates are supported by a date of 5470±350 BP (Ki-104) from the early Sredny Stog cemetery at Aleksandriya on the Donets River; by Tripolye B1, B2, and C1 ceramic vessels found as imports in at least five different Sredny Stog sites; by Sredny Stog pottery found at the Tripolye B1 site of Soloncheni II; and by stratigraphy at several sites where Sredny Stog occupations overlie Early Eneolithic Dnepr–Donets (Mariupol-type) levels and underlie Early Bronze Age Yamnaya levels (Telegin 1973, 123–4; 1977; 1986, 89–107; 1987; Movsha 1961; Mallory 1977; Gei 1979; Kiashko 1987; Anthony 1986). These observations place the Sredny Stog culture firmly in the Ukrainian Late Eneolithic, which is well dated by radiocarbon dates from Tripolye B1– C1 and Sredny Stog sites to the millennium 4500– 3500 BC. Our new dates identify an anomaly in one part of the Dereivka site, but do not invalidate Telegin’s chronology for Dereivka.

The economy and chronology of Dereivka On the question of subsistence economy, the presence of caprines in four of the five Sredny Stog sites with published fauna (Anthony 1991, table 2), including Dereivka (88 bones of sheep/goat, 16 MNI), establishes that the Sredny Stog people were not hunter-gatherers. Sheep and goats are not native to the Eurasian steppes. They must have been imported domesticates. Cultivated wheat, barley, and millet (T. dicoccum, T. monococcum, H. vulgare, P. miliaceum) have been identified in ceramic imprints at the late Sredny Stog site of Molyukhov Bugor (Pashkevich 1992, 185). The three structures at Dereivka yielded flint blades with sickle gloss (Telegin 1973, 69); three flat, ovoid grinding stones; and five polished schist mortars (Telegin 1973, 43). The Late Eneolithic occupants of Dereivka almost certainly cultivated cereals. Cattle, caprines, pigs, and horses supplied most of the Sredny Stog meat diet (Bibikova, in Telegin 1973, table 6). Horses were by far the most important source of meat. The horse bones reported from Dereivka represent at least 52 animals (MNI) and over 15,000 kg of edible meat, or 5000 kg per excavated structure. Horses were just one element in a surprisingly varied Eneolithic diet, but they were culled in such numbers that the question of controlled management naturally arises, particularly among people who were cattle and sheep herders.

Mesolithic–Neolithic horse exploitation in the western steppes What was the role of the horse in the economy of Dereivka? Was it domesticated? Without evidence of bit wear it is impossible to say if horses were ridden at Dereivka. But horses were treated differently from other wild animals beginning in the Late Neolithic/Early Eneolithic in Ukraine, long before Dereivka. Before the Late Neolithic, horses were just hunted animals; their bones were not given any special attention. After the Late Neolithic/Early Eneolithic, horses acquired a special symbolic role in mortuary rituals, and perhaps in other ritual contexts. They shared this symbolic role with cattle and sheep. No obviously wild animal had an equivalent symbolic importance. Horses and other equids were hunted regularly during the Mesolithic period in the steppes west of the Ural Mountains, between the Carpathians and the Ural River. Horse (Equus caballus), onager (E. hemionus), and a now-extinct ass-like equid, E. hydruntinus, appear regularly in Mesolithic bone middens in the western steppes. At Mesolithic JeKalgan in the North Caspian desert-steppes, east of the Volga delta, onager was the principal prey ; during the subsequent Early Neolithic at Kair-Shak III, radiocarbon dated 5600–5800 BC, onager and saiga 58

Eneolithic Horse Rituals and Riding in the Steppes

e

Dn es

were the principal game (Bar★1 tr ynkin & Kozin 1998, 69). At nub Da 5★ Late Mesolithic Matveev 2★ Kurgan in the northern Azov ST ga EP D ne p steppes, dated about 6400– r PE Forest STE 6000 BC, the principal game 3 PP E ★ 4 animals again were equids ★ 10 (Krizhevskaya 1991, 99–101). ★ 8 D s Here 70 per cent of the idenon ★ in ta 9 ★ n tified bones from one camp ★ STEPPE 11 6 ou 7 (Matveev Kurgan I) and 43 lM ★ ★ a per cent of the mammalian Ur l bones from the other camp bo To Ca uca (M.K. II) were equids, princisus 12 pally horses, but also includMt im s ★ Ish ★ ing a few onagers and E. Semi-desert 13 hydruntinus. In the northwestern Pontic steppes near the mouth of the Dnestr, wild STEPPE equids were the principal Aral Sea game animals at Late Mesolithic Girzhevo (mostly horse, some E. hydruntinus) and Desert were an important part of the diet at Mirnoe, where the dak del 0 200 400 600 800 1000 wild aurochs was the princiFigure 5.1. Late Neolithic and Eneolithic sites in the steppes: 1) Molyukhov Bugor; pal game animal (Benecke 2) Dereivka; 3) Mariupol; 4) Matveev Kurgan; 5) Girzhevo; 6) Kair-Shak; 7) Dzhangar; 1997). Equid-hunting contin8) Orlovka; 9) Varfolomievka; 10) Khvalynsk; 12) Syezzheye; 13) Kozhai 1. ued after domesticated ani. mals began to appear in mesticated cattle and sheep (Benecke 1997; Kuzthe Pontic-Caspian region (Kuzmina 1988). It is parminova et al. 1998). These new foods then rapidly ticularly noticeable in the Caspian Depression, where diffused eastward through the Dnepr–Donets culsites such as Dzhangar, dated to the late sixth milture of Mariupol type and appeared in the Khvalynsk lennium BC (Koltsov 1988), continued to show a predominance of horse and onager bones (P. Kosintsev and Samara cultures in the Volga–Ural region, and pers. comm.) even after domesticated cattle and sheep in sites of the Orlovka-Varfolomievka type in the began to appear in other sites in the western steppes. lower Don–North Caspian region. These data indiWild equids were an important and familiar part of cate that cattle and sheep (and Balkan copper) apthe Pontic-Caspian subsistence economy during the peared as far east as the Volga–Ural region before Mesolithic and the Neolithic. 5000 BC. Perhaps because the societies of the western The role of horses changed after food-producsteppes were now familiar with the management of ing economies appeared in the western steppes. The domesticated cattle and sheep, they also began to bones of domesticated cattle and sheep/goats have think of horses as a food source that could be manbeen found in a series of Late Neolithic and Early aged. Eneolithic Pontic-Caspian sites dated between about 5200 and 4500 BC (Fig. 5.1; Table 5.1:15–31). DomestiEneolithic horse symbolism in the western cated animals probably entered the Pontic-Caspian steppes region from the Neolithic cultures of the lower Danube valley and eastern Carpathian piedmont, where The new symbolic role of the horse in the Late the Cris& and Linear Pottery cultures had interacted Neolithic/Early Eneolithic is indicated most clearly since 5800 BC with the indigenous Bug–Dnestr culat the Khvalynsk cemetery. Khvalynsk, located between Saratov and Samara on the middle Volga, is ture. By 5200 BC some late Bug–Dnestr settlements the type site for the Early Eneolithic Khvalynsk culrelied to some degree on cultivated grain and doVo

l

e ts Don

ck S Bla

ea

ara Sam

Ur al

Ca

spi

an

Sea

U ra l

PE

Volga

STEP

rya -Da Syr

ry - Da a Am u

59

Chapter 5

prisingly early centre of wealth and trade, connected N to the earliest copper-using cultures of southeastern Europe through a very long Khvalynsk II cemetery chain of prestige-oriented exchange. The first excavations in 1977–79 (cemetery I) disclosed 158 graves; these have been published (Agapov et al. 1990). The second excavation Original bank campaign in 1980–85 (cemof the Volga etery II) documented 43 additional graves, which are unpublished. The two adja9 cent excavations probably 1 represent one cemetery. Men, 6 women, and children were 3 buried in individual graves 12 and in superimposed grave 2 clusters (family groups?). Some individuals — principally older males and children — were buried with roundbottomed pots, polished stone maces, antler hammers, belts Khvalynsk I cemetery of shell beads and beaver in5 single grave 8 cisors, boars’ tusk breast or4 90 multiple grave naments, and ornamental 11 91 7 beads, rings and bracelets ritual deposit made of copper (Fig. 5.3). 10 0 3m Trace elements in some of the dak del copper objects are characteristic of Balkan/Carpathian sources, and the simple forgFigure 5.2. The Khvalynsk I cemetery with above-grave ritual deposits. (After ing and welding methods Agapov et al. 1990, figs. 2 & 2a.) resemble those of the Carture. The cemetery contained more than 200 human pathian Tripolye A culture, though the objects are burials (Fig. 5.2). Radiocarbon dates average between cruder and probably were made locally (Ryndina 5000–4500 BC (Table 5.1:21–9). It should be noted that 1998, 151–9). The copper, the earliest to appear on these dates are relatively new; they contradict the the Volga, was presumably traded eastward through equation between Khvalynsk and Dereivka assumed the same social networks (early Tripolye A/Mariupol) by Häusler (1994), or between Khvalynsk and the that had facilitated the diffusion of domesticated ‘Skelya culture’ assumed by Rassamakin (1999). Insheep and cattle. stead, the Khvalynsk cemetery, apparently repreAnimal parts and occasional pottery fragments senting an early phase in the Khvalynsk culture, were deposited in ochre-stained shallow basins above now appears to have existed earlier than Sredny the human graves in twelve locations at Khvalynsk I Stog and Dereivka, at the same time as Dnepr–Donets (Petrenko 1984, 48–9; Agapov et al. 1990, 8–9). These of Mariupol type and Tripolye A. The antiquity of twelve deposits appear to represent ceremonies conKhvalynsk adds considerably to its importance. It ducted above and beside graves after they were filled. was not a crude eastern imitation of ‘Skelya’, as Eleven of them contained animal bones, which toRassamakin asserted (1999, 104); rather, it was a surgether totalled an MNI of four horses, eight cattle, 60

Eneolithic Horse Rituals and Riding in the Steppes

N

90 0

91

3 cm

90

0

3 cm

Figure 5.3. Graves 91 (adult male) and 90 (adolescent), covered by Ritual Deposit 4, with cattle, sheep, and horse bones. Grave 90 gifts included three flint blades, a bone harpoon, a ring of copper, numerous small copper beads, and two bird-bone ‘flutes’. (After Agapov et al. 1990, figs. 2a, 3 & 13.) including one entire lamb); seven graves contained horse phalanges (MNI 7); and six graves contained cattle bones (MNI 13). Grave #127 contained horse phalanges paired with a sheep head-and-hoof offering; and grave #143 contained horse phalanges and the skulls of eight cattle. In the Samara River valley, north of Khvalynsk, an Early Eneolithic cemetery of nine graves was found at Syezzheye (Vasilev & Matveeva 1979). Above the graves in soil deeply stained with red ochre were the sherds of two broken pottery vessels of the Syezzheye type (thought to be somewhat older than Khvalynsk), shell beads, a bone harpoon, and the skulls and lower extremity bones (astragali and phalanges) of two horses. The horse bones seem to represent head-and-hoof offerings, like those of the cattle and sheep at Khvalynsk. Nearby, but outside the area of ochre-stained soil, were two figurines of horses carved on flat pieces of bone (Fig. 5.4). A similar bone plaque shaped like two opposed cattle heads was found in one of the graves, apparently used as an ornament. Other Late Neolithic/Eneolithic sites, from the Samara River valley to the North Caspian steppes (Varfolomievka) to the Dnepr (Nikolskoe) contain similar deposits (Anthony & Brown 2000; Kuzmina,

and sixteen sheep/goat. Four of the deposits contained the head and lower-limb bones of caprines or cattle, apparently from ‘head-and-hoof’ offerings, the earliest such deposits described in the steppes. Häusler (1994, 234) denied that the ritual deposits at Khvalynsk contained any evidence for a ‘horse cult’ in the Eneolithic. We disagree. Horse bones were included in three above-grave ritual deposits. Ritual deposit no. 2 contained three horse first phalanges (1 MNI) and three shell beads. Ritual deposit no. 3 contained five first phalanges from at least two horses, with unspecified cattle bones. Ritual deposit no. 4 was in a large ochrestained pit over the graves (nos. 90 & 91) of an adult male and an adolescent (Fig. 5.3). It contained horse phalanges and a tibia (1 MNI), fragments of the skull and lower leg bones of an adult sheep (1 MNI), and unspecified bones of adult cattle (1 MNI) (Agapov et al. 1990, 8). Horse bones were grouped with cattle and sheep bones in two of these three deposits. Except for one boar’s tusk ornament, no obviously wild animal remains were included in the ritual deposits at Khvalynsk. Only domesticated animals — and horses — were placed within graves. Fourteen graves (of the 158 in cemetery I) contained sheep bones (45 MNI, 61

Chapter 5

1 2

4

3

Figure 5.4. Horse figurines made from carved bone, dated 5200–4500 BC: 1) Varfolomievka; 2, 3) Syezzhe; 4) Lipovy Ovrag, near Khvalynsk. this volume). The ochre-stained graveside ritual deposits of horse bones and carved horse images at these sites confirm the evidence of the Khvalynsk cemetery. Horses were strongly associated with the world of humans and had become an important symbol in mortuary rituals by about 5000 BC. Cattle, sheep/goats and horses supplied most of the meat in the diet. The head-and-hoof deposits of these three animals suggest that they were eaten in ritual feasts associated with mortuary ceremonies. At the Khvalynsk cemetery, horses were grouped with domesticated cattle and sheep in deposits that excluded obviously wild animals. In terms of symbolic representation, horses were unlike wild animals and like domesticated ones.

(Brown & Anthony 1998; Anthony & Brown 2000). Here we need only repeat two conclusions in order to support our identification of bit wear on horse teeth at the Eneolithic site of Botai in Kazakhstan. First, an organic bit can cause bit wear on horse teeth. In our experiment four horses that had never been bitted were ridden for 150 hours each with bits made of hemp rope, horsehair rope, leather, or bone. All four bits showed wear from being chewed, and the premolar teeth of all four horses showed significant wear from the bits. Bevelling of the mesial corner of the P2, caused by the bit slipping back and forth over the anterior edge of the tooth, is the clearest indicator of bit wear for a horse bitted with a ‘soft’ bit of rope or leather (Fig. 5.5). A ‘hard’ bit of bone or metal will also produce distinctive microscopic abrasions on the occlusal enamel of the P2, like those seen on the teeth of the Dereivka horse and on the experimental horse bitted with bone; but ‘soft’ bits produce few microscopic abrasions. The macroscopic bevelling of the mesial corner of the tooth is therefore the best evidence for bitting with a soft bit. If the soft bits used in the experiment had no

Bit wear with organic bits The earliest bits probably were made of organic materials. To define the effects of organic bits on horse P2s (lower second premolars), we conducted a riding experiment using organic bits on four previously unbitted horses. Full reports are published elsewhere 62

Eneolithic Horse Rituals and Riding in the Steppes

visible effect on the P2 teeth (the null hypothesis), one would expect the mean bevel measurement for the three horses ridden with soft bits to remain within one standard deviation (0.42 mm) of their mean ‘never-bitted’ bevel measurement (1.1 mm) taken before the experiment began. A mean bevel measurement of less than 1.52 mm after 150 hours of riding would therefore represent ‘no effect’. After 150 hours of riding the mean bevel measurement for the three horses with soft bits was 2.04 mm, more than two standard deviations above the pre-experiment mean, a significant increase. Rope bits can cause bit wear. Second, among mature horses, older than three years, mesial bevels of 3.0 mm or more (the threshold we have set for archaeological studies) are common only in bitted populations. Table 5.2 below shows the difference in bevel measurements between horses that never were bitted (left column), domestic horses including some that were bitted infrequently (centre column), and a smaller group of domestic horses that were well-documented to have been bitted at least five times a week up to the day their teeth were examined. The never-bitted/bitted means are significantly different at better than the .001 level of significance. The never-bitted/daily-bitted means are more than four standard deviations apart. Mesial bevel measurements clearly segregate mature bitted horses from mature never-bitted horses, as populations. Levine (1999, 33) has noted that a large bevel might be produced naturally by pathological malocclusion, so a single bevelled P2 can never be proof of bitting. This is emphatically true for horses aged three years or less, whose permanent P2s have not yet been worn flat by occlusion with the opposing upper tooth. For this reason we exclude all teeth from horses aged ≤3 years. (We have developed a method to determine if an isolated P2 came from a horse that was ≤3 years old: see Brown & Anthony 1998, 338–9.) We have not seen a bevel approaching 3.0 mm among the mature never-bitted horses we examined. We therefore feel that pathological wear of this magnitude is unusual in the wild. If several mature horses from a single archaeological site have mesial bevels of 3.0 mm or more, it is evidence either for multiple cases of a very unusual malocclusion, or for the use of bits.

Table 5.2. Bevel measurements on the P2s of bitted and never-bitted mature (>3 yrs) horses.3

Median Mean S.Dev. Range

Never-bitted, feral and domestic (16 horses/31 teeth)

Domestic bitted (38 h./73 t.)

Domestic bitted daily (13 h./25 t.)

0.5 mm 0.79 mm 0.63 mm 0–2 mm

2.5 mm 3.11 mm 1.93 mm 0–10 mm

4.0 mm 3.6 mm 1.61 mm 1–7 mm

after an upland site where 158 pit-houses have been mapped on the surface. Most of the radiocarbon dates from Botai-culture sites and related Tersek-culture sites, west of the Ishim, average between 3500 and 3000 BC (Table 5.1:32–41). The faunal collection from Botai made available to us in 1992 contained forty-two P2s. Of these, nineteen were relatively undamaged and came from horses more than three years old (Brown & Anthony 1998). Five of the nineteen measurable P2s, representing at least three different horses, had significant bevel measurements (Fig. 5.5). Two had bevels of 3 mm, one 3.5 mm, one 4 mm, and one 6 mm. The proportion of P2s exhibiting bit wear at Botai was 12 per cent of the entire sample of P2s examined from the site, or 26 per cent of the nineteen measurable P2s from mature horses. We are reasonably certain that some horses at Botai were bitted and ridden for hundreds of hours. It is possible that 85–90 per cent of the horses butchered at Botai never were bitted. Perhaps the Botai hunters rode horses to hunt wild horses. At Botai, horses account for 99.9 per cent of the 300,000 identified animal bones (Akhinzhalov et al. 1992, 40–53). Horses were an important dietary species in Tersek sites as well: at Kozhai 1 horses accounted for 66.1 per cent of 70,000 identified animal bones, with saiga following at 21.8 per cent, onager at 9.4 per cent, and bison (perhaps also some cattle?) at 2.1 per cent (Kalieva et al. 1989; Logvin 1992). The Botai-Tersek people had few or no domesticated animals other than horses. They relied on horses for most of their meat diet, to a degree unparalleled in Eurasia during the Holocene. At Botai, many semicomplete horse carcasses were butchered at or very near the residential area, implying that horses were brought into the site alive or as whole carcasses; both alternatives suggest a controlled herd (Olsen this volume). A partial list of the other species represented at Botai (primarily by teeth and phalanges) includes a very large bovid, probably bison, perhaps aurochs; elk; red deer; roe deer; boar; bear; beaver; saiga antelope; and gazelle (Akhinzhalov et al. 1992,

Bit wear at Botai The Botai culture developed after 3500 BC in the northern steppes of Kazakhstan, east of the Ishim River (Zaibert 1993; Levine & Kislenko 1997; Brown & Anthony 1998; Levine 1999; Olsen 1999). It is named 63

Chapter 5

Bit wear at other steppe sites Bit wear has also been recognized on one P2 (a 3 mm bevel) from Kozhai I, a Tersek-culture site west of Botai, dated 3500– 3000 BC (Kalieva et al. 1989). Not Feral far from Botai is the Terminal Botai/Bronze Age site of Sergeëvka (Kislenko & TatarintP2 seva 1990), dated by radiocarbon (Table 5.1:42) to about 2600–2800 BC (Levine & Kislenko 1997, 300). The animal bones (635 NISP) included sheep (253), horse (129), cattle (16), short-horned bison, and wolf (Akhinzhalov et al. 1992, 55). Among 10 measurable horse P2s Botai 37 Botai 2 from Sergeëvka we found significant bevel measurements on three right P2s (all three measured 3 mm). Significant bevel measurements (6.0 and 5.0 mm) also appeared on both P2s of a stallion buried in Kurgan 6, grave 4 at Utyevka VI (Fig. 5.5), a Middle Bronze Age Potapovka-culture cemetery near Samara, Russia (Vasilev et al. 1995). The grave Utyevka 4 Utyevka 3 also contained elaborate cheekpieces (similar to those from another grave at Utyevka VI, illustrated in Hüttel 1981, tafel dak del 3:22). It is dated by radiocarbon to about 2000 BC (Table 5.1:43– Figure 5.5. Wear facets or bevels on the mesial (front) edge of horse second lower 4). Finally, bit wear (4 mm bevel) premolars. No bevel on the modern feral horse, never bitted; compared to occurred on one of four meassignificant bevels on archaeological horses. Bevels similar to these were produced urable horse P2s we examined experimentally by riding horses with organic bits. from Kulevchi, an AlakulPetrovka (Andronovo) settlement near Chelyabinsk (Vinogradov 1995), probably 52). Horses, not the easiest prey for people on foot, occupied about 1800–1600 BC. An actual chariot burial were overwhelmingly preferred over these other spehas been dated at nearby Krivoe Ozero (Table 5.1:45– cies. 8) to about 1900–2000 BC (Anthony & Vinogradov The fact that Levine did not find riding-related 1995). Bit wear at Utyevka VI and Kulevchi might be pathologies among the vertebrae of the Botai horses linked to the early use of chariots. might be explained by the fact that such pathologies can be expected only on a few vertebrae (thoracic Conclusion 13–15), and not many of these have yet been examined. Levine obtained a sample of forty-one thoracic It seems logically inconsistent to accept the bit wear vertebrae from Botai, but did not indicate how many of at Utyevka VI as ‘real’ because it occurred on a Bronze these were T13, T14, or T15 bones (Levine 1999, 53). 64

Eneolithic Horse Rituals and Riding in the Steppes

The Introduction of Horses in North America Use

New food source

Bulk transport

Long-distance transport

Primary effects

Secondary effects

Grassland subsistence becomes more productive, predictable, and reliable

Wealth in horses stimulates social differentiation

Exploitable territory enlarges sixfold

Conflict over land and resources increases

Mount for the hunt

Mount in war

Patterns of trade and theft intensfy in volume, producing new community structures

Decisive military advantage is gained over sedentary neighbours

Military prowess commands more prestige

Figure 5.6. The effects of horseback riding on American Indian cultures in the North American plains. (After Anthony et al. 1991.) Age horse buried with bridle cheekpieces, while rejecting the same kind of evidence at Botai because Botai is ‘too early’. The wear on the Botai horse teeth looks like the wear we produced experimentally by riding horses with bits made of rope and leather. The occurrence of complete or nearly-complete horse carcasses in the residential area suggests that the Botai horses were at least tamed and kept near the settlement or were used to carry or drag large animal carcasses into the site. Olsen (this volume) has pointed out that leather-strap making was one of the principal industries at Botai, and leather straps would have been very useful for bridles, lariats, and other horse gear. It is not likely that the horses of Botai were the first horses actually ridden in the Eurasian steppes. Horses and dogs were the only tamed/domesticated animals at Botai. Domesticated cattle and sheep were not widely adopted in the central Eurasian steppes, east of the Ural Mountains, until the Sergeëvka period, after 3000 BC. In the steppes west of the Ural Mountains horses had been elevated to a special symbolic status in mortuary rituals as early as 5000 BC , a role they shared there with domesticated cat-

tle and sheep. We have no direct evidence for riding in the western steppes so early, but we have examined only a few horse P2s from this Late Neolithic/ Early Eneolithic era. On the other hand, many significant cultural changes occurred in the western steppes during the Late Eneolithic, about 4500–3500 BC, and these do conform to the kinds of changes that occurred in North America when Indian grassland hunters and simple river-valley farmers adopted horseback riding (Anthony 1986, 303–4; Anthony et al. 1991). During the Late Eneolithic in Ukraine, artefacts classed as weapons increased in frequency in settlements and graves of the Novodanilovka type, implying increased warfare; individual burials replaced the communal Mariupol-type ossuaries, implying increased individual status-seeking; unprecedented quantities and types of exotic prestige goods appeared in graves (Rassamakin has documented this); asymmetries appeared in grave construction and grave wealth that suggest social differentiation; the settlements of neighbouring Tripolye village farmers were fortified, especially during the first phase of the Late Eneolithic, equivalent to Tripolye B1 65

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(Dergachev 2002); and steppe-type graves appeared in eastern Hungary and Transylvania (at Csongrad and Decea Mureshului), apparently as the result of a migration stream from the steppes. Subsequently, during the Early Bronze Age in the western steppes (Yamnaya culture), settlements virtually disappeared in large parts of the steppes, implying the adoption of a much more mobile residential pattern; kurgan cemeteries became widespread, perhaps as a way of confirming territorial ownership in the absence of stable settlements; high-cost status weapons like metal daggers appeared in central graves; a strong and important migration stream flowed from the North Pontic steppes into eastern Hungary and the lower Danube valley; the use of horses among Late Tripolye farmers increased significantly; and the Tripolye population first concentrated in the largest towns seen during the Tripolye sequence (up to 400– 500 ha), then abandoned these towns and adopted a more mobile residence pattern. All of these changes together parallel the overall pattern of cultural change that occurred in the American grasslands when horses were adopted (Fig. 5.6). It therefore seems likely that riding appeared in the steppes west of the Ural Mountains before it did in northern Kazakhstan at Botai. The archaeological and zoological evidence now suggests to us that the human exploitation of horses evolved through several stages in the western steppes. Horseback riding might have begun in a limited way during the Early Eneolithic, when horses were first incorporated with cattle and sheep in graveside ritual deposits. During the Late Eneolithic the range of uses for horseback riding seems to have expanded. The uses of riding listed in the left column of Figure 5.6 might be seen as a series that would tend to unfold from top to bottom in order of increasing risk to the novice rider. This gradual expansion in the social and economic roles of horseback riding culminated in the first widespread adoption of riding beyond the western steppes, first in the steppes of Central Eurasia (Botai/Tersek, about 3500–3000 BC), and later in eastern Europe (BadenKostolac/Corded Ware/Bell Beaker, beginning about 3000–2500 BC). Our efforts to understand the beginnings of horseback riding in the steppes have benefited over the years from the challenges and criticisms offered by our colleagues. We expect that they will continue to help us to find better ways to examine the evidence. In the meantime, we are convinced that people were riding in the Eurasian steppes certainly by 3500 BC, and probably much earlier.

Acknowledgements We thank Dimitri Telegin and the spirit of Natalya Belan in Kiev; Igor Vasilev, Pavel Kuznetsov, Oleg Mochalov, and Aleksandr Khokhlov in Samara; Victor Zaibert and A. Kislenko in Petropavlovsk; and Nikolai Vinogradov in Chelyabinsk, for more help than we can possibly describe; Sandra Olsen, Sebastian Payne, Nerissa Russell, Bernard Wailes, Mary Littauer, and Peter Bogucki for advice and comments; Steve Mackenzie at the Horse Training and Behavior Program, SUNY/Cobleskill, for overseeing the riding experiment; the Large Mammal facilities at Cornell University and the University of Pennsylvania for modern specimens; and the Bureau of Land Management, Winnemucca, Nevada, and Ron Keiper for feral specimens. All errors are our own. Notes 1.

2.

3.

66

All BC dates in this paper have been calibrated using the OxCal or Calib programs. All BP dates are uncalibrated. (See Timofeev & Zaitseva 1997 for an expanded list.) Levine’s conclusion that the Sredny Stog people might have been hunter-gatherers is based partly on her preliminary analysis of the fauna from recent excavations at the Sredny Stog site of Molyukhov Bugor, where she saw no bones of obviously domesticated animals. Molyukhov Bugor (‘mollusc-shell hill’) was first excavated and reported 30 years ago (Danilenko 1959). It contained two distinct strata of the Sredny Stog period, middle and late, on top of a very early Dnepr–Donets occupation. The bones of domesticated sheep, cattle and horse were reported from the earlier Sredny Stog level (Danilenko 1959, 14; Telegin 1973, 132–3). The later Sredny Stog level produced tortoise and waterbirds (Danilenko 1959, 17). The presence or absence of domesticates might depend on the stratum examined. The site is the northernmost Sredny Stog site with a published faunal assemblage and it contains more wild fauna (70 per cent of 269 identified bones) than do other Sredny Stog sites (Aleksandriya, Sredny Stog, and Dereivka, which average only 17 per cent wild mammal bones). The never-bitted horses included feral mustangs from Nevada, feral barrier-island ‘ponies’ from Assateague Island, Maryland, and three of the domesticated horses that we used in the riding experiment. The latter three horses were single-owner horses that had never been bitted when the experiment began. The fourth horse used in our experiment was almost too young to be included — just barely three years old — so we excluded his never-ridden bevel measurement from the left column in Table 5.2. The premolars of the youngest experimental horse had not quite come fully into occlusion when we acquired it, and we had to wait for

Eneolithic Horse Rituals and Riding in the Steppes

several months before his premolar teeth were flattened by occlusal wear.

79), 161–4. Boyle, K., C. Renfrew & M. Levine (eds.), 2002. Ancient Interactions: East and West in Eurasia. (McDonald Institute Monographs.) Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research. Brown, D.R. & D.W. Anthony, 1998. Bit wear, horseback riding, and the Botai site in Kazakstan. Journal of Archaeological Science 25, 331–47. Danilenko, V.N., 1974. Eneolit Ukrainy. Kiev: Naukova Dumka. Dergachev, V., 2002. Two studies in defence of migration concept, in Boyle et al. (eds.), 93–112. Ecsedy, I., 1979. The People of the Pit-Grave Kurgans in Eastern Hungary. Budapest: Akademiai Kiado. Gei, A., 1979. Samsonovskoe mnogosloinoe poselenie na Donu. Sovietskaya Arkheologiya 3, 119–31. Gimbutas, M., 1970. Proto-Indo-European culture: the kurgan culture during the fifth, fourth, and third millennia BC, in Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans, eds. G. Cardona, H.M. Hoenigswald & A. Senn. Philadelphia (PA): University of Pennsylvania Press, 155–97. Gimbutas, M., 1977. The first wave of Eurasian steppe pastoralists into Copper Age Europe. Journal of IndoEuropean Studies 5, 277–338. Gimbutas, M., 1991. The Civilization of the Goddess. San Francisco (CA): Harper. Häusler, A., 1981. Zu den Beziehung zwischen dem Nordpontischen Gebeit, Südost- und Mitteleuropa im Neolithikum und in der frühen Bronzezeit und ihre Bedeutung für das Indoeuropäische Problem. Przeglad Archeologiczny 29, 101–49. Häusler, A., 1985. Die Anfänge von Rad und Wagen in der Kulturgeschichte Europas. Berlin, in Producktivkräfte und Produktionsverhältnisse, 121–33. Häusler, A., 1986. Rad und Wagon zwischen Europa und Asien, in Achse, Rad und Wagon, ed. W. Treue. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprect, 139–52. Häusler, A., 1994. Archäologische Zeugnisse für Pferd und Wagen in Ost- und Mitteleuropa, in Die Indogermanen und Das Pferd, eds. B. Hänsel & S. Zimmer. Budapest: Archaeolingua, 217–57. Hüttel, H., 1981. Bronzezeitliche Trensen in Mittel- und Osteuropa. (Prähistorische Bronzefunde 16.) München: C.H. Beck’sche Verlag. Jones, P. & N. Pennick, 1995. A History of Pagan Europe. London: Routledge. Kalieva, S.S., L.L. Gaiduchenko & V.N. Logvin, 1989. K voprosu o sezonnosti poseleniya Kozhai I, in Aktualnye Problemy Metodiki Zapadnoi Sibirskoi Arkheologii. Novosibirsk: Tyumenskii Gosudarstvennyi Universitet, 129–32. Kiashko, V.Y., 1987. Mnogoslonoe poselenie Razdorskoe I na nizhnem Donu. Kratkie Soobshcheniya Institut Arkheologii 192, 73–80. Kislenko, A. & N. Tatarintseva, 1990. Kulturno-khozyaistevennye kompleksy paleometalla v Ishimskoi stepi, in Arkheologiya Volgo-Uralskikh Stepei. Chelyabinsk: Chelyabinskii Gosudarstvennyi Universitet, 81–99. Koltsov, P.M., 1988. Neoliticheskoe poselenie Dzhangar,

References Agapov, S.A., I.B. Vasilev & V.I. Pestrikova, 1990. Khvalynskii Eneoliticheskii Mogilnik. Kuibyshev: Saratovskogo Universiteta. Akhinzhalov, S., L. Makarova & T. Nurumov, 1992. K Istorii Skotovodstva i Okhoty v Kazakhstane. Alma-Ata: Gylym. Anthony, D.W., 1986. The ‘kurgan culture’, Indo-European origins, and the domestication of the horse: a reconsideration. Current Anthropology 27(4), 291–313. Anthony, D.W., 1990. Migration in archaeology: the baby and the bathwater. American Anthropologist 92(4), 895–914. Anthony, D.W., 1991. The domestication of the horse, in Equids in the Ancient World, vol. 2, eds. R. Meadow & H.-P. Uerpmann. Wiesbaden: Ludwig Reichert Verlag, 250–77. Anthony, D.W. & D. Brown, 1991. The origins of horseback riding. Antiquity 65, 22–38. Anthony, D.W. & D. Brown, 2000. Eneolithic horse exploitation in the Eurasian steppes: diet, ritual, and riding. Antiquity 74, 75–86. Anthony, D.W. & N.B. Vinogradov, 1995. The birth of the chariot. Archaeology 48(2), 36–41. Anthony, D.W., D. Telegin & D. Brown, 1991. The origin of horseback riding. Scientific American 265(6), 94–100. Azzaroli, A., 1998. Outlines of early equitation, in Man and the Animal World, eds. P. Anreiter, L. Bartosiewicz, E. Jerem & W. Meid. Budapest: Archaeolingua, 41–53. Barynkin, P.P. & E.V. Kozin, 1998. Prirodno-klimaticheskie i kulturno-demograficheskie protsessy v severnom Prikaspii v rannem i srednem Golotsene, in Problemy Drevnei Istorii Severnogo Prikaspiya. Samara: Institut Istorii i Arkheologii Povolzhya, 66–83. Benecke, N., 1994. Archäologische Studien zur Entwicklung der Haustierhaltung in Mitteleuropa und Südskandinavien von Anfängen bis zum ausgehenden Mittelalter. Berlin: Akademie Verlag. Benecke, N., 1997. Archeozoological studies on the transition from the Mesolithic to the Neolithic in the North Pontic region. Anthropozoologica 25–6, 631–41. Bibikova, V.I., 1967. K izucheniyu drevneishikh domashnikh loshadei vostochnoi Evropy. Biulleten Moskovskogo Obshchestva Ispytatelei Prirodi, Otdel Biologicheskii 72(3), 106–17. Bibikova, V.I., 1969. Do istorii domestikatsii konya na pivdenommu skhodi Evropi. Arkheologiya 22, 55–67. Bökönyi, S., 1974. History of Domestic Mammals in Central and Eastern Europe. Budapest: Akademiai Kiado. Bökönyi, S., 1978. The earliest waves of domestic horses in east Europe. Journal of Indo-European Studies 6(1/2), 17–76. Bökönyi, S., 1980. Eine Analogie der Árpáden zeitlichen Sitte: Aufgespiesste Pferdeköpfe in Nahöstlichen Dörfern. Mitteilungen des Archäologischen Instituts der Ungarischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 8/9(1978/

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in Arkheologicheskie Kultury Severnogo Prikaspiya, eds. N. Merpert, A.T. Siniuk, I.B. Vasilev & A.A. Vybornov. Kuibyshev: Kuibyshevskii Gosudarstvenny Pedagogicheskii Institut, 52–92. Krizhevskaya, L.Y., 1991. Nachalo Neolita v Stepyakh Severnogo Prichernomorya. (Arkheologicheskie Izyskaniya 5.) Saint Petersburg: Institut Istorii Materialnoi Kultury Akademii Nauk SSSR. Kuzmina, E.E., 1988. Kulturnaya I etnicheskaya Kaya atribuziya pastusheskikh plemen Kazakhstana i Srednei Asii. Vestnik Drevnei Istorii 2, 35–59. Levine, M.A., 1990. Dereivka and the problem of horse domestication. Antiquity 64, 727–40. Levine, M.A., 1999. Botai and the origins of horse domestication. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 18, 29–78. Levine, M.A. & A.M. Kislenko, 1997. New Eneolithic and Early Bronze Age radiocarbon dates for northern Kazakhstan and south Siberia. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 7(2), 297–300. Levine, M.A. & Y.Y. Rassamakin, 1996. Problems related to archaeozoological research on Ukrainian Neolithic to Bronze Age sites [O probleme arkheozoologicheskikh issledovanii pamiatnikov Neolita–Bronzy Ukrainy], in The Don–Donets Region in the Bronze Age System of the East European Steppe and Forest Steppe [Dono–Donetskii Region b Sisteme Drevnoctei Epokhi Bronzy Vostochnoevropeiskoi Stepi i Lesostepi]. Voronezh: Russian-Ukrainian Conference and Ukrainian-Russian Field Seminar, 25–9. Levine, M.A., Y.Y. Rassamakin, A.M. Kislenko & N.S. Tatarintseva (eds.), 1999. Late Prehistoric Exploitation of the Eurasian Steppe. (McDonald Institute Monographs.) Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research. Logvin, V., 1992. Poseleniya Tersekskogo tipa Solenoe Ozero I. Rossiskaya Arkheologiya 1, 110–20. Logvin, V., S. Kalieva & L. Gaiduchenko, 1989. O nomadizme v stepiakh Kazakhstana v III tys. do n. e, in Margulanovskie Chteniya. Alma-Ata: Institut Istorii, Arkheologii, i Etnografii, 78–81. Mallory, J.P., 1977. The chronology of the early Kurgan tradition. Journal of Indo-European Studies 5(4), 339–68. Mallory, J.P., 1989. In Search of the Indo-Europeans. London: Thames & Hudson. Movsha, T., 1961. O svyazyakh plemen Tripolskoi kultury so stepnymi plemenami Mednovo Veka. Sovietskaya Arkheologiya 2, 186–99. Nikolova, L., 1994. On the Pit-Grave culture in northeastern Bulgaria. Helis 3(1), 27–42. Nobis, G., 1971. Vom Wildpferd zum Hauspferd. (Fundamenta Reihe B 6.) Cologne: F. Bohlau-Verlag. Olsen, S., 1999. Bone Artifacts as Important Life-style Indicators in the Kazakhstan Eneolithic. Paper presented at Society for American Archaeology conference, Chicago. Panaiotov, I., 1989. Yamnata Kultura v Blgarskite Zemi. (Razkopki i Prouchvaniya 21.) Sofia: Blgars.ata Akademiya Naukite. Pashkevich, G., 1992. Do rekonstruktsii asortimentu kulturnikh roslin epokhi Neolitu–Bronzi na teritorii

Ukraini, in Starodavne Virobnitstvo Na Teritorii Ukraini. Kiev: Naukova Dumka, 179–94. Petrenko, A.G., 1984. Drevnee i Srednevekovoe Zhivotnovodstvo Srednego Povolzhya i Preduralya. Moscow: Nauka. Rassamakin, Y., 1988. Otnocitelnaya khronologiya pozdneeneoliticheskikh pogrebenii basseina r. Molochnaya, in Novye Pamyatniki Yamnoi Kultury Stepnoi Zony Ukrainy. Kiev: Naukova Dumka 14–27. Rassamakin, Y., 1993. Eneoliticheskii mogilnik c g. Krivoi Rog i ego mesto v sisteme stepnikh drevnostei, in The Fourth Millennium BC, ed. P. Georgieva. Sofia: New Bulgarian University, 116–25. Rassamakin, Y., 1994. The main directions of the development of the direction of early pastoral societies. Baltic-Pontic Studies 2, 29–70. Rassamakin, Y., 1995. The Settlement of Dereivka — an Alternative Point of View on the Economy of its People. Unpublished conference paper. Early Horsekeepers of the Eurasian Steppes. Petropavlovsk, Kazkahstan, June 19–25. Rassamakin, Y., 1999. The Eneolithic of the Black Sea steppe: dynamics of cultural and economic development 4500–2300 BC, in Levine et al. (eds.), 59–182. Renfrew, C., 1981. Archaeology and Language: the Puzzle of Indo-European Origins. London: Cape. Ryndina, N., 1998. Drevneishee Metalloobrabatyvaiushchee Proizvodstvo Iugo- Vostochnoi Evropy. Moscow: Moskovskii Gosudarstvennyi Universitet. Telegin, D.Y., 1973. Serednostogivska Kultura Epokhi Midi. Kiev: Naukova Dumka. Telegin, D.Y., 1986. Dereivka: a Settlement and Cemetery of Copper Age Horse Keepers on the Middle Dnepr. (British Archaeologcial Reports International Series 287.) Oxford: BAR. Telegin, D.Y., 1987. Kulturna prinalezhnist i datuvannya viprostanikh eneolithichnikh pokhovan stepovogo Podniprovya. Arkheologiya 60, 18–22. Uerpmann, H., 1990. Die Domestikation des Pferdes im Chalkolithikum West-und Mitteleuropas. Madrider Mitteilungen 31, 109–53. Uerpmann, H., 1995. Domestication of the horse — when, where and why?, in Le cheval et les autres équidés: aspects de l’histoire de leur insertion dans les activités humaines. (Colloques d’histoire des connaissances zoologiques 6.) Liège: Université de Liège, 5–29. Vasilev, I. & G. Matveeva, 1979. Mogilnik u s. Sezzhee na R. Samara. Sovietskaya Arkheologiya 4, 147–66. Vasilev, I., P.F. Kuznetsov & A. Semënova, 1995. Pamiatniki Potapovskogo tipa v lesostepnom Povolzhe, in Drevnie Indoiranskie Kultury Volgo-Uralya. Samara: Samarskogo Gosudarstvennogo Pedagogicheskogo Universiteta, 5–37. Vinogradov, N., 1995. Khronologiya, soderzhanie i kulturnaya prinadlezhnost pamyatnikov Sintashtinskogo tipa Bronzogo Veka v iuzhnom Zaurale. Istoricheskie Nauki 1, 16–26. Whittle, A., 1996. Europe in the Neolithic: the Creation of New Worlds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Zaibert, V.F., 1993. Eneolit Uralo-Irtyshskogo Mezhdurechia. Petropavlovsk: Nauka.

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Chapter 6 Horse Exploitation in the Kazakh Steppes during the Eneolithic and Bronze Age Norbert Benecke & Angela von den Driesch A few years ago David Anthony and Nikolai Vino-

animals and therefore give unambiguous direct evidence for the presence of domestic horses in the steppe and forest-steppe zone southeast of the Urals in the Early Bronze Age. According to calibrated radiocarbon dates many of these graves date to the centuries between 2200 and 1800 BC (Anthony 1998). Thus, it can be suggested that at this period the controlled keeping and breeding of horses was already widely established in the Eastern Ural steppes. How far horse husbandry actually dates back in time in this area is a largely open and heavily disputed question. The research on the large Eneolithic settlement site Botai in north-central Kazakhstan carried out in the last ten years has, in particular, provoked controversial opinions about the origins of horse husbandry on the central Eurasian foreststeppe and steppe. Through the study of different aspects of the Botai horse bone material, various suggestions concerning the status and primary use of these horses have been put forward. Some archaeozoologists have concluded, on the basis of osteometric analyses, that the Botai horses must have been from domesticated animals (Makarova & Nurumov 1989; Akhinzhanov et al. 1992; I.E. Kuzmina 1993). E.E. Kuzmina (1996) suggests that they were raised for meat alone. According to Zaibert (1993), they were domesticated for riding and meat production. On the basis of their bit wear study, Brown & Anthony (1998) hold the view that at least some of the Botai horses were domesticated for riding and that these have been used for hunting wild horses, a view which is shared by Olsen (1996). Ermolova (1993), on the other hand, takes the position that the horses were wild. Levine (1999a,b) suggests, on the basis of population structure analysis, that the horses at Botai were obtained largely by hunting, thus confirming Ermolova’s position. In this paper we will discuss some of the available archaeozoological evidence from Late Prehis-

gradov published a report on a Bronze Age chariot grave at Krivoe Ozero in the South Urals (Anthony & Vinogradov 1995). It contained the remains of a chariot, a human skeleton and the skulls of two horses (Fig. 6.1). Similar graves are known from several other sites in that region and from neighbouring Kazakhstan (Gening et al. 1992; E.E. Kuzmina 1994). They clearly document the use of horses as draught N

3

1

2 3

4

5

0

20 cm dak del

Figure 6.1. Floor plain of the chariot grave at Krivoe Ozero (from Anthony & Vinogradov 1995, 39). From top: 1) Horse skulls and pots; 2) charioteer; 3) bone cheekpieces; 4&5) remains of the chariot. 69

Chapter 6

Table 6.1. Selected late prehistoric faunal assemblages from Northern and Central Kazakhstan. Nr 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Site (District) Telman (several sites) (Obl. Tselinograd) Vinogradovka XIV (Obl. Kokchetav) Karaganda XV (layer 3) (Obl. Karaganda) Iman-Burluk I (Obl. Kokchetav) Iman-Burluk II (Obl. Kokchetav) Penki II (Obl. Pavlodar) Shalkiya I (Obl. Dzhezkazgan) Livanovka (Obl. Kustanai) Solenoe Ozero I (Obl. Kustanai) Krasnyi Yar (Obl. Kokchetav)

Period/Culture Neolithic, Atbasar C. Neolithic, Atbasar C. Late Neolithic Late Neolithic Late Neolithic Late Neolithic Late Neolithic–Eneolithic Eneolithic Eneolithic Eneolithic Botai C., c. 3600–3300 BC

11

Botai (Obl. Kokchetav)

Eneolithic, Botai C., c. 3600–3100 BC

12 13 14 15 16 17

Kozhai I (Obl. Turgai) Kumkeshu I (Obl. Turgai) Kaindy III (Obl. Turgai) Roshchinskoe (Obl. Kokchetav) Evgenevka II (Obl. Kustanai) Sergeevka (Obl. Severo-Kazakhstan)

Eneolithic, Tersek C., c. 3700–2900 BC Eneolithic, Tersek C., c. 3700–2900 BC Eneolithic, Tersek C. Eneolithic–Early Bronze Age Eneolithic–Early Bronze Age Eneolithic–Early Bronze Age, c. 2800–2600 BC

18 19 20 21

Balandino (Obl. Tjumen) Kenotkel VIII (Obl. Kokchetav) Vishnevka I (Obl. Severo-Kazakhstan) Atasu (Obl. Dzhezkazgan)

Eneolithic–Early Bronze Age Eneolithic–Early Bronze Age Early Bronze Age Middle–Late Bronze Age

22 23

Myrzhyk (Obl. Dzhezkazgan) Late Bronze Age Novonikolskoe I (Obl. Severo-Kazakhstan) Late Bronze Age

24

Petrovka II (Obl. Severo-Kazakhstan)

Late Bronze Age

25

Sargary (Obl. Tselinograd)

Late Bronze Age

26 27

Konezavod III (Obl. Kustanai) Chaglinka (Obl. Kokchetav)

Late Bronze Age Late Bronze Age

Fauna 83 some bones somes bones 15 206 215 some bones 54 >200

References Akhinzhanov et al. 1992 Akhinzhanov et al. 1992 Kozhamkulova 1969 Chalaja 1973 Chalaja 1973 Akhinzhanov et al. 1992 Akhinzhanov et al. 1992 Akhinzhanov et al. 1992 Akhinzhanov et al. 1992 Benecke & von den Driesch unpublished >300,000 Akhinzhanov et al. 1992; Ermolova 1993; I.E. Kuzmina 1993; Benecke & von den Driesch (unpublished) c. 71,000 Kalieva & Logvin 1997 c. 22,000 Kalieva & Logvin 1997 c. 5000 Kalieva & Logvin 1997 some bones Akhinzhanov et al. 1992 some bones Akhinzhanov et al. 1992 1512 Kosintsev & Varov 1993; (excav. 1988) Benecke & von den Driesch (unpublished) 330 Akhinzhanov et al. 1992 161 Akhinzhanov et al. 1992 some bones Akhinzhanov et al. 1992 10614 Makarova 1977; Akhinzhanov et al. 1992 5503 Akhinzhanov et al. 1992 3440 Makarova 1980; Akhinzhanov et al. 1992 2764 Makarova 1980; Akhinzhanov et al. 1992 5278 Makarova 1976; Akhinzhanov et al. 1992 3106 Akhinzhanov et al. 1992 1389 Makarova 1970; Akhinzhanov et al. 1992

Northern and Central Kazakhstan studied so far. As can be seen from this compilation there is no faunal data from the Mesolithic. For the Neolithic the state of research is not much better. This period is represented by a few assemblages, each comprising only a small number of bones. The absolute chronology of these materials is not quite clear (Zaibert 1992). Faunal assemblages from different sites of the subsequent Eneolithic have been studied, most of them belonging to the Botai and Tersek cultures (Zaibert 1993; Kalieva & Logvin 1997). From those sites that of Botai stands out with its very large collection of animal remains, mainly horse bones, exceeding 300,000 (see below). All the other sites have yielded much smaller materials (Table 6.1). For two Botaiculture sites, i.e. Botai itself and Krasnii Yar, radiocarbon dates are available (Levine & Kislenko 1997, 299; Table 6.2) placing the corresponding fauna into a period between 3600–3100 BC. Some of the avail-

toric faunal assemblages of North and Central Kazakhstan concerning the question of the development of horse exploitation in the Kazakh forest-steppe and steppe. Besides Botai several other faunal assemblages representing the long period from the Neolithic to the Late Bronze Age have been included in our study, thus enabling us to evaluate the human–horse relationship in this part of Eurasia from an evolutionary point of view. Before dealing with the relevant zoological data in greater detail we have to discuss briefly the database that is at our disposal from that area at present. Late prehistoric faunal assemblages from the Kazakh steppes and forest-steppes: the data base From the area under investigation only a limited number of faunal assemblages has been available until now. Table 6.1 presents a list of faunas from 70

Horse Exploitation in the Kazakh Steppes

able faunal assemblages represent the Table 6.2. New radiocarbon dates from Botai. Late Eneolithic/Early Bronze Age Number KIA8113 KIA8114 KIA8115 KIA8116 transition roughly dating to the third Context Site 31, Site 31, Site 33, Site 33, millennium BC (e.g. Kenotkel VIII, Quadrant SH 36 Quadrant U37 Quadrant R36 Quadrant R37 Sergeëvka, Balandino). The other fauMaterial Alces alces, Alces alces, Saiga tatarica, Canis familiaris, nas listed in Table 6.1 come from Midcalcaneus pelvis metatarsus cranium dle and Late Bronze Age sites of Date (BP) 4484±29 4566±30 4528±28 4552±28 Northern and Central Kazakhstan. 3347–3029 3485–3105 3360–3098 3366–3103 cal BC (two σ) They date predominantly to the second and the beginning of the first millennium BC. In contrast to most of the chronologiof the German Archaeological Institute and the Unically older assemblages they have quite large versity of North Kazakhstan. The faunal material amounts of bones. For the territory of Central made available to us during our stay comes from Kazakhstan there are some additional reports on three sites: Botai, Sergeëvka, Krasnii Yar. faunal remains from Bronze Age sites which have not been included here (e.g. Margulan et al. 1969; Botai (Oblast Kokchetav) Margulan 1979; Nurumov & Makarova 1988). Botai is located on the high, right bank of the ImanFrom this short description of the late prehisBurluk, a tributary of the river Ishim, about 1.5 km toric faunal record it becomes clear that we have to the southeast of the village Nikolskoe. The prehisonly scant information about the pattern of animal toric human occupation of Botai apparently extended exploitation by human populations of the Kazakh from the Mesolithic to the Eneolithic. Excavations steppes for the period prior to 3500 BC. Concerning have so far been largely confined to the Eneolithic the problem of horse domestication the bad state of occupation (Botai culture). The site covers approxiresearch for the Mesolithic and Neolithic makes the mately 15 hectares, of which around 10,000 square evaluation of horse bones assemblages from Eneometres comprising dozens of polygonal dwellings lithic and Bronze Age contexts very difficult for two have been excavated since 1980 (Zaibert 1993; Kislenko & Tatarintseva 1999). According to several reasons. First, we do not know how different horse radiocarbon dates (Levine & Kislenko 1997, table 1; hunting strategies in the steppe and forest-steppe Levine 1999b, table 2.15; Table 6.2) the Eneolithic environment of Northern and Central Kazakhstan settlement of Botai dates to the period between 3600 are reflected in the age distribution and sex composition of the resulting bone assemblage. Secondly, and 3000 BC. It has been estimated that the number of important biological characteristics of the local wild faunal remains coming from this site exceeds 300,000. horse populations such as variability in body size Several specialists have been working on the bone and shape are unknown. This means we have no collections from Botai resulting in a number of restarting point for the evaluation of morphological ports dealing with different aspects of this large fauna changes possibly related to the domestication proc(Makarova & Nurumov 1989; Akhinzhanov et al. ess. As horses exhibit great regional variability in 1992; Ermolova 1993; I.E. Kuzmina 1993; Olsen 1996; size it is problematical to use an osteometrically wellLevine 1999a,b). During our stay in Petropavlovsk documented Mesolithic horse assemblage from anwe have studied the animal remains from those three other part of the Eurasian steppe or forest-steppe sites that were excavated last, i.e. site 31 (1992), 32 zone — if available at all — as a representative of the (1994–95) and 33 (1995). local wild horse. Krasnii Yar (Oblast Kokchetav) Faunal materials from North Kazakhstan studied Krasnii Yar is a steppe settlement site, located 5 km by the authors from the river Chaglinka. About 240 square metres of this large site covering around 30 hectares have In spring 1997 we spent several weeks at Petropavbeen excavated. Chronologically it belongs to the lovsk examining the Eneolithic and Early Bronze Botai culture (Zaibert 1993). One bone sample has Age faunal assemblages from the territory of North been radiocarbon dated (Levine & Kislenko 1997, Kazakhstan at the invitation of V.F. Zaibert who, at table 1). It gave a similar date as the samples for Botai mentioned above. The authors have studied that time was Dean of the University of North the faunal remains from this site, which are stored in Kazakhstan. The research stay was part of a scienthe local museum of Petropavlovsk. tific program organized by the Eurasia-Department 71

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for the Neolithic exhibit a clear dominance of horses among the bone finds pointing to a significant role of this species as a source of food and raw materials. As a general pattern these collections also comprise a few remains of cattle and sheep/goat. Obviously, elements of animal husbandry became known and were adopted on the territory of North and Central Kazakhstan during the Atbasar Neolithic culture. Because of the lack of radiocarbon dates for this period the exact date of the first occurrence or introduction of cattle and sheep/goat is unknown. According to the archaeozoological evidence from neighbouring territories in the west, i.e. the South Urals and the North Caspian region, cattle and sheep husbandry became part of the local subsistence economy in the forest-steppe and steppe to the east of the Volga river at some time between 6000 and 4000 BC (Petrenko 1984; I.E. Kuzmina 1988; MatyuAnimal exploitation in the Kazakh forest-steppe shin 1996). Judging from the relative percentages, and steppe the contribution of these domesticates to the diet of the Neolithic human population inhabiting North Before considering the human–horse relationship in and Central Kazakhstan was minor. Apart from greater detail, it is useful to examine the general trend in the development of animal exploitation in horse, cattle, sheep/goat and dog, bones from variNorth and Central Kazakhstan from the Neolithic to ous wild mammal species like aurochs, kulan, elk the Bronze Age (Table 6.3 & Fig. 6.2). and hare have been identified in the osteological The few faunal assemblages currently available collections of Atbasar culture settlements. Their generally low numbers suggest only limited importance of Table 6.3. Composition of selected faunal assemblages from Northern and Central Kazakhstan. The figures are numbers of identified specimen (NISP). The frequency symbols represent: +++ these species as a food redominant, ++ frequent, + rare, o proved. For references see Table 6.1. source. For the subsequent EneoNr Site Cattle Sheep/goat Horse Wild mammals lithic some assemblages from 1 Telman 11 23 49 Botai and Tersek culture sites 2 Vinogradovka XIV +++ + 3 Karaganda XV (layer 3) o o o allow an evaluation of the pat4 Iman-Burluk I 4 10 1 tern of animal exploitation 5 Iman-Burluk II 8 3 194 1 during this period. Two groups 6 Penki II 6 209 of sites can be distinguished. 7 Shalkiya I o o o o 8 Livanovka 53 1 The first group comprises set9 Solenoe ozero I +++ + tlements located in the region 11 Botai (site 32, 33) 8625 35 of the upper Tobol and Ishim 12 Kozhai I 46,974 23,828 river, i.e. Solenoe Ozero I, 13 Kumkeshu I 8777 13,338 14 Kaindy III 197 4194 Livanovka, Krasnii Yar and 15 Roshchinskoe + + +++ + Botai. The faunal materials of 16 Evgenevka II o o these places almost exclu17 Sergeevka 26 48 1384 30 sively consist of horse remains 18 Balandino 58 125 101 40 19 Kenotkel VIII 11 113 37 with only a few bones coming 20 Vishnevka I o o o o from other species. For exam21 Atasu 3071 4979 2321 229 ple, among the faunal remains 22 Myrzhyk 1600 3562 126 160 from sites 31–3 at Botai stud23 Novonikolskoe I 1907 895 602 16 24 Petrovka II 1265 748 702 29 ied by us, c. 99 per cent of the 25 Sargary 1867 1924 1407 22 bones and teeth recovered be26 Konezavod III 1411 841 815 18 long to horses, thus confirm27 Chaglinka 586 497 286 20 ing earlier identifications of

Sergeëvka (Oblast Severo-Kazakhstan) The site is located on the right bank of the river Ishim near the village of Sergeëvka. N.S. Tatarintseva in 1986–88 excavated parts of the settlement (Kislenko & Tatarintseva 1990). One bone sample from Sergeëvka has been radiocarbon dated to the first half of the third millennium BC (Levine & Kislenko 1997, table 1). In terms of relative chronology it presents the Eneolithic–Early Bronze Age transition. The faunal remains encountered here have been studied partly by T.N. Nurumova (Akhinzhanov et al. 1992) and partly by P.A. Kosintsev and A.I. Varov (Kosintsev & Varov 1993). Parts of the faunal collection are presently stored in the local museum at Petropavlovsk. During our stay in Petropavlovsk, we also studied these bone collections.

72

Horse Exploitation in the Kazakh Steppes

faunal samples from other % parts of this large settlement (Makarova & Nurumov 1989; Akhinzhanov et al. 1992; 100 Ermolova 1993). The rest of the fauna is made up of the remains of dogs and several 75 wild species, the latter both including mammals and birds. Among the bone sam50 ples from sites 31–3 at Botai we were able to identify the following wild species: elk 25 (Alces alces), aurochs (Bos primigenius), saiga antelope (Saiga tatarica), brown bear 0 (Ursus arctos), wolverine 5 8 9 11 12 13 14 15 17 18 19 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 (Gulo gulo), corsac fox (Vulpes corsac), beaver (Castor fiber), Cattle Sheep/goat Wild mammals Horse hare (Lepus europaeus), marmot (Marmota bobak), whitefronted goose (Anser albifrons), Figure 6.2. Composition of selected faunal assemblages from North and Central bean goose (Anser fabalis), Kazakhstan (for references see Table 6.1 and 6.3). whooper swan (Cygnus cygnus), willow grouse (Lagopus lagopus), common crane In the transitional period from the Eneolithic to (Grus grus), Asiatic white crane (Grus leucogeranus), the Early Bronze Age animal exploitation on the jackdaw (Corvus monedula). Remains of cattle and territory of North Kazakhstan underwent slight sheep/goat are missing at Botai. This is also true for changes. According to the available faunal record the assemblages from Solenoe Ozero I and Livanovka, horses still played a significant role in the subsistwhile a few cattle bones could be identified by us ence economy but with cattle and sheep/goat among the animal remains from Krasnii Yar. Sieved occuring once again, and slowly, gaining increasing soil samples from the sites 32 and 33 have yielded importance as a food resource (Fig. 6.2). At the Early fish remains indicating that fishing was part of the Bronze Age settlement of Balandino dating to the economy at this settlement (Sandra Olsen pers. second half of the third millennium BC according to a comm.). Summarizing the faunal evidence it can be calibrated radiocarbon date (Levine & Kislenko 1997, concluded that the Botai and Tersek culture settletable 1) more than half of the faunal remains already ments in the region of the upper Tobol and Ishim come from cattle and sheep/goat. In the centuries of river were specialized almost exclusively in the exthe Middle and Late Bronze Age the significance of ploitation of horse as a source of food and raw matehorse as a dietary source further decreases as their rials. The second group of Eneolithic sites from North low percentages — generally below 30 per cent — in Kazakhstan encompasses Tersek culture settlements the faunal assemblages of these periods indicate. At located in the Turgai plain, i.e. Kozhai I, Kumkeshu I that time the subsistence economy was mainly based and Kaindy III. Unlike the sites of the first group, the on cattle and sheep husbandry. The exploitation of faunal assemblages of these places exhibt a high diwild mammals and birds only played a minor role in versity in economically important species with varythe Middle and Late Bronze Age settlements of North ing frequencies. Aside from horse, other species like and Central Kazakhstan. aurochs (Bos primigenius), saiga antelope (Saiga tatarica) and onager (Equus hemionus) played a sigHuman–horse relationships in North and Central nificant role in the local subsistence economy. There Kazakhstan: the archaeozoological evidence is also evidence for fowling and fishing (Kalieva & After briefly evaluating the general trend in the deLogvin 1997). Similar to the Eneolithic sites discussed velopment of late prehistoric animal exploitation on earlier cattle as well as sheep/goat are obviously the territory of North and Central Kazakhstan we completely absent at the Turgai settlements. 73

Chapter 6

as butchering, filleting and consumption of horse meat etc. had been disposited and 20 Shetland pony finally became accumulated. Site 32 From these data it can be assumed that as a basic pattern Site 33 complete horses were brought 16 to this part of the Botai settlement and butchered here. Among the material from site 33 we have encountered high 10 incidences of articulated limb bones and vertebrae with many bones of this section being undamaged. These seem to 5 reflect some wasteful underutilization of carcasses. Similar oberservations at Botai, i.e. large concentrations of pre0 dominantly undamaged horse Ve Sc Hu Pe Fe Cr Ma Co R/U Ti Mc Mt Ta Ph bones apparently discarded Figure 6.3. Skeletal element representation of the horse bone assemblages from two together, have been reported sites of Botai compared to that of a recent Shetland pony (on the basis of bone by Levine (1999b, 44 & fig. weights). Abbreviations: Ve Vertebrae, Sc Scapula, Hu Humerus, Pe Pelvis, Fe 2.26). The skeletal element Femur, Cr Cranium, Ma Mandibula, Co Costae, R/U Radius/Ulna, Ti Tibia, Mc frequencies published by Metacarpus, Mt Metatarsus, Ta Tarsalia, Ph Phalanges. Kosintsev & Varov (1993, table 2) for the horse remains from Sergeëvka including our own studies on a part will now discuss some archaeozoological data that of this collection point to the processing of complete will help us to characterize more closely the actual individuals/carcasses in this settlement. Because of pattern of human–horse relationships during the pethe small sample size the skeletal element represenriods considered here, starting with the Eneolithic tation of horse bones at Krasnii Yar is difficult to and the subsequent Early Bronze Age. The relevant evaluate. As all body parts and nearly all elements data mainly come from two Botai culture sites, i.e. are represented in this collection one can probably Botai and Krasnii Yar, and from the settlement of exclude any kind of selective pattern in dealing with Sergeëvka. the killed/slaughtered horses. Much can be learned about the pattern of horse The composition of a horse bone assemblage exploitation at the settlements mentioned from the with regard to its age structure and sex ratio can skeletal element representation of horse bones enreveal much information about the pattern of horse countered here. We have examined this character exploitation that has led to the formation of a speamong the large collections from sites 32 and 33 of cific assemblage. As has been shown in detail by Botai using element bone-weights for quantification. Levine (1983; 1990; 1999a,b) there exist a lot of popuFigure 6.3 illustrates the main results of this study lation-structure models for horses developed from comparing the skeletal element distribution of these ethological, ethnographic and historic sources to two sites with that of a complete horse skeleton, in which age and sex ratio data from a single settlethis case from a Shetland pony (data from Reichstein ment site can be compared, thereby facilitating inter1994, table 10). The observed distribution at site 33 pretation of archaeological horse assemblages in follows nearly exactly the distribution of a complete terms of human behaviour. skeleton, while the horse bone material from site 32 Data concerning the age structure of the Botai exhibits some deviations from the ‘normal distribuhorses have been obtained from postcranial elements tion’ in a complete skeleton. Altogether, the differas well as from upper and lower jaws or single teeth. ent parts and elements of the skeleton are represented Figure 6.4 presents the results for the horse bones in this sample as one would expect it to be at a place from site 32 and 33 based on epiphyseal fusion. As where all leftovers resulting from such activities such %

*

*

*

*

* *

*

*

*

*

* * * * *

74

Horse Exploitation in the Kazakh Steppes

can be seen on this graph % young individuals of various 100 ages are well represented in the sample studied. Nearly 30 per cent of the slaughtered 75 horses from this part of the Botai settlement were younger than 3–4 years. With regard to age estimation based on 50 cranial bones and single teeth various methods have been applied. Figure 6.5 shows the age structure of the Botai 25 horses found in the trenches 31–3 on the basis of the toothwear pattern on the incisors, 0 i.e. age-related changes in size and shape of the occlusal surface in horse incisors accordyounger older ing to Habermehl (1975, figs. 17–38). According to this tooth character about 35 per cent of Figure 6.4. Age structure of the Botai horses according to epiphyseal fusion of the horses were younger than postcranial elements on site 32 (left columns) and 33 (right columns). 4 years, matching well with % the data obtained on the basis 50 of epiphyseal fusion. The largest group is represented by Botai horses between four and eight Mirnoe years with six- and seven- 40 year-old horses making up the majority of this goup. Nearly a quarter of the horses represented in the sample were 30 older than eight years. Very old animals, i.e. horses with an individual age of more 20 than 15 or 16 years, form a small group comprising only c. 8 per cent of the total population. The age distribution in 10 Figure 6.5 is similar to that published by Levine (1999a, fig. 23; 1999b, fig. 2.27) for the 0 Botai horses from site 31 using tooth crown height measurements for age determina- Figure 6.5. Age structure of the Botai horses from the sites 31–3 according to tooth tion. The results obtained by wear on the incisors, compared to horses from the Mesolithic site Mirnoe (Benecke Kazakh archaeozoologists 1998). working on horse bone assemblages from other sites of Botai which were excaet al. 1992). From this it can be assumed that the popuvated in the 1980s also point to an age distribution in lation structure of the horses is more or less the same which young animals form a great part of the popuin different parts of this large settlement. lation (e.g. Makarova & Nurumov 1989; Akhinzhanov Among the Botai horse remains coming from 75

Chapter 6

The sex determination of the Botai horses carried out on jaw bones and pelves revealed quite similar results for the materials from all three sites. As illustrated in Figure 6.6 the ratio between mares and stallions is almost 1:1. On the Botai culture site of Krasnii Yar male horses are more frequent than female ones. But here the number of sexable bones is very small and comprises only 10 specimens. For this reason we must be cautious with the interpretation of this sample. Considering both the age distribution and the sex-ratio, the horses killed and slaughtered at Botai seem to have been derived from a herd in which all age groups occured and in which the sexes were equally represented among the adult animals, thus pointing to a non-selective kill-off-pattern of horses at this settlement. For Krasnii Yar and Sergeëvka a similar pattern seems to be valid. Finally, we will discuss some morphological characters of the late prehistoric horses from North and Central Kazakhstan. Earlier studies carried out by Kazakh and Russian specialists have accumulated a vast amount of metrical data that allow quite a precise reconstruction of such important morphological characters as body size and shape, especially for horses of the Eneolithic and Middle/Late Bronze Age (e.g. Makarova & Nurumov 1989; Akhinzhanov et al. 1992; I.E. Kuzmina 1993). With regard to Botai these authors agree in stating that the horses of this site exhibit high variability in size and shape. According to them the withers height of the Botai horses varies between 128–36 and 144–52 cm with an average of 140 cm. Concerning the shape of the metapodials they report that the Botai horse population comprises different groups from slender-legged to thick-legged horses. Our own metrical studies confirm these results on the phenotype of the Botai horses to a great extent. Osteometric analyses have been used repeatedly to judge the status of the Botai horses, i.e. wild or domestic, resulting in different conclusions by various authors. Makarova & Nurumov (1989), Akhinzhanov et al. (1992) as well as I.E. Kuzmina (1993) argue that the Botai horses represent a domestic population, while Ermolova (1993), on the other hand, takes the position that those horses were wild. For a closer evaluation of this important question we have carried out a metrical comparison between various horse groups from Central Europe, East Europe and Kazakhstan making use of the so-called ‘ogarithmic size indices’ (LSI) method. This is a simple scaling technique applied to make measurements from different elements comparable as one statistical sample (see Meadow 1999). Judging from the

% 100

75

50

25

0

Site 31

Site 32 female

Site 33

Krasnii Yar

male

Figure 6.6. Sex ratio of the Botai horses (sites 31–3) and the Krasnyi Yar horses identified on jaw bones and pelves. sites excavated recently we have encountered several foetal bones (c. 35–44 weeks old) as well as others from neonatal horses. The evidence of foetal and neonatal bones points to the fact that among the horses which were killed and slaughtered at Botai there were mares at the end of gestation and newly born foals, both probably killed in the months between February and May. Some evidence concerning the main period(s) of killing and slaughtering horses comes from cranial bones of juvenile horses that allow a more or less accurate evaluation of the individual age. Those finds demonstrate that at Botai horses were obviously killed throughout the year. A similar age distribution to that of Botai has been observed for the horses from the Early Bronze Age settlement site of Sergeëvka (Kosintsev & Varov 1993, table 6–7). Here, on the basis of cranium bones and teeth, 61 per cent of the horses were one to five years old, 31 per cent 5–15 years and 8 per cent older than 15 years. According to epiphyseal fusion on postcranial elements 39 per cent of the horses were younger than three to four years. Compared with Botai the frequency of young horses seems to be higher at Sergeëvka. Our own studies on a part of this assemblage confirm the observations made by Kosintsev and Varov. The small amount of age data we could collect from the small Krasnii Yar horse bone sample seems to coincide with the age structure obtained for Botai and Sergeëvka. 76

Horse Exploitation in the Kazakh Steppes

Eneolithic and one Early Bronze Age horse group mean values the horses from Botai, Krasnii Yar and from North Kazakhstan lies within the limits of variSergeëvka exhibit the largest average size (Fig. 6.7 & ability known from various wild horse populations Table 6.4). According to the rules of calculation of of Central and East Europe and is distinctly smaller LSI-values, i.e. excluding length measurements of than in domestic horses. For this reason we consider long bones, the term ‘size’ has to be interpreted here those horses to be wild ones. Another important as reflecting the body mass rather than the height of result of the metrical comparison in Figure 6.7 is the the animals. For the Botai horses the metrical data indicate the greatest breadth 0.13 of variation in size among the horse groups compared in Figure 6.7. This is due to the large sample size of nearly 2000 measurements for this group compared to fewer than 200 for each of the other groups. A statistical parameter much better reflecting the variability in an univariate distribution is the standard deviation. Comparing this, it turns out that the horses from Botai, Krasnii Yar and Sergeëvka exhibit the same extent of variation as most of 0.0 the other horses in this graph predominantly representing wild horses from Central and East Europe (Table 6.4). The 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 only exception in Figure 6.7 are the Bell-Beaker horses from Csepel-Háros (Hungary) which exhibit a much larger standard deviation. They are Figure 6.7. Size comparison between horses from Central Europe (1 Kniegrotte, 2 widely accepted as represent- Bärenkeller, 3 Central Germany), East Europe (4 Sakarovka, 5 Mirnoe, 6 Dereivka, ing domestic horses (Bökönyi 7 Csepel-Háros) and North Kazakhstan (8 Botai, 9 Krasnyi Yar, 10 Sergeevka) on 1978; Uerpmann 1990). the basis of LSI-distribution. The vertical lines show the position of minima and Summarizing this short maxima, the bars represent standard deviations, the horizontal lines mark the discussion it becomes clear mean, and the black part of the bars around the mean indicate the double standard that the variability of two error of the mean (see Table 6.4). Table 6.4. Statistical parameters of LSI-distributions in Figures 6.7 and 6.8. Abbreviations: s - standard deviation, Min. - Minimum, Max. Maximum, Med. - Median, 1. Qu. - 1. Quartil, 3. Qu. - 3. Quartil, N - Number. (Data from Uerpmann 1990, app. 3; Benecke 1999, table 1; Benecke & von den Driesch unpubl.) Groups

Period/culture

Mean

s

Min.

Max.

Med.

1. Qu.

3. Qu.

N

1. Kniegrotte 2. Bärenkeller 3. Germany 4. Sakarovka 5. Mirnoe 6. Dereivka 7. Csepel Háros 8. Botai 9. Krasnyi Yar 10. Sergeevka

Late Glacial Late Glacial Bandkeramik Körös Late Mesolithic Eneolithic Bell Beaker Eneolithic Eneolithic Early Bronze Age

0.0180 0.0163 0.0161 0.0312 0.0341 0.0469 0.0479 0.0532 0.0562 0.0539

0.0154 0.0181 0.0203 0.0202 0.0165 0.0200 0.0281 0.0189 0.0212 0.0198

–0.0218 –0.0179 –0.0250 –0.0110 –0.0092 0.0057 –0.0058 –0.0172 0.0146 0.0064

0.0610 0.0529 0.0488 0.0553 0.0751 0.0814 0.1115 0.1235 0.0999 0.1003

0.0184 0.0186 0.0159 0.0357 0.0363 0.0526 0.0432 0.0525 0.0567 0.0545

0.0076 0.0046 0.0088 0.0139 0.0224 0.0376 0.0255 0.0404 0.0413 0.0387

0.0278 0.0265 0.0276 0.0475 0.0452 0.0595 0.0643 0.0659 0.0716 0.0640

178 35 13 13 113 50 61 1961 57 49

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deposits of animal bones dating to the Holocene, known from several localities, confirm that horses really were a major species of the wild mammal fauna in North and Central Kazakhstan. In these assemblages wild horses clearly predominate among the remains of large mammals (Kozhamkulova 1969). Hence it can be assumed that horses have long been the most abundant large wild mammal species of the steppe and forest-steppe zone to the east of the Urals. For human populations living as hunters in this unique environment horses must necessarily have become the main part of their prey. In the Neolithic, and even the Eneolithic, exploitation of terrestrial animal resources was nearly exclusively directed towards the horse as is evidenced by the faunal record from North and Central Kazakhstan. From this point of view, very high frequencies of horse bones on settlement sites like Botai dating to a period, during which keeping of cattle and sheep had already been widely established in the neighbouring Volga region, seem to indicate rather a continued exploitation of wild horses than the controlled keeping of domestic horses. But there are several other, more convincing findings which indicate that the horse bone assemblages uncovered on Eneolithic settlement sites in North Kazakhstan have their origin probably exclusively in hunting activities. One of those findings relates to the population structure of the horses. As has been pointed out above, the horses killed and slaughtered at Botai were derived from a herd in which mares and stallions were equally represented among the sub-adult and adult animals. When compared with various population structure models developed by Levine (1983; 1990; 1999a,b), the age distribution for Botai most closely resembles that of the so-called life assemblage or catastrophe model. That is, all age classes are represented approximately as they would have been in the living wild population comprising both types of social units, family groups as well as bachelor groups. Kill-off patterns resulting from horse keeping aimed at meat production (Carnivorous Husbandry Model) or at milk and the use of horses for riding etc. (Attritional Assemblage Model) are clearly distinct from the age structure observed at Botai and other sites of the Eneolithic and Early Bronze Age (Krasnii Yar, Sergeëvka). Figure 6.5 shows a comparison of age distributions in horses between Botai and Mirnoe. Mirnoe is a Late Mesolithic site in the steppe zone of southwest Ukraine near Odessa. Its fauna was originally studied and published by Bibikova (1982). Some years ago one of the authors (N. Benecke) had the oppor-

fact that among the three horse groups from North Kazakhstan dating to the second half of the fourth and to the first half of the third millennium BC there are no great differences in size and variability. Discussion The faunal record available from North and Central Kazakhstan implies that the human populations inhabiting this territory relied heavily upon the horse as a source for food and raw materials throughout all late prehistoric periods. This is particularly true for the Neolithic and the Eneolithic when the dependence on horses reached an extent in this area for which parallels are difficult to find in Eurasia during the Holocene, even in the neighbouring regions of the steppe and forest-steppe zone. High percentages of horse bones from settlement sites of those periods have been repeatedly regarded, along with other findings, as evidence for a domestic status of the horse, as for example in the case of some Eneolithic sites in the Ukraine like Dereivka on the Dnepr river and Khutor Repin on the Don river (Bibikova 1967; 1969; Tsalkin 1970). Although an increase in the quantity of horse bones might well indicate a change in the relationship between people and horses, domestication is not the only explanation. For example, a change in hunting techniques or climatic changes could also account for an increased number of horse remains at archaeological sites. In view of the tons of horse bones which have been excavated at Botai, several scholars from Kazakhstan suppose that the nearly complete reliance upon a single species over a long period of time — as seems to be documented in the archaeological record of this site — is difficult to explain without assuming a direct control of the herds. Therefore they argue that Botai and other Eneolithic sites of North Kazakhstan represent settlements of early horse keepers (Nurumov & Makarova 1988; Makarova & Nurumov 1989; Akhinzhanov et al. 1992; Zaibert 1993). The region under investigation is part of the Eurasian forest-steppe and steppe zone, today comprising huge areas of natural grassland. As pollen analyses show similar conditions, i.e. an open landscape with vegetation rich in herbs, prevailed across North and Central Kazakhstan throughout the Holocene (Kremenetski et al. 1997; Kremenetski this volume), thus providing feeding grounds to large herds of herbivores. Therefore it can be assumed that horse, a species specialized in feeding on grasses, must have found favourable living conditions in that region during all late prehistoric periods. Natural 78

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tunity to restudy this important collection. It is the only large assemblage of Mid-Holocene wild horses from a Pre-Neolithic context in the Eurasian steppes available so far. Stalking of adult horses has been suggested as the main hunting technique reflected in the Mirnoe material (Benecke 1998). In contrast to that the Botai sample rather represents a non-selective killing technique. Age distributions in horses very similar to that from Botai have been observed repeatedly at Upper Palaeolithic sites in West Europe, so for example at Solutré (Levine 1983, fig. 4.20.). The horse bone deposits of Solutré were probably composed of the butchering refuse from a hunters’ herd drive (Levine 1979). The exploitation of wild horses by herd driving seems to be the best explanation for what is documented in the archaeological record of Botai. This interpretation is supported by other characteristics of this assemblage. Horse drives usually result in the simultaneous deaths of large numbers of individuals. The subsequent slaughter leads to a large number of carcasses which, because of the huge amount of flesh suddenly available, were not fully utilized. Such a situation seems to be documented in the horse bone material from site 33 of Botai: here, high incidences of articulated limb bones and vertebrae with many bones of this section being undamaged have been observed apparently indicating some wasteful under-utilization of carcasses. Another probable result of herd drives is the killing of animals which would have been rather more protected if they had belonged to a herd of domestic horses. These are mares at the end of gestation and newly born foals. Remains of such animals have been encountered several times among the horse remains from Botai also pointing to a non-selective kill-pattern at this site. At Botai horse drives seem to have been taken place in the near vicinity of the settlement. This is suggested by the results of the skeletal element representation for the sites 32 and 33 of Botai, which indicate that complete horses were processed here. Brown & Anthony (1998) have carried out bitwear studies on horse teeth from Botai concluding that some of the horses were bitted and ridden. Comparing the amount of bevel they have measured on the mesial corner of several lower second premolars (P2) from Botai with results obtained by them through riding experiments (using organic bits) Brown & Anthony argue that some horses at Botai must have been ridden for hundreds of hours. According to our experience in working with faunal remains uneven wear on the mesial edge of lower second premolars (P2) from horses can also result from abnormal oc-

clusion with the upper second premolar. Therefore, a certain amount of bevel an those teeth might be produced naturally by malocclusion and must not necessarily result from bit wear. According to Brown & Anthony 5 out of 19 lower P2 studied from Botai, i.e. 26 per cent of their sample, exhibit bevel measurements (3.0 mm and more) which these authors believe to result solely from the use of bits in horseback riding. If this were to be true it would imply that a large part of the Botai horses represent animals which had been ridden, some of them even for long periods of time. This should have been reflected by the occasional occurence of specific pathologies at elements of the postcranial skeleton of those horses as they are known for example from Iron Age and medieval riding horses in Central Europe (e.g. Bökönyi 1974; Müller 1985; Benecke 1994) or in Siberia (Levine 1999b). In the course of our studies of the horse bone assemblages from Botai and other sites (Krasnii Yar, Sergeëvka) we have found only a very few bones with any signs of abnormality. All of them are very slight and not connected, in any way, with deformations typical of horses which have been ridden. Summarizing this short discussion it can be said that the palaeopathological evidence so far available from Eneolithic and Early Bronze Age horses in North Kazakhstan does not support the assumption of horseback riding during these periods. Further supporting evidence for the assumption that the horses documented in the assemblages from Botai, Krasnii Yar and Sergeëvka have been derived from a wild population rather than from herds of domestic horses comes from metrical studies. As has been shown above, the variability of those horses does not exceed the variability known in Late Glacial, Mesolithic and Neolithic wild horses from Central and East Europe (Fig. 6.7). With regard to Botai, Ermolova (1993) states that the horses found on this settlement site exhibit a morphological diversity which is still within the limits of a wild population. In contrast to our and Ermolova’s view other specialists like Akhinzhanov, Kuzmina, Makarova and Nurumov take the position that the morphological characters visible in the Botai horses are in accordance with a domestic population (Nurumov & Makarova 1988; Makarova & Nurumov 1989; Akhinzhanov et al. 1992; I.E. Kuzmina 1993). They argue that several morphological characteristics of the Botai horses, i.e. indices of measurements from metapodia and phalanges, are nearly identical with those found in chronologically older Neolithic and Eneolithic horses in Moldova and the Ukraine (Floreshti, Ozernoe I, Dereivka, etc.) which are re79

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still exhibit an overall variability which is characteristic of wild horse populations. Morphological changes, which can be linked with domestication, only become visible in Middle and Late Bronze Age horses (Fig. 6.8). Compared to the Eneolithic and Early Bronze Age horses they exhibit a reduced mean, a clearly larger standard deviation and extended variability towards smaller individuals completely unknown among chronologically-older horse populations in North and Central Kazakhstan. A decrease in average size accompanied by an increase in heterogeneity is strongly associated with early domestication, as has been demonstrated repeatedly and sucessfully in species like sheep, goat, pig, cattle and horse (for examples see Uerpmann 1979; 1990; Benecke 1994). That the Middle and Late Bronze Age horses show morphological characters which are typical for domestic populations could have been expected because the second millennium BC is the period during which the practice of horse husbandry on the territory of North and Central Kazakhstan is beyond any doubt. The beginning of this millennium sees the advent of horse-drawn chariots in the Kazakh steppes (Gening et al. 1992; E.E. Kuzmina 1994; Anthony & Vinogradov 1995) clearly indicating the controlled keeping and breeding of horses in this period. According to our metrical studies the horses from Sergeëvka represent the chronologically youngest horse group in North Kazakhstan which obviously must still be classified as wild. The site itself dates to about 2800–2600 BC (Levine & Kislenko 1997, table 1). Taking into account that horses are used as draught animals in this region by about 2000 BC it can be supposed that horse husbandry was established in the Kazakh steppes somewhere between 2600 and 2000 BC. During this period the subsistence economy in North and Central Kazakhstan underwent great changes with cattle and sheep becoming the most important species, evidenced for the first time in the small faunal assemblages of the Early Bronze Age site of Balandino (Fig. 6.2). The emergence of horse husbandry seems to have been part of this transformation process. To gain a better understanding of all these changes taking place in the middle and the second half of the third millennium BC further archaeological research in this area should concentrate on Early Bronze Age sites.

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Figure 6.8. Size comparison between Eneolithic–Early Bronze Age horses (8 Botai, 9 Krasnyi Yar, 10 Sergeevka) and Middle–Late Bronze Age horses (11 Atasu, 12 Novonikolskoe I, 13 Petrovka II) from North Kazakhstan on the basis of LSI-distribution. For technical explanation, see Figure 6.7 and Table 6.4. The LSI-distributions of the Middle–Late Bronze Age horses have been calculated on data published by Akhinzhanov et al. (1992) and using measurements taken on these samples by N. Benecke. garded by Bibikova (1967; 1969) and Tsalkin (1970) as representing domestic horses. On the other hand, these authors state that the metrical data clearly show morphological and genetic continuity between the Eneolithic horses (Botai, Solenoe Ozero I) and the Middle/Late Bronze Age horse of North and Central Kazakhstan. Based on those observations, they conclude that domestic horses had been present in Kazakhstan from at least the Eneolithic onwards, indicating a early period of horse domestication in this region similar to that in East Europe. We do not agree with this argument. According to our approach in judging metrical data the horses of the Eneolithic (Botai, Krasnii Yar) and of the Eneolithic–Early Bronze Age transition (Sergeëvka)

Conclusions Summarizing the data presented in this paper and discussed previously the following conclusions can be drawn: 80

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Benecke, N., 1998. Die Wildpferde aus der mesolithischen Station Mirnoe in der Südwest-Ukraine, in Man and the Animal World: Studies in Archaeozoology, Archaeology, Anthropology and Palaeolinguistics in memoriam Sándor Bökönyi, eds. P. Anreiter, L. Bartosiewicz, E. Jerem & W. Meid. (Archaeolingua 8.) Budapest: Akaprint, 87–107. Benecke, N., 1999. Pferdeknochenfunde aus Siedlungen der Bernburger Kultur — ein Beitrag zur Diskussion um die Anfänge der Pferdehaltung in Mitteleuropa, in Beiträge zur Archäozoologie und Prähistorischen Anthropologie II, eds. M. Kokabi & E. May. Konstanz: Gesellschaft für Archäozoologie und Prähistorische Anthropologie e. V., 107–20. Bibikova, V.I., 1967. K izucheniyu drevneishikh domashnikh loshadei Vostochnoi Evropy. Byulettin Moskovskogo Obshchestva Ispytatelei Prirody, Otdelenie Biologii 72(3), 106–18. Bibikova, V.I., 1969. Do istorii domestikatsii konya na pivdennomu skhodi Evropy. Arkheologiya 22, 55–66. Bibikova, V.I., 1982. Teriofauna poseleniya Mirnoe, in Mirnoe: Problema Mezolita Stepei Severnogo Prichernomorya, ed. V.N. Stanko. Kiev: Naukova Dumka, 139–64. Bökönyi, S., 1974. History of Domestic Mammals in Central and Eastern Europe. Budapest: Akademiai Kiado. Bökönyi, S., 1978. The earliest waves of domestic horses in East Europe. Journal of Indo-European Studies 6(1–2), 17–73. Brown, D.R. & D.W. Anthony, 1998. Bit wear, horseback riding, and the Botai site in Kazakstan. Journal of Archaeological Science 25, 331–47. Chalaja, L.A., 1973. Pozdneneoliticheskii inventar i khozyaistvo stoyanki Iman-Burluk, in Arkheologicheskie issledovaniya v Kazakhstane. Alma-Ata: Nauka, 188–203. Ermolova, N.M., 1993. Ostatki mlekopitayushchikh poseleniya Botai (Po raskopkam 1982 goda), in Zaibert et al. (eds.), 87–9. Gening, V.F., G.B. Zdanovich & V.V. Gening, 1992. Sintashta. Chelyabinsk: Juzhno-Uralskoe knizhnoe izdatelstvo. Habermehl, K.-H., 1975. Die Altersbestimmung bei Hausund Labortieren. Berlin & Hamburg: Verlag Paul Parey. Kalieva, S.S. & V.N. Logvin, 1997. Skotovody Turgaya v tretem tysyachletii do nashei ery. Kustanai: Nauka. Kislenko, A.M. & N.S. Tatarintseva, 1990. Kulturnokhozyaistvennye kompleksy paleometalla v Ishimskoi stepi, in Arkheologiya Volga-Uralskikh stepei. Chelyabinsk: Chelyabinskii Gosudarstvennyi Universitet, 81–99. Kislenko, A.M. & N.S. Tatarintseva, 1999. The eastern Ural steppe at the end of the Stone Age, in Levine et al. 1999, 183–216. Kosintsev, P.A. & A.I. Varov, 1993. Kostnye ostatki iz poseleniya predandronovskogo vremeni Sergeëvka, in Zaibert et al. (eds.), 153–65. Kozhamkulova, B.S., 1969. Antropogenovaya Iskopaemaya Teriofauna Kazakhstana. Alma-Ata: Nauka.

1. Throughout the Neolithic, Eneolithic and Early Bronze Age horses played an important role as a source of food and raw materials for the human populations inhabiting the forest-steppe and steppe zone of North and Central Kazakhstan. 2. Settlements of the Botai culture seem to have been specialized in exploiting horses on a year-round basis indicating high dependence on this animal species. 3. For three Botai and post-Botai culture sites (Botai, Krasnii Yar, Sergeëvka) the available data suggest a non-selective kill-pattern of horses probably resulting from herd drives on wild horses. 4. The possibility that individual horses were tamed in order to use them for riding to be better equipped to manage successfully wild horse herds remains an open question. The available palaeopathological evidence does not seem to support this possibility. 5. Morphological changes which can clearly be linked with domestication (size reduction, increased variability) are only visible in Middle and Late Bronze Age horse populations. 6. After 2500 BC the subsistence economy in North and Central Kazakhstan underwent great changes, i.e. from an economy based almost entirely on horse exploitation in earlier times to one that was mainly founded on cattle and sheep husbandry. 7. The emergence of horse husbandry in that area was probably part of this transformation process. By about 2000 BC the practice of keeping and breeding horses was already widely established in the steppe and forest-steppe zone to the east of the Urals. Acknowledgements We thank Viktor F. Zaibert (Petropavlovsk) for his help and hospitality during our stay in Petropavlovsk in 1997. References Akhinzhanov, S.M., L.A. Makarova & T.N. Nurumov, 1992. K Istorii Skotovodstva i Okhoty v Kazakhstane. AlmaAta: Gylym. Anthony, D.W., 1998. The opening of the Eurasian steppe at 2000 BC, in The Bronze and Early Iron Age Peoples of Eastern Central Asia, ed. V.H. Mair. Washington (DC): Institute of the Study of Man, 94–113. Anthony, D.W. & N.B. Vinogradov, 1995. The birth of the chariot. Archaeology 48(2), 36–41. Benecke, N., 1994. Der Mensch und seine Haustiere. Stuttgart: Theiss.

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Kremenetski, C.V., P.E. Tarasov & A.E. Cherkinsky, 1997. Postglacial development of Kazakhstan pine forests. Géographie physique et Quaternaire 51(3), 391–404. Kuzmina, E.E., 1994. Otkuda Prishli Indoarii? Moscow: Rossiiskaya Akademiya Nauk. Kuzmina, E.E., 1996. Ekologiya stepei Evrazii i problema proiskhozhdeniya nomadizma. Vestnik Drevnei Istorii 1996, 73–85. Kuzmina, I.E., 1988. Mlekopitayushchie Severnogo Prikaspiya v golotsene, in Arkheologicheskie kultury Severnogo Prikaspiya. Kuibyshev: Kuibyshevskii Gosudarstvennyi Pedagogicheskii Institut, 173–88. Kuzmina, I.E., 1993. Loshadi Botaya, in Zaibert et al. (eds.), 178–88. Levine, M., 1979. Archaeozoological Analysis of some Upper Pleistocene Horse Bone Assemblages in Western Europe. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Cambridge. Levine, M., 1983. Mortality models and the interpretation of horse population structure, in Hunter-Gatherer Economy in Prehistory, ed. G.N. Bailey. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 23–46. Levine, M., 1990. Dereivka and the problem of horse domestication. Antiquity 64, 727–40. Levine, M., 1999a. Botai and the origins of horse domestication. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 18(1), 29–78. Levine, M., 1999b. The origins of horse husbandry on the Eurasian steppe, in Levine et al. 1999, 5–58. Levine, M. & A.M. Kislenko, 1997. New Eneolithic and Early Bronze Age radiocarbon dates for North Kazakhstan and South Siberia. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 7(2), 297–300. Levine, M., Y. Rassamakin, A. Kislenko & N. Tatarintseva, 1999. Late Prehistoric Exploitation of the Eurasian Steppe. (McDonald Institute Monographs.) Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research. Makarova, L.A., 1970. Predvaritelnoe soobshchenie o zhivotnykh epokhi bronzy poseleniya Chaglinka, in Po Sledam Drevnikh Kultur Kazakhstana. Alma-Ata: Nauka, 269–76. Makarova, L.A., 1976. Kharakteristika kostnogo materiala iz poseleniya Sargary, in Proshloe Kazakhstana po Arkheologicheskim Istochnikam. Alma-Ata: Nauka, 211–26. Makarova, L.A., 1977. Zhivotnye Atasu i drugich poselenii Tsentralnogo Kazakhstana, in Arkheologicheskie Issledovaniya v Otrare. Alma-Ata: Nauka, 124–31. Makarova, L.A., 1980. Kosti zhivotnykh iz dvukh poselenii epokhi bronzy v Severnom Kazakhstane, in Arkheologicheskie Issledovaniya Drevnego i Srednevekovogo Kazakhstana. Alma-Ata: Nauka, 141–51. Makarova, L.A. & T.N. Nurumov, 1989. K probleme konevodstva v neolit–eneolit Kazakhstana, in Vzaimodeistvie Kochevykh Kultur i Drevnikh Tsivilizatsii. Alma-Ata: Nauka, 122–31.

Margulan, A.K., 1979. Begazy-Dandybaevskaya Kultura Tsentralnogo Kazakhstana. Alma-Ata: Nauka. Margulan, A.K., K.A. Akishev, M.K. Kadyrbaev & A.M. Orazbaev, 1969. Drevnyaya Kultura Tsentralnogo Kazakhstana. Alma-Ata: Nauka. Matyushin, G.N., 1996. Neolit Yuzhnogo Urala. Moscow: Rossiiskaya Akademiya Nauk. Meadow, R.H., 1999. The use of size index scaling techniques for research on archaeozoological collections from the Middle East, in Historia Animalium ex Ossibus. Beiträge zur Paläoanatomie, Archäologie, Ägyptologie, Ethnologie und Geschichte der Tiermedizin. Festschrift für Angela von den Driesch, eds. C. Becker, H. Manhart, J. Peters & J. Schibler. (Internationale Archäologie, Studia honoraria 8.) Rahden/Westf.: Verlag Maria Leidorf GmbH, 285–300. Müller, H.-H., 1985. Frühgeschichtliche Pferdeskelettfunde im Gebiet der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik. (Weimarer Monographien zur Ur- und Frühgeschichte 15; Beiträge zur Archäozoologie IV.) Weimar: Museum für Ur- und Frühgeschichte Thüringens. Nurumov, T.N. & L.A. Makarova, 1988. Domashnie i dikie zhivotnye epokhi neolita i bronzy Tsentralnogo i Severnogo Kazakhstana, in Problemy Paleoekonomiki Kazakhstana po Arkheologicheskim Dannym. Alma-Ata: Nauka, 7–36. Olsen, S.L., 1996. Prehistoric adaptation to the Kazak steppes, in The Colloquia of the XIII International Congress of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Sciences, vol. 16: The Prehistory of Asia and Oceania, eds. G. Afanasev, S. Cleuziou, J. Lukacs & M. Tosi. Forlì: A.B.A.C.O. Edizioni, 49–60. Petrenko, A.G., 1984. Drevnee i Srednevekovoe Zhivotnovodstvo Srednego Povolzhya i Preduralya. Moscow: Nauka. Reichstein, H., 1994. Die Säugetiere und Vögel aus der frühgeschichtlichen Wurt Elisenhof. (Studien zur Küstenarchäologie Schleswig-Holsteins Serie A, Elisenhof 6.) Frankfurt/Main: Peter Lang. Tsalkin, V.I., 1970. Drevneishie Domashnie Zhivotnye Vostochnoi Evropy. Moscow: Nauka. Uerpmann, H.-P., 1979. Probleme der Neolithisierung des Mittelmeerraums. (Beihefte zum Tübinger Atlas des Vorderen Orients, Reihe B (Geisteswissenschaften) 28.) Wiesbaden: Dr Ludwig Reichert. Uerpmann, H.-P., 1990. Die Domestikation des Pferdes im Chalkolithikum West- und Mitteleuropas. Madrider Mitteilungen 31, 110–53. Zaibert, V.F., 1992. Atbasarskaya Kultura. Ekaterinburg: Rossiiskaya Akademiya Nauk, Uralskoe Otdelenie. Zaibert, V.F., 1993. Eneolit Uralo-Irtyshskogo Mezhdurechya. Petropavlovsk: Nauka. Zaibert, V.F., H.A. Aleksashenko & O.V. Myaksheva (eds.), 1993. Problemy Rekonstruktsii Khozyaistva i Tekhnologii po Dannym Arkheologii. Petropavlovsk: Akademiya Nauk Kazakhstana.

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Chapter 7 The Exploitation of Horses at Botai, Kazakhstan Sandra L. Olsen The site of Botai is a Copper Age, or Eneolithic,

domestication. This is true regardless of whether there is a consensus about the status of the Botai horses. A large settlement that depends almost exclusively on horses for food and to a great extent for by-products over the long term has established not only a viable, but also an extremely successful means of procuring its chief resource. This involves a high level of comprehension of equid behaviour and a strategy that does not over-exploit the existing herds. It also implies coping mechanisms for periods of environmental stress due to drought or severe winters. Evidence is building to support the hypothesis that the Botai were equestrian horse-hunters who maintained at least some herds for riding (Olsen 1996). Equestrian hunting could have served as one of the primary motivations for domesticating this

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settlement located in north-central Kazakhstan that dates to between 3600–3100 BC (Levine & Kislenko 1997). Much debate has occurred about its role in early horse domestication (Brown & Anthony 1998; Levine 1999a,b; Olsen 1996), but regardless of the status of these equids, the Botai society was more equo-centric than perhaps any other in known prehistory. The site is remarkable for the fact that 99 per cent of the identifiable faunal material is from horse. The extent and specific nature of the utilization of horses at Botai are examined in detail in this paper. Botai’s location in the wild horse’s native range, its dates of occupation, settlement size, focus on horses, and vast faunal assemblage, give the site an invaluable role in understanding the process of horse

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screens. The research has included analysis of 853 bone artefacts from Botai, as well as examination of large samples of faunal material from Botai and Krasnii Yar in order to better understand the butchering practices and taphonomic processes that have impacted the faunal assemblage. The significance of faunal analysis at Botai Many attempts to identify early horse domestication have had to rely on collections in Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, and elsewhere that are small, biased in favour of skulls and whole Figure 7.2. Midden excavated at the site of Botai containing large quantities of bones, and come primarily horse remains. from burial or ceremonial contexts rather than middens in settlements (Mallory species. If so, the larger assemblage of slaughtered 1981). Botai is a large settlement containing extenwild individuals might swamp the numbers of dosive faunal material in houses, middens (Fig. 7.2), mestic horses, which, once trained, would be kept and pits. Because the soil is alkaline, osseous matefor many years. Much work remains to be done at rial is abundant and well-preserved. It has been estiBotai and its neighbouring sites, especially regardmated that the number of bones exceeds 300,000, ing quantitative analysis, but significant advances although no total count has been taken recently. toward understanding the culture have been made When sites west of the Urals are noted as having in the past few years. significant increases in the frequencies of horses durThe Botai culture is represented by three known ing the late fourth to early third millennium BC, the sites, Botai, Krasnii Yar and Vasilkovka. The sites proportions are generally expanding from a few per are distributed in the Ishim–Irtysh interfluve in the cent to perhaps 20 per cent (Glass 1989). Dereivka, forest-steppe ecozone (Fig. 7.1). The eponymous site Ukraine, is considered excessive at 61 per cent horse of Botai is located on a tributary of the Ishim river remains (Bibikova 1986; Telegin 1986). known as the Iman-Burluk and its coordinates are Botai stands out from other sites on the steppe 53°12'N and 67°40'E. With its 158 identified pit-houses with its nearly homogeneous collection of horse (Kislenko & Tatarintseva 1999) spread over 9 hecbones. It is clear that the Botai people were heavily tares, it is one of the largest prehistoric settlements dependent on horses for their major, almost excluin northern Kazakhstan. Over 80 dwellings have been sive, source of food. There is no evidence of domesexcavated or tested since 1980 by the University of tic plants and it is doubtful that wild berries, North Kazakhstan (Zaibert 1993). With over 50 per mushrooms, onions, thyme, and the few other edible cent of the site having been excavated or sampled, wild plants and fungi could have contributed to any Botai has produced the most extensive collections large extent to the diet. It likewise does not appear for this culture. Two pit-houses each at Krasnii Yar that dogs, the second-most common species of aniand Vasilkovka were excavated in the 1980s (Kislenko mal, were eaten (Olsen 2000a), and other animal & Tatarintseva 1999; Zaibert 1993). Their assemblages species were extremely rare at the site (Olsen 1996). compare very closely with those of Botai. The few large bovid bones recovered at Botai could Our teams have excavated one pit-house at Botai represent bison or aurochs. A minimum number of and one at Krasnii Yar with high-resolution techindividuals (MNI) of one large bovid indicates how niques, including sieving all soil through mesh 84

Exploitation of Horses at Botai

rare their bones are, so these animals did not contribute to the diet in any significant manner. Large bovids are more common at Krasnii Yar and two horn cores indicate that aurochs was present. Relevant to the question of where horse domestication began is the fact that horses were a very important part of the diet in northern Kazakhstan in earlier times. Four Neolithic houses excavated at Botai show that the reliance on horses had an early origin and continued for many hundreds of years through the Copper Age. The Neolithic structures have unfortunately not been dated at this point in time, but can be identified as such by their characteristic lithic assemblage. Other Neolithic settlements in the region have also yielded small quantities of horse (probably wild) remains, as well (Kislenko & Tatarintseva 1999). Our excavations at the Neolithic camp of Zhusan, 600 m northeast of Krasnii Yar, produced numerous horse teeth and bone fragments.

Figure 7.3. Wound in horse rib showing a) entry and b) opposite side with deformation and fracture of the bone. for a variety of reasons. These factors include inbreeding, rudimentary veterinary care that increases survival after healing, protection from predators during healing, work-related stress, poor sanitation, close contact with diseased herds, poor nutrition, and extended life spans (Baker & Brothwell 1980; Bökönyi 1984). Riding and haulage can be factors in causing such diseases as arthritis of the spine, pectoral and pelvic joints, or feet (Bökönyi 1984, 114), as well as more specific ailments like subluxation (partial dislocation) of the sacroiliac joint (Riegel & Hakola 1996). Levine (1999b) has remarked on the need to study pathologies associated with riding and haulage in order to shed light on these aspects of equine exploitation in the steppe. Few anomalies or pathologies based on disease or fractures have been observed in the Botai collection. The dentitions are also generally in very good condition. Because most of the animals were killed before age eight, there was generally little time for individuals to develop arthritis and other work-related afflictions. Whereas diseases and healed fractures are more common among domestic animals, some injuries signal how wild animals were hunted. Among the collection of animal bones from Botai were four horse bones (Fig. 7.3) and one bone of a large bovid (Bos / Bison) that exhibited wounds. Based on the round to oval outlines of the openings, these appear to have been made by bone harpoons, rather than stone arrowheads, which leave a narrower, lenticular aperture in the bone. Recording such wounds will help to provide indications for the use of particular kinds of weapons, as well as demonstrating that at least some percentage of the horses were hunted. In contrast, it is fairly common to find crania of stallions in head-and-hoof burials in Bronze Age and later kurgans in the Eurasian steppes that show that horses were killed by pole-axing. This slaughter tech-

Methodology Recently, researchers have performed experimental studies (Outram & Rowley-Conwy 1997) and gathered ethnographic information (Levine 1998; 1999a,b; Olsen 1996; Shnirelman et al. 1996) in order to define and clarify the utility of equine products, including meat, marrow, bone grease, and milk. The research described here builds on previous studies by applying their results to the large faunal assemblage of Botai. It also expands the range of data collected for interpreting horse exploitation to include: 1. the distribution and nature of wounds, cut-marks, and chopping-marks on horse bones, 2. experimental butchery with replica stone tools resembling those from Botai, 3. analysis of the bone artefact assemblage and identification of its requisite raw material, and 4. collection of data relating to ritual uses of horses at the site. The results of this study demonstrate the broad utilization of the horse carcass regarding meat, marrow, bone grease, tendons, hides, and bone at Botai, but proof that brains, milk, mane and tail hair, or hooves were used by the inhabitants still eludes us. The ritual deposits of horse remains in pits allude to the sacred roles of this species in the lives of the inhabitants. Documentation of wounds in horse bones Archaeological examples of pathologies and anomalies are generally greater for domesticated species 85

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primary kinds of evidence: cut-marks, chopping-marks, and bone artefacts. It is clear that the primary role of the horse in the Botai culture was for food, but other uses existed as well. In addition to the meat and marrow, the hides, tendons, and bones were important products for the local population. Although it is likely that other by-products, including the Figure 7.4. Horse cranium with circular depressed fracture in maxilla, possibly brain, hair, hoofs, and milk, from pole-axing. were being utilized, these await future studies and refinement of existing analytical techniques to connique leaves behind a large, round depressed fracfirm. ture generally located on the frontal. Although poleBinford (1978), Metcalfe & Jones (1988) and axing need not be restricted to domestic animals, it others have attempted to rank the different elements is probably more commonly conducted on livestock in ungulates according to their meat and marrow than wild animals. Presumably, shooting a wild horse utility. Outram & Rowley-Conwy (1997) have done with a bow and arrow, harpoon, or a spear would be this for horses specifically. These studies are quite less risky and time-consuming to hunters than lassouseful for showing which bones yield the most meat ing and pole-axing it. The latter method would enand marrow, however, they do not entirely resolve tail at least three persons to dispatch one horse. the question of which elements of heavy animals Pole-axing was done by first tying two ropes like the horse would be likely to remain behind at a around the neck of a horse. The two leads were then kill site. According to the Schlep Effect (Perkins & held taut by persons standing on opposite sides of Daly 1968), if the Botai were only hunting wild horses the horse. This prevented the horse from moving so on foot, every effort would be made to eliminate that a third person could approach the horse from excess weight before the horse products were transthe front and strike a fatal blow between the eyes ported over long distances to the village. If, howwith a heavy weapon. A cranium stored with the ever, pack horses were available or some horses were Botai faunal material exhibits a large, round dekilled at the village, then there would be less selecpressed fracture on the maxilla (Fig. 7.4) similar to tion against certain heavy elements with low utility. those seen in frontals of pole-axed stallions buried in How utility is defined is part of the problem, howBronze Age kurgans. The cranium most likely comes ever, since field dressing can remove the necessity to from Botai, but because it lacks any specimen number transport bones that support large muscle masses. or provenience, it cannot be definitely associated In butchering a horse with stone tools, Bruce with the site. Could this have been an example in Bradley and I successfully removed the skin, organs, which the horse managed to turn its head at the last most meat, and major tendons without disarticulatminute and was struck in the wrong place? The blow ing the skeleton at all. In general, Bradley and I might still have rendered the horse unconscious and found it relatively easy to pull major muscle masses had the desired effect in the end. The finding of off the bones simply by severing the muscles at their pole-axed horse crania and pathologies derived from points of attachment to the bone. It is therefore techriding or haulage in the future could supplement nically unnecessary to bring most bones back home other evidence in determining the status of this speunless the marrow is to be extracted at a later time or cies at Botai sites. the bones are to serve as raw material for artefact manufacture. Based on these observations, the quanEconomic exploitation of horse carcasses tity of meat attached to certain bones may not alone indicate whether they would have been schlepped This research focuses on reconstructing the extent long distances to the home base. For example, and nature of exploitation of horses at Botai as rewhereas the vertebral column and innominates supflected in the archaeological record. It relies on three 86

Exploitation of Horses at Botai

port the bulk of the meat (Outram & Rowley-Conwy 1997) and vast lumbodorsal and gluteal fascia (valuable for making sinew), they do not contain much marrow and did not provide significant raw material for bone artefacts at Botai. Filleting in the field could quickly eliminate the need to carry these large, weighty bones long distances from the kill site if the animals were hunted on foot. This probably explains why whole vertebral columns were found at the French Upper Palaeolithic horse kill site of Solutré (Olsen 1989a). Despite this fact, recent excavations of two middens at Botai show that articulated series of cervical, thoracic, and lumbar vertebrae were frequently found in situ (Fig. 7.5). These vertebral units may indicate that kills were sometimes made in the village proper and its adjacent periphery or that pack animals were available to hunters. Ribs are the exception to the rule that major masses of meat can be quickly removed by filleting in the field. According to Outram & Rowley-Conwy (1997), a high percentage of the meat on a horse is distributed over its rib cage. This is derived in large part from the short, tightly adhering intercostal muscles, which cannot be quickly extracted in the field. It is more practical to bring the ribs back, cook them, and let individual consumers remove the meat from the bones, much as restaurants do today. Our butchering experiment revealed that if the costal cartilage attaching the ribs to the sternum is severed, the left or right half of the rib cage can be swung back dorsolaterally until the ribs snap at their necks. They can then be detached from the vertebral column, leaving the rib heads still attached to the thoracic vertebrae. That this was done at times at Botai is clear from the abundance of rib heads snapped off their bodies. Some of the heads were found still articulated with their thoracic vertebrae. In this case, it was done to reduce the size of meat-bearing units, but not to leave the vertebral column behind in the field. Information on the meat and marrow distribution and yield for a particular species has general application and is quite valuable as a starting point. However, because differences in exploitation of products clearly occur among different cultures and for each prey species, every study is somewhat different. Examination of individual bone specimens in the prehistoric assemblage for evidence of butchery adds significantly to the interpretation of horse carcass exploitation. In this way, it is possible, at least in part, to learn how a people actually carried out the processes of obtaining their resources. Bone artefacts should also be analyzed to determine which elements were needed for raw mate-

Figure 7.5. Articulated thoracic vertebrae in situ in midden at Botai. rial in their manufacture. Assessing the relative demand for certain elements in the local bone industry is critical to evaluating the utility of the various body parts. This is rarely given adequate attention, however, when zooarchaeologists are calculating element frequencies and devising utility indices. Finally, ritual sacrifices and votive offerings of animals may lead to differential curation of certain body parts. This is particularly obvious when the head-and-hoof offerings become prevalent across the Eurasian steppe beginning in the Bronze Age. Very little is known about ritual behaviour prior to the Bronze Age, however. Some work has begun on this topic at Botai recently (Olsen 2000a,b) and will be briefly summarized here. Butchery The Botai study (Olsen 1996) was able to show the presence of various butchering practices. Analysis of the faunal data sheds light on the types of equine products used, intensity of carcass utilization, and specific techniques for processing particular cuts of meat. The methodology for interpreting how the Botai horses were butchered include: 1. examination of the bones for evidence of cutting and chopping; 2. manufacture of polyvinylsiloxane moulds and epoxy resin casts of a sample of cut-marks to identify types of butchering tools used with a scanning electron microscope; and 3. replication of the process by butchering an entire 87

Chapter 7

D D S

D

Locations of Cutmarks on Botai Horse

F F F

S

F, T

F, T F

F

F F

D

D

F

F

F F

F F, D F, D F F

Cutmark key S = skinning D = disarticulation F = filleting T = tendon removal

D

D

S, T S, T S, T

S, T S, T dak del

Figure 7.6. Locations of cut-marks on Botai horse. Fore and hind metapodials and phalanges are combined here. there is displaced débris pushed up on one side of the chopping-marks. Results of these analyses indicate that stone blades and bifaces were used to butcher horses to a moderate, but not intensive degree. Figure 7.6 shows the distribution of cut-marks on a horse skeleton. To summarize the findings from the cut-marks, they generally represent the processes of skinning (S), tendon or fascia removal to make sinew thread (T), filleting, or removal of soft tissue from bones (F), and disarticulation (D). A few other minor marks are interpreted differently on individual bones. The functions of specific cut-marks were identified based on their locations on the skeleton, a review of horse anatomy (references include: Riegel & Hakola 1996; Kainer & McCracken 1994), and experimental butchery. Where more than one letter is associated with cuts in a given area on Figure 7.6, marks in that area could be interpreted in more than one way. No one specimen exhibited all the cuts

horse with stone tools. Cut-marks on skeletal elements can reveal such practices as skinning, tendon removal for sinew production, filleting (deboning), division of the carcass into portions by disarticulation at the joints, and removal of the tongue (Olsen 1987; 1989a; 1994; 1996). Cutmarks are those traces left behind when a sharpedged tool slices along the bone surface. Those made by stone tools can be identified by a narrow V-shaped cross-section and fine striae on the walls of the mark running parallel to the long axis of the cut (Olsen 1989a,b; Olsen & Shipman 1988). Chopping apparently served two functions: dividing the carcass into usable portions for cooking or redistribution and obtaining marrow and bone grease. Chopping-marks can be distinguished from cut-marks by the broader and often deeper V-shaped impression and the presence of transverse striae running down into the mark, perpendicular to the long axis (Olsen 1988b; Olsen & Shipman 1988). Often 88

Exploitation of Horses at Botai

D

Locations of Chopping-marks on Botai Horse C D

D

M

D M

M D D

M

D M

M, D

M Chopping-mark key D = disarticulation C = cartilage removal M = marrow extraction G = grease

M

D

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G M

G

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dak del

Figure 7.7. Locations of chopping-marks on Botai horse. Fore and hind metapodials and phalanges are combined here. Bradley and I found it difficult to replicate the unusual chopping methods needed to create fractures like those observed on some of the Botai bones. We attempted to imitate the blows of the prehistoric butchers on a fresh horse carcass, first with a groundstone axe and then with a hardened steel axe. Whatever technique was employed by the Botai people, they were successful in chopping very cleanly through such dense elements as carpals, astragali and other tarsals, often with a single stroke and without leaving any tool marks on the outer surface of the bone. Even the southern part of the West Siberian Plain, where Botai is located, is renowned for the severity and length of its winters (Shnirelman et al. 1996). Human populations living in this region yearround require a high consumption of fat to insure sufficient caloric intake. Horsemeat is low in saturated and high in polyunsaturated fats (Rossier & Berger 1988), making it healthier than beef, mutton,

indicated and many bones were free of any traces of marks. In general, the bones were well-preserved and suffered from few destructive taphonomic processes that would obliterate cut-marks. Each unique cut-mark position that was observed was recorded once, but most recurred on a number of specimens. The horse remains from Botai are most notable for the degree to which they are chopped. Figure 7.7 identifies the observed locations of chopping-marks on the Botai horse remains and indicates the most likely purposes for their presence. In most cases, the butcher was probably attempting to divide the carcass into smaller portions (D) or to split open marrow-bearing bones (M). Chopping-marks along the vertebral border of the scapula apparently were made when removing the cartilage (C). In other cases, where dense carpals and tarsals were severed in two or three planes, it is more likely that they were trying to comminute the bones enough to derive every last bit of bone grease from them (G). 89

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Major Marrow-yielding Bones

Relative yield key maximum medium light

dak del

Figure 7.8. Major marrow-yielding bones. (After Outram & Rowley-Conwy 1997.) of individual elements within the equine skeleton in terms of their fat yield. The ranking of elements by marrow yield varies from individual to individual in horses, but the femur consistently produces the largest quantity. After that, the mandible, humerus, or tibia may appear in any order, followed by the radius, and lastly by the metapodials and first phalanges. Figure 7.8 illustrates the most productive marrow bones in the horse skeleton, based on the findings of Outram & Rowley-Conwy (1997). These elements would have high priority when selecting which bones to bring back to the village from a hunt. At Botai, there is a large number of unusual breaks through dense bones like carpals and tarsals, where no marrow exists (Olsen 1996). These breaks may represent an attempt to extract minute amounts of bone grease during periods of dietary stress. The breaks are characterized by smooth fracture surfaces through very dense bone, but more importantly, the outer surface of the bone lacks any depressed frac-

or pork. Much of the fat is contained in the meat, brain, and fatty deposits on the neck and sternum (Levine 1998). The Kazakhs today evaluate the quality of a horse carcass by measuring the thickness of the fat on the sternum against the width of a man’s hand. Even though the quantity of marrow in the bones of horses is less than other animals of comparable size like cattle or elk (Outram & Rowley-Conwy 1997), a year-round diet of horsemeat would be expected to depend heavily on marrow and bone grease. The faunal assemblage from Botai contains large numbers of bones with spiral fractures that appear to have been made prior to denaturing of the collagen and humanly-induced chopping-marks that exposed the marrow. Blumenschine & Madrigal (1993) studied the relative quantities of marrow found in each element in zebras and Outram & RowleyConwy (1997) have done the same for horses. This information can be used to establish the relative value 90

Exploitation of Horses at Botai

b a Figure 7.10. a) Incised proximal phalanx; b) bone harpoon. Figure 7.9. Sectioned bones with no indication of impact or chopping-marks.

rated fats (Outram & Rowley-Conwy 1997). Longterm storage might be possible, however, if bones were frozen immediately and kept frozen. Killing animals in late autumn or early winter, when their tissues contain the maximum amount of fat, and storing their body parts in a frozen state is one way to insure an adequate supply of fat for the human population through the early spring. The Kazakhs of this region have an annual slaughter of horses in December so that their carcasses can be frozen in wooden boxes outside their homes or in special storage houses until April (Levine 1998; Shnirelman et al. 1996). Outram’s successful replication of fractures on frozen bones suggests that the Botai people were harvesting marrow and bone grease from carcasses that kept for months in a frozen condition. Further experiments may help to establish winter occupation of the village.

tures or V-shaped tool marks typical of chopping (Fig. 7.9). Such smooth-surfaced breaks proved to be difficult for Bradley and myself to replicate on either fresh or recently frozen horse limbs that were skinned but retained muscles, tendons, and ligaments. Outram (2001; 2002) has conducted extensive experiments shattering horse bones in various conditions, including fresh, desiccated, boiled, frozen for a short period and deep frozen for several months. Details of the fracture surfaces of horse bones from Botai are being compared to Outram’s experimental horse-bone collection to facilitate identification of the condition of the bone at the time of breakage. His observations on the prehistoric bone breaks and continued experimentation should help to explain the nature and purpose of the breaks. These unusual breaks most closely resemble those made when bones that have been frozen for months were struck. One possible interpretation is that long-term freezing has the effect of freeze-drying the bone, creating a unique condition not typically seen in faunal assemblages. Because horse marrow is mainly polyunsaturated, it tends to turn rancid more quickly than satu-

Bone artefacts and their raw material Bone artefacts were plentiful and varied (Danilenko 1985) and some types yield much information about the relationships between humans and horses (Olsen 1996). Most of the 853 bone objects were made from 91

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Artefact Raw Materials

7 (4) 270 (135)

158 (5) 10 (5)

6 (3)

1 (1)

1 (1) 64 (8) 108 (27)

2 (1)

44 (11)

dak del

Figure 7.11. Artefact raw materials at Botai. Fore and hind metapodials and phalanges are combined here. needed to supply the raw material is very low (5) because there are 34–6 ribs per individual. In contrast, the number of horses needed to produce the quantity of horse mandible thong-smoothers recorded is quite high because there are only two mandibles per individual. The importance of calculating MNIs for the phalanges is also evident. Although it is possible to distinguish the fore and hind phalanges in most cases, it is not strictly relevant to the availability of raw material because the Botai used both. For this reason, the fore and hind phalanges have been combined numerically. The manufacturing processes and possible functions of tools and ornaments were reconstructed by identifying the species and elements used as raw material and by examining the unfinished pieces, debitage, finished, rejuvenated and recycled artefacts (following Olsen 1984). Surface traces of manufacture and use were examined with an optical microscope and a SEM (Olsen 1988a,b & c). Classifi-

horse bones. To fully understand the relative demand on different elements for artefact raw material, it was necessary to calculate the frequency of representation of each element in the worked bone assemblage. Figure 7.11 thus illustrates the relative values of the various elements for bone artefact manufacture. The darker-shaded bones were the most frequently utilized. The lighter-shaded bones were only occasionally selected. Those not shaded are not represented in the bone-artefact assemblage. The number off to the side of each shaded bone indicates how many artefacts (often of more than one type) were made from that particular element. In parentheses after the number of artefacts is the minimum number of individuals (MNI) represented for that element. This indicates how many horses would have to be slaughtered to get the number of artefacts made from that bone. The MNI puts the demand on raw material in proper perspective. Although the number of rib tools is quite high (158), the number of horses 92

Exploitation of Horses at Botai

Figure 7.13. Thong-smoother made on a horse mandible. Arrow shows where use polish was located. Along with spearpoints, arrowheads, and possible bola spheres, harpoons provide evidence for the methods available to hunt wild horses at Botai. The diagnostic wounds in their bones link the harpoons directly to the wild horses. Thong-smoothers made on horse mandibles (Fig. 7.13) are some of the most common objects from the site of Botai and make up 32 per cent of the whole bone artefact assemblage (Olsen 2001). At least 135 horses were required to produce these tools, significantly more than any other bone product in the assemblage. They can be recognized by a deep notch that bears a high gloss with microscopic striae sweeping over its edge. These traces indicate that a narrow piece of soft material passed back and forth over the rim of the notch repeatedly (Fig. 7.14:a & b). The microwear thus reduces the possible range of function for this tool considerably. Accounts of how and why thong-smoothers were used can be found in reports about Arctic peoples (Jenness 1937) and Plains Indians (Wilson 1978). The reason they are needed is quite simple. When a straight strip is cut from a hide, its length is restricted by the length or girth of the animal’s body, but when a rawhide is cut into a spiral, it can be unwound to make a very long, but coiled thong. Pulling the wet rawhide thong over a notch or the rim of a perforation in a bone tool helps relax the skin and straighten the thong. It also stretches the thong to its maximum so that it will not continue to expand when in use. Thong-smoothers are rare to non-existent in most archaeological sites. At Botai, they outnumber

Figure 7.12. Harpoons with tip damage and shaft fractures. cation of the edge or tip morphology (with the aid of metric analysis) facilitated interpretation of the range of functions for particular tool types. Details for most of the bone artefacts will be published separately, but two types have bearing on the question of whether horses were hunted and/or domesticated at Botai. Those most relevant to horse hunting are the harpoons; those that suggest control of horses are the thong-smoothers. A total of 13 finished (Fig. 7.10b) and 4 unfinished harpoons were recovered from excavations at Botai. As with Magdalenian harpoons of Western Europe, Botai weapons were probably used primarily to dispatch large land mammals, rather than fish (Olsen 1996). This could theoretically be accomplished by driving a band of wild horses into deep water while they were drinking or forging a stream. The Botai harpoons show impact damage at their tips (Arndt & Newcomer 1986) and usually have dramatic mid-shaft breaks where the rope would attach and cause strain on the weapon (Fig. 7.12). 93

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A third type of bone artefact is discussed because it is so distinctive and probably carried some ritual significance. These are elaborately incised proximal (Fig. 7.10a) and intermediate phalanges. Fifty-three of these have been recovered at the site of Botai and many additional ones were found at Krasnii Yar. Forty-six of those from Botai are identified as horse. The remaining ones are from kulan, saiga antelope, and possibly gazelle. The decorated phalanges are thought to be headless female figurines, with the articular condyles representing breasts. Some do have designs that resemble the front of a cloak or dress with a V-shaped opening, a belt, and occasionally fringe on a skirt. The recurrent sidenotching may represent clothing seams. A very similar decorated horse phalanx that Gimbutas (1991) illustrated from the site of Cuina Turcului, in the Iron Gate region of southwest Romania shows clearly that it was a female effigy because the nipples are depicted. The decorative motifs and their placement on the Botai phalanges closely resemble the one found at Cuina Turcului, but the two cultures are separated by a long distance and the Romanian one is supposed to date to 8000 BC. There are problems with the dates in that area, however, and it may be considerably younger. Decorated horse phalanges have also been reported from Bell Beaker sites in Spain (Maier 1961; Piggott 1983). They are perhaps the strongest cultural marker for the Botai, and show a connection with the Tersek, a contemporaneous Copper Age culture in the Turgay region to the west (Kalieva et al. 1989). As the most ornate objects preserved from the Botai culture, it is unclear whether the decorated horse phalanges served ceremonial functions or were merely children’s dolls. Their contexts and associations with features or other artefacts have not thus far aided in deciphering their specific function. Although the decorated horse phalanges have not been found in definite ritual contexts, 12 were recovered from a single house. At Krasnii Yar, a cache of 28 undecorated horse phalanges was found in House 3 and a cluster of 6 was found in another probable house through which we excavated a test trench. A cache of three first phalanges of horse from Botai had flakes driven off intentionally all the way around the base. This defiling practice is shared with that on a stone effigy found as an undatable surface find in the region. The stone effigy had a man’s face on one side and a phallus on the reverse. It also had long flakes driven off around the base. It is possible that this was an attempt to ceremonially ‘kill’ the effigy to free its spirit or to desecrate it in some way.

a

b

Figure 7.14. Scanning electron photographs of thongsmoother: a) shows smooth, polished surface; b) shows close up with fine striations sweeping over the edge. all other types of artefact, except stone scrapers. This indicates a very high level of production of thongs compared to most pre-industrial societies. For an equestrian culture, thongs would have been not only useful, but necessary (Ewers 1955; Wilson 1978). Rawhide thongs are still important constituents of the equipment of the Kazakh horsemen who ride through Botai today. Thongs can be made into lassos, nooses, pole snares, whips, riding crops, bridles, reins, hobbles, as well as other tackle. Of course, harpoons are attached to their wooden shafts by means of ropes or thongs, as well, but the number of thong-smoothers is more than 20 times the number of harpoons. Mandibles in the Bronze Age were made into hide beamers, each of which had a long curved blade edge. Any part of the blade could have been employed for thong-smoothing, in place of a narrow notch. 94

Exploitation of Horses at Botai

More attention needs to be paid to this type of intentional destruction of human effigies in the future. A total of ten of the Botai phalanges showed some form of deliberate damage.

bone to bring back to the village. In terms of the demand for this element as raw material for artefact manufacture, it was far ahead of all others. The number of horses needed to produce the thongsmoothers collected from Botai was calculated as an astounding 135 individuals. The MNI for all unmodified mandibles excavated at Botai by 1996 was only 71, suggesting that about 2/3 of all mandibles were made into tools. As a result of the intensive use of mandibles for thong-smoothers, the number of intact lower tooth rows has been greatly reduced. This severely hampers aging by dentition. The Botai lower cheek teeth, especially the second and third molars, exhibit serious damage from hammering. This occurred when they were struck on the occlusal surface to loosen them so they could be pried out of the mandibles in preparation for making tools. The teeth were struck with a soft hammer (probably those made from horse metapodials), driving long spalls off the occlusal surface (Olsen 2001). Actual cut-marks sometimes appear on the buccal surfaces of the cheek teeth, apparently from attempts to skin the horse with sharp tools that cut through the cheek and mar the teeth in the process. The way in which mandibles occur in ritual pit deposits suggests that they, like crania, could be substituted for whole horses in religious sacrifices.

Summary of economic exploitation by element To simplify the summary of exploitation of the various body parts on the horse, each element is addressed according to how the cut-marks and chopping-marks were interpreted, its relative meat and marrow yield, and its role as raw material for bone artefacts. This should help to place an overall value on each element. Cranium Cuts on the anterior maxilla probably represent skinning. Those in the vicinity of the eye could either have been made during skinning or if the eye was to be removed. Eyes might have been eaten, as sheep’s eyes are considered delicacies by the Kazakhs in the region today. Alternatively, the eyes could have been removed when the skull was being cleaned for ceremonial use. Cuts on the occipital at the nuchal crest and around the condyles were made when the head was removed from the body. The cranium is a very awkward and heavy element to carry a long distance from a kill site back to the village. This is therefore one element that probably would have been abandoned rather than schlepping it back overland by pedestrian hunters prior to the development of riding. The brain is high in fat content, making it valuable for consumption and for hide-working, but it could have been extracted in the field for immediate use. The majority of the crania in the Botai collection are fragmentary, but it is difficult to determine if they were smashed by the inhabitants to retrieve the brain or whether postdepositional processes crushed them. Most of the complete crania have been removed from the collection for study by other researchers and were not available for this research. The cranium carried great symbolic importance, so for the sake of certain rituals, small numbers were reserved for placement in human burials and other ritual pits.

Hyoid Hyoids are generally poorly preserved because of their delicate structure, but cuts on a few specimens almost certainly represent consumption of the tongue. It is not likely that the Botai people would have neglected this large piece of meat. For many cultures, the tongue is considered one of the most desirable pieces of meat. A few hyoids were made into tools, but it is not clear what functions they served. Perhaps the thin, smooth tools were used to burnish leather or process plant fibers. Vertebrae The vertebral column of the horse carries the bulk of the meat, particularly in the neck and hip region. Sagittal cuts along the neural processes and dorsal surfaces of the thoracic and lumbar vertebrae are interpreted as a combination of filleting to remove the large Latissimus dorsi and neighbouring muscles and removal of the vast lumbodorsal and gluteal fascia, which are the best source for sinew thread. Experimental butchery demonstrated that it is not necessary to disarticulate the column or to carry the vertebrae back home in order to harvest the meat.

Mandible The mandible was almost certainly the most useful element in the horse skeleton for the inhabitants of Botai. The robust masseter muscle of the horse is well worth the effort required to remove it from the surface of the ascending ramus. The mandible has a relatively high marrow content, making it a good 95

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Filleting in the field could save considerably on the weight to be carried. Many examples of articulated partial columns in various middens indicate, however, that they were not always abandoned in the field. This implies that carrying weight was not a significant factor and that either the horses were killed nearby, or units, such as the neck, thorax, and loins, were carried by horse or other means from distant hunting forays. Vertebrae were not employed for making bone artefacts, but at least five columns were placed in the only human burial pit known from the site.

with a stone tool. Chopping-marks mid-shaft indicate where the bone was opened to extract the marrow, which was relatively great in volume. Radius The radius supports little muscle, but does yield a significant amount of marrow. One radius was modified to make a beamer for working hides. Carpals Some carpals were chopped very deliberately into small pieces, presumably to extract the minuscule amount of bone grease contained inside. This is curious, because it would seem easier to obtain bone grease from other elements that were often ignored. It suggests that during brief times of stress all possible sources of grease were tapped, but at other times, exploitation of horse carcasses was not as intensive. Carpals act as ‘riders’ (Binford 1978; 1981) that may be brought into a site with other bones that were to be opened for marrow, i.e. the radius and metacarpal.

Ribs Ribs would have had a high priority for transport back to the home base for two reasons. The first is that the intercostal muscles are best removed by individuals during actual consumption of cooked meat. Many of the ribs exhibit fine cut-marks indicating the removal of the intercostal muscles. Another reason is that ribs were the second-most useful elements for making tools. They were especially important for making pottery smoothers (to fuse the coils together and smooth the inner and outer surfaces) and notched stamps for making comb-impressions in the surfaces of pottery. Ribs were removed from the vertebral column by pulling half of the rib cage back and snapping them off at the heads. The fact that ribs were raw material for a variety of tools contributes to the practicality of hauling them back to the village, but their abundance (34–6 per individual) means that one horse could supply large quantities of rib artefacts.

Metacarpal and metatarsal The metapodials of the third digit, or cannon bones, yield no meat, but carry the tendons of the flexors and extensors and a small amount of marrow. Skinning marks often appear in the form of fine annular cuts around the metapodial shaft in the distal third of the bone. The dense tendons of the horse foot should technically be considered consumable, since cattle tendons are regularly served in restaurants in China today. More typically, however, the tendons were probably used to make sinew thread, a product that would have been very important for a variety of prehistoric industries. Because of several significant qualities found in horse metapodials, they make excellent bone tools. The compact bone of horse metapodials can be as much as 14 mm thick mid-shaft, thicker than any other part of the horse skeleton. In addition, as weight-bearing elements, metapodials are extremely dense. There are no other equid bones that are so straight, and their cylindrical shape proved convenient for certain types of objects. The most common tools made from metapodials include harpoons, soft hammers, chisels, cylinder handles, and rocker-stamps for decorating pottery. Because of its density and thickness, metapodial cortical bone had to be first grooved transversely before it was struck to open its marrow cavity and convert it into splinters for artefact fabrication. Large splinters were then knapped into artefact preforms that had to be ground smooth. The small vestigial metapodial splints (dig-

Scapula The scapula does not support a large muscle mass (Outram & Rowley-Conwy 1997), but the muscles that are there are attached securely on both broad surfaces of the blade. This requires filleting done by scraping over much of the scapula. For this reason, scapulae show regular long striations on their blade surfaces. The scapula was valuable as raw material for making bone artefacts, especially the small flat paddles for smoothing pottery. Some of these had a portion of the edge notched to act as a pottery stamp for comb-impressing. These tools may also have been wrapped with twine to make the cord impressions commonly found on Botai pottery. One scapula blade was carved to resemble a fish. Humerus The humerus supports muscle masses, which were removed at their origins and insertions by cutting 96

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its two and four) were sometimes made into awls by sharpening the naturally-pointed distal end.

row present. Six artefacts were made from ilia. Most appear to be pottery-smoothing paddles. One was coated with a layer of resin or adhesive and then incised with fine cross-hatching over one whole surface. Unmodified pelves recur in ritual deposits and were second only to horse crania in the great sacrificial horse deposit in the human burial pit.

Proximal and intermediate phalanges (fore and hind) The proximal and intermediate phalanges, like the metapodials, harbour no meat, but instead are covered with skin, tendons and ligaments. They sometimes exhibit fine cuts reflecting the skinning process or the harvesting of tendons to make sinew thread. Some marrow can be extracted from both of these elements and the number that were shattered indicates that they were not overlooked. The proximal phalanges were frequently made into the most elaborately decorated artefacts at Botai (Fig. 7.10a). Only two examples of decorated intermediate phalanges have been found.

Femur The femur yields the highest quantity of marrow of any bone in the horse (Outram & Rowley-Conwy 1997). For this reason, whole femora are extremely rare and diaphyses are often chopped completely through. The femur also supports major muscle groups, like the femoral biceps and quadriceps, hamstrings, adductor, and gluteals, so it possesses numerous locations for cut-marks.

Ungual phalanges (fore and hind) The ungual, or third phalanx underlies the hoof. During the butchering experiment, it was learned that hoofs can be removed relatively easily by cutting around the coronet above the hoof and that no cut-marks need to be made on the ungual phalanx in the process. For this reason, it is not easy to determine whether this resource was being utilized at Botai. Hoofs of ungulates can be used for small containers, rattles, or pendants and they can be softened and worked like horn. Boiling for long periods eventually breaks them down into a gelatin that can be consumed or used as an adhesive. Only one ungual phalanx showed cut-marks. These were on the volar surface (or sole) and formed a V. Our butchering experiment showed that this was made during the removal of the digital cushion, which is partly composed of adipose tissue. This probably indicates a situation in which maximum efforts were made to obtain fat. Similar cuts have been observed on the volar surfaces of ungual phalanges at La Madeleine (Garrod 1925) and the Grotte des Eyzies (Olsen 1987), in France, and at Gough’s Cave, England (Parkin et al. 1986). All of these Upper Palaeolithic sites were occupied during the Pleistocene, when fat would have been a highly desirable substance.

Tibia The tibia is a relatively important marrow bone, so, like the femur, it was usually chopped and fragmentary. There is less meat on the tibia, but many of the larger muscles of the femur insert on the proximal end, and the smaller flexors and extensors cover much of the diaphysis. Tarsals The tarsals may act as ‘riders’, to be carried along with the marrow-yielding tibia and metatarsal. Many of the chops through the tarsals were made in the sagittal or dorsal plane after the limb was already disarticulated. Extensive chopping through these elements in several planes indicates that they were probably comminuted to produce bone grease, although the yield could not be great. One astragalus was notched and covered in red ochre, suggesting that it was a game piece, a tally, or a ceremonial object. The calcaneus has a tiny amount of marrow that might be extracted, if needed. Most of the cuts on the tuber calcis would represent severing of the tendon for the gastrocnemius muscle (Achilles tendon). Conclusions for economic exploitation

Innominates The innominates display considerable amounts of cut-marks and are frequently chopped at various angles. The cut-marks represent filleting to remove the large quantity of meat located in the rump and dismembering of the hind leg at the hip. The most common chopping-marks severed the ilium through its narrow body, exposing the small amount of mar-

The two elements that show the most extensive array of filleting cuts are the scapula and innominate. This is predictable given the fact that most of their broad surfaces have muscle fibers attached to them (Riegel & Hakola 1996) and that the innominates support a large volume of muscles (Outram & Rowley-Conwy 1997, tables 1 & 2). According to Outram & Rowley-Conwy (1997), the largest vol97

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umes of meat on a horse carcass are concentrated, in order of greatest to least, in the thorax, pelvis, neck, and thigh. The forelimb bears little meat, particularly from the radius down. The tibia also carries little meat and both fore and hind feet are basically without any muscle tissue. This information conforms with Bradley’s and my findings when we weighed the muscle masses removed from the horse that we butchered. Based on the results of this study, it is difficult to choose which elements would be considered low utility. When the carcass is utilized to its maximum potential, the whole skeleton is affected in one way or another. However, if choices had to be made regarding lightening the load for pedestrian hunters, the cranium and vertebrae would be most likely to be left at the kill site. This trend was visible at the Upper Palaeolithic kill site of Solutré (Olsen 1989a). This is not because those body parts were unimportant, but because the brain and meat could be harvested in the field rather quickly and the heavy, useless bones could then be left behind. That crania and articulated vertebrae were common at Botai implies that some horses were killed in or near the site or that transport was not a problem (e.g. that packhorses were available). Either of these scenarios involves the domestication of at least small numbers of horses. Analysis of artefacts manufactured from horse bones demonstrates the importance of their consideration in determining the utility indices of various elements. Calculating minimum numbers of individuals for worked mandibles, in particular, illustrates how omission of osseous artefacts could have serious ramifications for any conclusions drawn from faunal material.

placed in special pits. Performance of ritual sacrifice placed a demand on their key resource by killing a portion of the horse population and then taking certain parts of the carcasses out of the hands of the people. Our studies reveal that repeated examples of articulated cervicals found in pits at Krasnii Yar bore no cut-marks. This suggests that they represent offerings of large cuts of neck meat. It is often thought that Bronze Age and later head-and-hoof burials represented skins that retained the skull and foot elements, but this does not always appear to have been the case. Often, the positioning of the feet implies more that they were cut off and placed beneath or beside the head. Much of the skin may therefore have been saved. As part of a burial ritual, traditional Kazakhs in Mongolia sometimes stack a skinned horse cranium on top of its four feet on a rock (Benkö 1998, 127–9). Ritual behaviour involving horses at Botai is reflected in two chief ways: through horse sacrifices in a human burial, and by the inclusion of horse crania, mandibles, pelves, and other body parts in ceremonial contexts. The sacred places that are preserved in the archaeological record at Botai are primarily pits. These can be classified into three categories: A. intramural pits, i.e. those dug into floors of houses; B. extramural pits, i.e. those dug down from the ground surface outside houses; and C. foundation pits, i.e. those dug through the subterranean earthen walls of houses at floor level. These straddle both the interior and exterior of the house. At Botai, inhumations of two adult males, an adult female, and an 8- to 10-year-old child were laid in a large intramural pit side by side. The southwest wall of the house served as one side of the pit, while an arc formed by the remains of 14 horses formed the north and east sides of the pit (Rikushina & Zaibert 1984; Olsen 2000b). The horse sacrifices consisted of skulls (n = 14), pelves (at least nine), articulated vertebral columns (at least five), some ribs, and very few limb elements of horses. Finding so many horses sacrificed in a human funerary ritual is relevant to the question of whether domesticated horses were available to the Botai people. A ceremony involving the sacrifice of 14 wild animals simultaneously would not be impossible, but seems fairly unlikely. The general pattern for animal sacrifice in the Eurasian steppes has been to use domestic species (Jones-Bley 1997; Mallory 1981; 1996). This may be added to other circumstantial evidence to support the hypothesis that some of the horses at Botai were domesti-

The ritual roles of horses Given the Botai culture’s dependence on horses, it would be expected that this species should have been treated in a special manner and would have probably been involved in a wide range of rituals. This has certainly been true in recent times for the Kazakhs, who regard horses as important (Shnirelman et al. 1996), but who are not nearly as equocentric as the Botai. Rituals seem at first glance to be unrelated to the more mundane practices of slaughtering and butchering horses for food and by-products, but ceremonies can also lead to differential uses of body parts. At both Botai and Krasnii Yar, it is clear that some horses were ritually sacrificed and that certain body parts were then preferentially 98

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cated. Based on their secular usefulness in terms of both food and transportation, it is reasonable to assume that horses may have been included in the burial to serve the humans in their spiritual afterlife. The absence of legs may mean that the offering was related more to consumption than transport. It may also be related to the high priority given to marrow and bone grease in the Botai diet. Because horsemeat is so lean, they may have felt it was necessary to smash all of the fat-yielding bones. The meat may have Figure 7.15. Dog burial in extramural pit outside House 139 with cache of horse actually held second place bones on the west side. over the fat, so the flesh of the neck, back, and hip might be offered, whereas the marrow bones were Botai resembles other contemporary and later harvested. sites in the steppe (Telegin 1986, 31–3) as well as The emphasis on the horse’s axial skeleton over Bronze and Iron Age sites across Europe (Grant 1984, limbs is in contrast to later Bronze and Iron Age 222; Merrifield 1987; Green 1992) in exhibiting a close head-and-hoof deposits, but other sacrificial pit deassociation between the horse and dog. This spirposits at Botai also reflect this preference. The pelvis itual association may be analogous to their secular supports the largest muscle masses on the horse, relationship during life. There is no clear evidence suggesting that perhaps some of the offerings may that dogs were consumed at Botai, although they have been in the form of food. were decapitated and dismembered for ceremonial In 1988, horse bones were found with an adult reasons (Olsen 2000a,b). The horse/dog linkage could human skull and a few cervical vertebrae in an elonmean a number of things. In some dog burials, a few gated extramural pit or trench between two houses. horse bones occur in a pile, suggesting that they may (Rikushina & Zaibert 1984; Olsen 2000b). The skull have represented food for the dog’s afterlife. Most was covered in red clay, part of which had crumbled often, however, a horse cranium or mandible is assoand separated from the bone. This may have been a ciated with a whole dog or a dog skull in a pit clay mask like those found in the Bronze Age Catacontaining other important artefacts. Horses and dogs comb culture in the Caucasus (Mallory & Adams were probably the only domestic animals, so it is 1997) and the later Tagar and Tashtyk cultures of the natural that they would have been linked to one Minusinsk region (Jettmar 1967). The braincase was another. Dogs may have been used in conjunction packed with yellow clay and the top of the cranium with riding horses during hunts or they could have was drilled with two small perforations. Fine cutbeen used to herd horses, as they are today in rural marks on the cranium indicate that the skull was Kazakhstan. Either would establish a connection becarefully skinned before the mask was applied (Olsen tween the two species. 2000b). The scattering of horse bones in the trench An irregularly-shaped pit to the west of House included teeth, ribs, a femur, and a phalanx. Among 139 at Botai contained the nearly complete skeleton the associated artefacts in the pit were a horse man(Fig. 7.15) of an adult male dog and a small pile of dible thong-smoother, a notched horse rib pottery horse bones, including a mandible, pelvis, and sevstamp, an abrader, a scraper, a large flat stone (near eral ribs. The horse bones were piled in a concentrathe chin), and a long blade (adjacent to the back of tion against the east wall. The dog’s skeleton was the skull). vaguely in anatomical position, but somewhat 99

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flint were present, as well. In addition to examples described above, a dog cranium was found resting on that of a horse in a midden near the river bank (Fig. 7.16). Given the density and dominance of horse bones over all other cultural material at Botai, it is predictable that dog remains should occasionally occur in close proximity to some horse elements, but the fact that these associations are most often with horse crania and mandibles appears to be significant. Clearly, the skulls of animals, as well as humans, had a great deal of significance. Perhaps the skull could substitute for the whole body if the Botai believed that the spirit resided in the head. As well as crania and mandibles, pelves and vertebral columns of horses were frequently included in ritual offerings.

Figure 7.16. Dog skull resting on horse skull in midden. twisted, and articulated bones had drifted apart. The taphonomic nature of the skeleton suggests that it may have lain in a pool of water that macerated the flesh before being covered with soil. These conditions could explain why the elements were not tightly articulated at the joints, had shifted, and spread apart without completely losing their orientation in the body. Green (1992, 111–12) has pointed out the recurrent placement of dogs in aquatic contexts in British Bronze Age, Celtic and Roman sites, including ponds, ditches, marshes, and wells. This she attributes to the chthonic (referring to underworld deities) roles that dogs played and equates such underwater deposits with underground placement in pits and shafts. An oval foundation pit in the southwest wall of House 33 at Botai contained six horse skulls, a nearly complete skeleton of a dog, and several artefacts. The precise placement of the six horse skulls relative to the dog burial is not described in the field notes, unfortunately. Another pit on the west margin of House 33 produced horse and dog remains on a possible altar. The pit was rectangular with its long axis running north/south. The northeast corner of it protruded just inside the house, but most of the pit was located outside the west wall. In the southern part of the pit on a stone slab with round stones placed around it were two anterior portions of horse mandibles and the skull of a dog. Also on the flat stone were two arrowheads, one of which was stuck into a piece of ochre. Several other unidentified bones and a few pieces of

Conclusions This research examines in detail the exploitation of horses at the Copper Age site of Botai, north-central Kazakhstan. Analysis of the cut-marks and chopping-marks on horse bones reveals the methods employed to process horse carcasses. The groundwork laid by previous researchers regarding equid marrow (Blumenschine & Madrigal 1993; Outram & Rowley-Conwy 1997) has made it possible to evaluate different elements in terms of their yield and then relate this information to the occurrence of chopping-marks and fragmented bones. Examination of the bone artefacts helps determine the relative value of the different elements as raw material and the kind of demand there was for mandibles and ribs, in particular. The harpoons, coupled with the presence of wounds in horse bones, help to substantiate the hypothesis that the Botai people were hunting indigenous wild horses. The large number of thongsmoothers points to the existence of an industry quite necessary in the capture, taming, controlling and riding of horses. A preliminary examination of ritual deposits illustrates the sacred importance of horses in the Botai culture and assigns relatively higher ceremonial value to certain elements in the skeleton. Evidence for horse domestication at Botai is 100

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circumstantial, but nonetheless compelling. The mortality pattern for the Botai horses, as Levine (1999a) has shown, does not clearly denote a purely domestic herd. Unfortunately, at the earliest stage of domestication the remains of hunted wild horses would almost certainly dilute the probably much smaller domestic herds in the mortality patterns derived from the total composite assemblage. Brown & Anthony (1998) claim to have found bit wear on lower premolars, but the microwear on the occlusal surfaces of those teeth does not appear affected and the only two examples of obvious sloping might be a natural phenomenon. The earliest bridles are most likely to have been simple expedient bridles made by looping and twisting a leather thong around the bar, or diastema, of the mandible, much like North American Indians did with their war bridle or racing bridle (Wilson 1978). Wear from this type of bridle would be minimal at best and I have observed many examples of beveling similar to that at Botai on Pleistocene lower second premolars from North America that predate the arrival of humans by at least 14,000 years. Several lines of evidence support the argument that some horses were domesticated at Botai. One is that this large settlement was dependent throughout its occupation on an extremely specialized economy centred almost exclusively around horses. If that resource failed because of a serious ice storm in winter or a prolonged drought, the society as a whole would either be forced to shift its subsistence, leave the area, or face extinction. Domestication would make the focus on one species more reliable in that it places some of the control over population size in the hands of the people. More importantly, equestrian hunting would increase the number of wild horses that could be killed and the amount of meat and other products that could be brought back to the village. The fact that skulls and vertebral columns were relatively common at Botai suggests that the people were not struggling with carrying each carcass long distances overland on foot. Some of the horses were probably slaughtered in the site or were field dressed and hauled back to the village on packhorses. Another supportive line of evidence is that horses were heavily involved in rituals, both in ceremonial pits and in human burials (Olsen 2000b). In later Eurasian steppe sites, domesticated animals are generally the subjects of such behaviour, rather than wild species. Lastly, the most common artefacts in the site were thong-smoothers made on horse mandibles (Olsen 2001). Thongs can serve many purposes, but thongsmoothers are not common artefacts in most prehis-

toric sites. Thongs are very important for horsemen, since they can be made into bridles, whips, riding crops, pole-snares, lariats, hobbles, and other useful tackle. The combination of evidence, rather than any single piece, makes a fairly strong argument for incipient horse domestication at Botai. If the domestication process was in its earliest stage and much of the equine material was still derived from wild horses, then it is not surprising that the evidence will not be clear-cut and overwhelmingly convincing. At present, there is no single litmus test for identifying an early domestic horse. It is important, therefore, that holistic studies compile as much information from as many relevant sources as possible. More work clearly needs to be done in the Eurasian steppe to expand the samples and collect more quantitative data. Acknowledgements First, for her constant encouragement and openness in sharing her wealth of knowledge, I wish to express my enormous gratitude to Mary Littauer. I would also like to extend my gratitude to Alexander Kislenko and the administration, laboratory assistants, and students of the University of North Kazakhstan for all of their cooperation and assistance through the years. Without their help, this research would not have been possible. I also want to thank Director Oleg Martinuk, former Curator Natasha Tatarintseva, and the History Museum of North Kazakhstan for providing me with access to the bone artefact collections housed there. Their help and incredible hospitality are much appreciated. The Botai and Krasnii Yar field research and laboratory analysis have been funded through the generosity of the National Geographic Society, the National Science Foundation (grant no. BCS-9816476), and the Carnegie Museum of Natural History Graham Netting Research Fund. Valuable translation services were provided by Natasha Brooks. Bruce Bradley produced the replica Botai stone tools and performed the butchering experiment in conjunction with the author and continues to be a vital part of this research. Martin Estrada, former instructor at Sul Ross State University, Alpine Texas, generously provided the horse carcass, the facility, student assistants, and much useful advise during the horsebutchering experiment. Laboratory assistants who recorded large volumes of data both in Kazakhstan and Pittsburgh and who helped prepare the graphic art include: Leslie McQuade, Jacqueline Payette, Barbara Pitman, Lindsay Shuck, and Anissa Tanweer. 101

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Jones-Bley, K., 1997. Defining Indo-European burial, in Varia on the Indo-European Past: Papers in Memory of Marija Gimbutas, eds. M. Robbins Dexter & E.C. Polomé. (Journal of Indo-European Studies Monograph 19.) Washington (DC): Journal of Indo-European Studies, 194–221. Kainer, R.A. & T.O. McCracken, 1994. The Coloring Atlas of Horse Anatomy. Loveland (CO): Alpine Publications. Kalieva, C.C., L.L. Gaiduchenko & V.N. Logvin, 1989. To the question of seasonal occupation at the settlement of Kozhai I, in Current Methodological Problems of Western Siberian Archaeology. Novosibirsk: Reported theses of the Regional Science Conference, Academy of Science, 129–32. [In Russian.] Kislenko, A.M., 1993. Experimental reconstruction of Copper Age houses, in Problems of Economic and Technological Reconstruction from Archaeological Data. Petropavlovsk: National Academy of Science of Kazakhstan and Margulana Institute of Archaeology, 117–36. [In Russian.] Kislenko, A.M. & N.C. Tatarintseva, 1990. Early metal cultural-economic complexes in the Ishim steppes, in Archaeology of the Volga-Ural Steppes. (Inter-Institutes of Higher Learning Anthology, Scientific Problems.) Chelyabinsk: Chelyabinsk State University, 81–99. [In Russian.] Kislenko, A.M. & N.C. Tatarintseva, 1999. The eastern Ural steppe at the end of the Stone Age, in Levine et al. 1999, 183–216. Levine, M., 1998. Eating horses: the evolutionary significance of hippophagy. Antiquity 72, 90–100. Levine, M., 1999a. Botai and the origins of horse domestication. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 18(1), 29–78. Levine, M., 1999b. The origins of horse husbandry on the Eurasian steppe, in Levine et al. 1999, 5–58. Levine, M. & A.M. Kislenko, 1997. New Copper Age and early Bronze Age radiocarbon dates for north Kazakhstan and south Siberia. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 7(2), 297–300. Levine, M., Y. Rassamakin, A. Kislenko & N. Tatarintseva, 1999. Late Prehistoric Exploitation of the Eurasian Steppe. (McDonald Institute Monographs.) Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research. Maier, R.A., 1961. Neolithische Tierknochen-Idole un Tierknochen-Anhänger Europas. Bericht der RömischGermanischen Kommission 42, 171–305. Mallory, J.P., 1981. The ritual treatment of the horse in the early Kurgan tradition. Journal of Indo-European Studies 9(3/4), 205–26. Mallory, J.P., 1996. In Search of the Indo-Europeans: Language, Archaeology, and Myth. London: Thames & Hudson. Mallory, J.P. & D.Q. Adams, 1997. Encyclopedia of IndoEuropean Cultures. London: Fitzroy Dearborn. Merrifield, R., 1987. The Archaeology of Ritual and Magic. New York (NY): New Amsterdam Books. Metcalfe, D. & K.T. Jones, 1988. A reconsideration of animal body-part utility indices. American Antiquity 53,

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486–504. Olsen, S.L., 1984. Analytical Approaches to the Manufacture and Use of Bone Artefacts in Prehistory. Unpublished PhD Thesis, Institute of Archaeology, University of London. Olsen, S.L., 1987. Magdalenian reindeer exploitation at the Grotte des Eyzies, Southwest France. Archaeozoologia 1, 171–82. Olsen, S.L., 1988a. Introduction: applications of scanning electron microscopy to archaeology, in Olsen (ed.) 1988d, 3–7. Olsen, S.L., 1988b. The identification of stone and metal tool marks on bone artefacts, in Olsen (ed.) 1988d, 337–60. Olsen, S.L., 1988c. Applications of scanning electron microscopy in archaeology, in Advances in Electronics and Electron Physics, vol. 71. New York (NY): Academic Press, 357–80. Olsen, S.L. (ed.), 1988d. Scanning Electron Microscopy in Archaeology. (British Archaeological Reports, International Series 452.) Oxford: BAR. Olsen, S.L., 1989a. Solutré: a theoretical approach to the reconstruction of Upper Paleolithic hunting strategies. Journal of Human Evolution 18, 295–327. Olsen, S.L., 1989b. On distinguishing natural from cultural damage on archaeological antler. Journal of Archaeological Science 16, 125–35. Olsen, S.L., 1994. Exploitation of mammals at the early Bronze Age site of West Row Fen (Mildenhall 165), Suffolk, England. Annals of Carnegie Museum 63, 115– 53. Olsen, S.L., 1996. Prehistoric adaptation to the Kazak steppes, in The Colloquia of the XIII International Congress of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Sciences, vol. 16: The Prehistory of Asia and Oceania, eds. G. Afanasev, S. Cleuziou, J. Lukacs & M. Tosi. Forlì: A.B.A.C.O. Edizioni, 49–60. Olsen, S.L., 2000a. The sacred and secular roles of dogs at Botai, north Kazakhstan, in Dogs Through Time: an Archaeological Perspective, ed. S. Crockford. (British Archaeological Report International Series 889.) Oxford: BAR, 71–92. Olsen, S.L., 2000b. Expressions of ritual behavior at Botai, Kazakhstan, in Proceedings of the Eleventh Annual UCLA Indo-European Conference, eds. K. Jones-Bley, M.E. Huld & A.D. Volpe. (Journal of Indo-European Studies Monograph Series 35.) Washington (DC): Institute for the Study of Man, 183–207. Olsen, S.L., 2001. The importance of thong-smoothers at Botai, Kazakhstan, in Crafting Bone: Skeletal Technologies through Time and Space, eds. A.M. Choyke & L. Bartosiewicz. (British Archaeological Report International Series 937.) Oxford: BAR, 197–206. Olsen, S.L. & P. Shipman, 1988. Surface modification on

bone: trampling vs. butchery. Journal of Archaeological Science 15(5), 535–53. Outram, A.K., 2001. A new approach to identifying bone marrow and grease exploitation: why the ‘indeterminate’ fragments should not be ignored. Journal of Archaeological Science 28, 401–10. Outram, A.K., 2002. Bone fracture and within bone nutrients: an experimentally based method for investigating levels of marrow extraction, in Consuming Passions and Patterns of Consumption, eds. P. Miracle & N. Milner. (McDonald Institute Monographs.) Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, 51–63. Outram, A.K. & P. Rowley-Conwy, 1997. Logging a dead horse: meat, marrow and the economic anatomy of Equus. University of Durham and University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne Archaeological Reports 1996(20), 1–4. Parkin, R., P. Rowley-Conwy & D. Serjeantson, 1986. Late Palaeolithic utilisation of red deer and horse at Gough’s Cave, Somerset. Proceedings of the University of Bristol Spelaeological Society 17, 311–30. Perkins, D. & P. Daly, 1968. The potential of faunal analysis: an investigation of the faunal remains from Suberde, Turkey. Scientific American 219, 96–106. Piggott, S., 1983. The Earliest Wheeled Transport. Ithaca (NY): Cornell University Press. Riegel, R.J. & S.E. Hakola, 1996. Illustrated Atlas of Clinical Equine Anatomy and Common Disorders of the Horse, vol. 1. Marysville (OH): Equistar Publications. Rikushina, G.B. & V.F. Zaibert, 1984. Preliminary report about human skeletal remains at the settlement of Botai, in The Bronze Age of the Uralo–Irtysh Region. Chelyabinsk: Inter-Institutes of Higher Learning Anthology, Bashkir State University, 121–34. [In Russian.] Rossier, E. & C. Berger, 1988. La viande de cheval: des qualités indiscutables et pourtant méconnues. Cahiers de Nutrition et de Diétologie 23(1), 35–40. Shnirelman, V.A., S.L. Olsen & P. Rice, 1996. Hooves across the steppes: the Kazak life-style, in Horses Through Time, ed. S.L. Olsen. Boulder (CO): Roberts Rinehart, 129–54. Telegin, D.Y., 1986. Dereivka: a Settlement and Cemetery of Copper Age Horse Keepers on the Middle Dnieper. (British Archaeological Reports International Series 287.) Oxford: BAR. Wilson, G.L., 1978. The Horse and Dog in Hidatsa Culture. (Reprints in Anthropology 10.0 Lincoln (NE): J. and L. Reprint Co. [Reprinted from Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History 15(2), 1924.] Zaibert, V.F., 1993. The Copper Age of the Ural–Irtysh Region. Almaty: Institute of Archaeology, Academy of Science of the Kazakhstan. [In Russian.]

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Geomorphological and Micromorphological Investigations at Botai

Chapter 8 Geomorphological and Micromorphological Investigations of Palaeosols, Valley Sediments and a Sunken-floored Dwelling at Botai, Kazakhstan Charly French & Maria Kousoulakou A

s part of the archaeological research project conducted at the Eneolithic settlement site of Botai, Kazakhstan, a geomorphological assessment survey was conducted of the site and its immediate environs. From this two off-site buried soil sequences were examined micromorphologically in order to yield environmental information on soil history and erosion processes. In addition, micromorphological analysis was conducted on the infilling sequence of one sunken-floored dwelling in excavation site 32. The scope of the analysis was to reveal the formation processes involved both during and after the use of

Ob

To bo l

ga

Do n

V ol

Dn ep r

y Yenise

the structure. Not only the nature of collapse of the dwelling was identified but also the character of reuse of the abandoned building. The evidence provided was correlated with that of the palaeosols and inferences were made regarding past land-use and vegetational environments at Botai. During the archaeological expedition to the Kokchetau region of northeastern Kazakhstan (Fig. 8.1) in the summer of 1995, led by Marsha Levine and sponsored by the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, a field appraisal of the geomorphological and micromorphological potential of the archaeological site of Botai and its immediate environs was conducted by the first author (French 1995). This included geomorphological survey of the immediate vicinity of the site, description and Le photographic recording of exna Ukraine posed sections around the site, Russian Federation and examination of the open sections in the area of a sunkenOb floored dwelling in excavation site Kam a Ir t ysh Dereivka 32, being excavated at the time under the direction of Alexander Kislenko. A series of profiles were Botai Is h i block-sampled for micromorphom Kazakhstan logical analysis from within the Sy r Ukok Plateau settlement and its vicinity. A summary account of the results of their Mongolia analysis and their implications China constitutes the present paper. Botai (Fig. 8.2) is an Eneo0 2000 km lithic settlement site covering approximately 15 hectares close to Figure 8.1. Location map of Botai in Kazakhstan. the north bank of the Iman-Burluk ya ar D

Caspian Sea

ea

U ra

l

kS ac

Bl

105

Chapter 8

The general environmental setting

Dwelling Excavated area Eroded riverbank Modern woodland

N

gully 2

Iman

-Bur

0

luk

60 m

dak del

Figure 8.2. General plan of the Eneolithic settlement at Botai. (After A. Kislenko.) River. The prehistoric human occupation of Botai apparently extended from the Mesolithic to the Neolithic period, but it is the Eneolithic occupation dated to c. 3500 BC that we are concerned with here. The site comprises about three hundred paired polygonal structures with their floors situated about 1 m below ground level (Figs. 8.2 & 8.3). These are referred to as sunkenfloored dwellings, each ranging in area from 30 m2 to 70 m2. The dwellings are seen on the surface of the ground as shallow depressions, and their regular, tightly-packed distribution resembles a honeycomb pattern. In groups, they are oriented in parallel rows on either side of ‘streets’ 4 to 8 metres wide.

The dry mid-latitude climate of the area, typical of large areas in Central Asia, is characterized by low annual precipitation and a strongly developed temperature cycle with a large annual range. Such mid-latitude regions support a steppe biome, characterized by sparse vegetation, consisting mainly of short perennial grasses growing in small clumps or bunches with occasional stands of birch and pine woodland. In general, plant ground cover is poor, and much bare soil is exposed. This type of climate has produced soils that are classified as chernozems (or black soil of the steppes) (Gerasimova et al. 1996, 136). This soil type is characterized by a thick, organic-rich A horizon and a weathered or cambic B (Bw) horizon, which retains large supplies of nutrients, including dominantly calcium, magnesium, potassium and sodium, making it moderately to strongly alkaline in reaction, and is often developed on loessic subsoils (Limbrey 1975, 196–8; Strahler & Strahler 1997). The geomorphological setting

Botai lies in the river valley of the Iman-Burluk, a tributary of the River Ishim (Figs. 8.1 & 8.2). The presentday river is situated immediately to the south of the site. Its northern bank is a precipitous and actively eroding cliff face, whereas its south bank is marked by gentler topography with a series of former terraces and meanders visible which indicate past channel avulsion. Relatively recent erosion has considerably cut into the slope on the northern side of the present river. The landscape today has a gently sloping aspect dissected by two small valleys (French 1995). The smoothed slopes disguise a series of now infilled, 106

Geomorphological and Micromorphological Investigations at Botai

small, north–south aligned, valley systems. The infills of these former valleys are exposed in the presentday river cliff section, and these are seen to occur approximately every 200 m, ranging from 75–100 m in width, and at least 3–5 m in depth. These systems would have given the area a much more gentlyfolded aspect in the past. Currently, an erosional phase is under way, manifested by active downcutting and enlargement by new gully systems. For example, one is located about 400 m to the east of the main excavation area (gully 1), and the second (gully 2) is situated on the southern edge of the site at the river’s edge. A third minor gully (3) is about 150 m to the west of the excavation area. These side gully systems contain a consistent sedimentary sequence. Three main sedimentary units are distinguished, from oldest to most recent, as follows: unit 1: multi-bedded coarse sands and fine gravels; unit 2: pale orangey brown silt with fine gravel horizons; unit 3: homogeneous, dark grey organic silt loam. The composition of unit 1 is suggestive of the erosion and redeposition of former river terrace deposits, with unit 2 indicative of wind and water deposition, such as would have occurred under cold periglacial conditions and before soil-forming processes began. Their accumulation may possibly be of late glacial/ very early Holocene date, c. 12,000–10,000 years ago. As for the tertiary infills of the former valleys (or unit 3), these probably began to aggrade at some point after the occupation of Botai, as the site is also overlain by unit 3-type material. The sediment is composed of organic dark silt loam material. The nature of this deposit poses several questions relating to its provenance and mode of deposition. If it is colluvial material, it remains to be determined how it was initially formed and what generated its subsequent movement and redeposition as unit 3. Moreover, the texture of the deposit strongly resembles the secondary and tertiary infills of the sunken-floored dwellings. The complementary micromorphological analyses should be able to shed some specific light on these problems and questions.

Table 8.1. Summary of the field descriptions of the sampled profiles. Depth (cm) Profile 1: 0–10

10–85

85–93

93–117

117+

Profile 2: 0–10

10–30

30–35

35–50

50+

Description black to very dark grey silt/fine sandy loam exhibiting a sub-angular blocky structure with modern rooting; modern topsoil; black to very dark grey silt/fine sandy loam exhibiting a sub-angular blocky ped structure; stabilized colluvial aggradation; pale yellowish-brown silt loam exhibiting a pellety and porous structure; former organic A horizon of palaeosol; pale greyish to orangey brown silty clay loam with a columnar ped structure; B horizon of palaeosol; pale yellowish-white calcareous silt; top of loessic subsoil.

black to dark grey silt/fine sandy loam with a subangular blocky ped structure; modern topsoil; pale brown silt/fine sandy loam with a moderately well-developed sub-angular blocky ped structure; stabilized colluvial material; brown silty clay loam with fine sub-angular blocky ped structure; former A horizon of palaeosol; reddish brown sandy/silt loam with fine to medium irregular blocky ped structure; B horizon of palaeosol; orange silt in undulating profile often with gravel ‘stringers’ at its upper surface; top of loessic subsoil.

Sunken-floored dwelling in excavation site 32: Profile 3 yellowish-brown silty clay make-up of outer wall on the west side of the structure (samples 3/1 and 3/2); Profile 4 possible zone of wall and ?turf collapse in the internal, eastern edge of structure (samples 4/1, 4/2 and 4/3); Profile 5 possible occupation surface with lens of organic/carbonized material in the centre of the structure (sample 5/1); Profile 6 two main (secondary and tertiary) fills of the sunken-floored dwelling (samples 6/1, 6/2 and 6/3).

93 cm of colluvial material of unit 3. Samples were taken from the colluvial/palaeosol contact and the palaeosol (at 83–96 cm and 100–116 cm). Profile 2, located midway between gullies 1 and 2 on the present river’s edge, may represent the earliest soil formation evident in the vicinity of the site as it infills subsoil hollows apparently produced by periglacial activity; with ice wedges also present. Here, the palaeosol is overlain by about 25–35 cm of colluvially derived topsoil. Samples were taken from the base of the colluvium and the palaeosol (at 11– 23 cm and 25–38 cm).

The sampling programme A series of samples were taken for micromorphological analysis (after Murphy 1986; Courty et al. 1989) from three different localities (Table 8.1), with the descriptions based on Bullock et al. (1985) and Fitzpatrick (1993) (Table 8.2). Profile 1 was taken from the west side of gully 3. The c. 35-cm-thick palaeosol is overlain by about 107

weakly-developed columnar blocky peds; clay loam

frequent complete infillings of planar voids and fine intercalations of impure clay

50% pellety structure; 50% poorly- to welldeveloped, irregular blocky to columnar ped structure; clay loam

abundant non-laminated impure clay & amorphous iron in upper half; more abundant micrite in lower half

Profile 4

Profile 5

heterogeneous; at base: a dense, uniform fabric (E) or very fine sandy clay loam; overlain by fabric C, sandy clay loam with remnant ped structure; upper part fabric (A) or dark brown, very organic, sandy loam fabric with a vughy to pellety microstructure

common neoformed micrite; rare, fine bone fragments

abundant non-laminated dusty clay in the groundmass; many micritic crystals

abundant organic punctuations & plant tissue fragments dominated by organic matter and fine to very fine quartz and non-laminated dusty clay

lower 54 mm: dense, very fine sandy loam

micritic; with bone fragments & phosphatisation; distinct boundary

upper middle 20 mm: 80% very organic, very fine sandy loam with horizontal aspect to vegetal voids

intermixed with 20% irregular aggregates of fabric A material; diffuse boundary over 1 mm

limit of excavation fill boundary

Sunken-floored dwelling: Profile 3 micritic, organic, silty clay loam dominated by horizontal sub-rectangular peds, defined mainly by planar voids

base similar to base of profile 5 organic-rich transition zone upper very fine sandy loam

many fragments of bone and general phosphatization; rare coprolite fragments; abundant micrite and common impure, often micro-laminated clay

W

Profile 6

Profile 3

upper 20 mm: dense, organic, very fine sand with horizontal orientation of voids

108

Figure 8.3. Cross-section of excavation site 32 through the sunken-floored dwelling showing the location of the micromorphology samples. (After A. Kislenko.)

C

Profile 4

dark brown, fine amorphous organic component; rare weathered bone fragments

Profile 5 carbonized lens primary fill boundary/constructional materials

vughy and pellety microstructure; silty/ sandy clay loam

fill i

B

fill iii - yellow brown silty clay fill ii - ‘lower colluvium’ (dark grey organic silt) fill i - ‘upper colluvium’ (dung/organic silt)

abundant micro-laminated pure to impure clay; minor organic component

fill ii

Profile 2

heterogeneous, sandy/ silty clay loam with vughy to very fine crack microstructure

Profile 6

Buried soils: Profile 1 A

Major features

fill iii

Fabric Structure & texture

topsoil

Profile/ sample

Scale 1:30

Table 8.2. The summary description of the buried soil profiles and excavation 32 sequence.

E

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Geomorphological and Micromorphological Investigations at Botai

The analysis of the off-site palaeosol profiles was intended to provide information on past soil types present and possibly give indications of past land-use. In addition, a series of spot samples was taken from the floor and main infilling deposits of the sunken-floored dwelling in excavation 32, as evident in the south face of the main east–west section through the structure (Fig. 8.3). Micromorphological analysis of the sampled contexts was intended to provide evidence of the composition and derivation of the infilling materials, to identify the processes responsible for the infilling of the sunken-floored dwellings, the nature of the occupation surface and the potential post-collapse use of the structure. One should, however, be aware of the preliminary character of this research, which only examined a limited number of contexts from a single structure out of a total of more than three hundred. Despite the apparent uniformity of dwelling type, further sampling from various contexts from within and beyond the confines of the structures and the settlement itself is needed, ideally combined with other analytical techniques, in order to enhance the current archaeological interpretation.

Figure 8.4. Excremental/pellety fabric indicative of turf (plane-polarized light: frame width = 4.5 mm).

The micromorphological analysis The detailed micromorphological descriptions are held in ar- Figure 8.5. B horizon fabric containing abundant illuvial clay and silty clay chive form in the McBurney indicative of brown earth soil development and colluvial additions (crossGeoarchaeology Laboratory, De- polarized light; frame width = 4.5 mm). partment of Archaeology, University of Cambridge, by the first author. Only a posed of an upper turf horizon (Fig. 8.4) over a weathdescriptive summary is given in Table 8.2. ered B horizon developed on an iron-rich, loessic silt subsoil. The B horizon contained common Interpretation and discussion of the results textural pedofeatures of micro-laminated and nonlaminated impure (or dusty) and pure clay (Fig. 8.5). The palaeosols The laminar aspect of some of the clay indicates that Profile 1: Essentially, the thin palaeosol was comthere were successive episodes of disturbance, move109

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ment of fine soil in water and deposition down profile. In many respects this soil is much more typical of a rather poorly-developed brown earth that would be commonly observed in northwestern Europe in river valley, floodplain edge locations (Bullock & Murphy 1979; Fedoroff 1968; French 1990), rather than being a characteristic chernozem of the steppe. This soil was overlain by heterogeneous, reworked soil material. It must have derived from upslope, where the soil surface had already been disturbed, perhaps truncated and the subsoil exposed. The agents that had caused the initial erosion could not be specifically recognized, but it is suggested that on a sloping ground sparsely covered by vegetation, as is the case today in the area, soil could have easily been mobilized by rainsplash action and/ or saturation through snow melt with consequent surface truncation induced by overland flow and gravity. However, charcoal fragments indicative of settlement and/or limited-scale burning incorporated in the deposit might suggest some the human involvement in the disturbance. Unfortunately it is impossible to be certain whether colluviation was intermittent or continuous and over what period of time. Inferences on environmental conditions can also be made on the basis of other features. Postdepositional bioturbation by soil fauna and roots, decaying remains of which are preserved in voids, was evident throughout the profile. Abundant vermiforms co-existed with typical enchytraeid worm granular excrements, possibly indicating slight changes in the pH of the past micro-environment from calcareous to slightly acidic. In addition, the downward movement of calcium-rich solutions and capillary action account for the abundance of micrite in the groundmass throughout the profile. This calcium carbonate derives from the calcareous substrata of the region, and is typical of the soils developed in the region (Gerasimova et al. 1996). This oscillation in water content is related to the rate of evaporation, further implying the alternation of wet and dry periods which is expected for the dry mid-latitude climate of the region with abrupt temperature changes. The rapid evaporation of soil moisture was also attested by the shrink-swell action observed in these clay-rich sediments, which was seen as the orientation of clay domains in striae and around pores and mineral grains in the groundmass, as well as the deformation of void walls which had acquired polyconcave shapes. Furthermore, an aerated environment had caused oxidation of the iron compounds present in the soil, imparting a reddish aspect to the groundmass.

Profile 2: This palaeosol profile was quite similar to the lower half of the palaeosol in profile 1, or a thin, bioturbated clay loam. The main differences were the absence of an upper humic horizon and the greater amount of micrite in the lower half of the profile. The upper half of the profile was characterized by large amounts of intercalated dusty clay, which is probably associated with subsequent colluviation and soil erosion caused by the repeated exposure of bare soil to rainsplash erosion, which induced intercalation of fine material (clay, silt and fine organic matter) into the soil. This soil has therefore undergone considerable disturbance and erosion during the process of burial. There were just a few features in this soil indicative of its former soil type that were observed at the base of the profile. These were thin, non-laminated pure clay coatings integral within the groundmass, and indicate some past clay illuviation under stable, well-drained conditions. This initial micromorphological glimpse of the palaeosols present at Botai has yielded information which contributes to our knowledge of the environmental context of the site. The sediments on whose upper surface the buried soils had developed probably originated in late glacial, cold climate conditions dominated by wind and water erosion. Thin brown-earth-type soils exhibiting some structural development and clay illuviation under stable conditions had begun to develop in the earlier part of the Holocene. But, these soils probably did not remain particularly stable for long, and soon became subject to erosion, the gradual intercalation of fine soil and even some truncation probably associated with vegetational disturbance, the saturation with water of bare soils and overland flow. There may have been some human involvement in the disruption of this environment, especially associated with the development of the site of Botai itself in the fourth millennium BC, but the nature and degree of human intervention is yet to be ascertained. From the combined micromorphological and geomorphological field survey evidence, it is possible to suggest the following model of landscape development at Botai. First an Early Holocene brownearth-type soil had begun to form. This soil exhibited some development with a blocky to columnar structure and clay illuviation, but its rather poor development suggests that it did not support a wellestablished woodland vegetation. This landscape became subject to disturbance, devegetation and soil erosion associated with rainsplash and overland flow which led to the partial infilling of small tributary 110

Geomorphological and Micromorphological Investigations at Botai

valley systems with relatively small amounts of colluvial soil, effectively smoothing the contour of the slope at Botai. There may well have been a human input into triggering these processes through agricultural/pastoral/settlement activities, but these are not directly recognizable in the soil record. It is suggested that these events had begun to occur during and after the mid-fourth millennium BC Eneolithic settlement at Botai. This phase was followed by renewed erosion and soil movement which is still continuing today as a slow process along with river channel downcutting and avulsion. Figure 8.6. Micritic, very fine sandy clay loam fabric exhibiting fine planar This scenario is contrary to voids in horizontal orientation which may indicate wetting/drying and the ‘accepted’ view of a domicompaction (crossed-polarized light; frame width = 4.5 mm). nant coniferous woodland environment in existence during the fourth-millennium BC occupation of Botai. It is Infillings of the sunken floored dwelling much more probable that a combined open woodProfile 3: The profile was taken from the in situ west land and grassland environment existed at this time wall of the sunken-floored dwelling in excavation 32 on the basis of the soil evidence. Indeed, current (Fig. 8.3). It was anticipated that micromorphologithinking on the vegetational development of the cal analysis might reveal the origin of the material southeastern Europe and western Russia would echo and how the wall was built, and comparisons would this type of conclusion (Peterson 1983; Willis et al. be made to the micromorphological features related 1998; Gardner 1999). These authors have suggested to processes associated with construction material and a forest-steppe plant community in the late glacial practices from equivalent contexts in the Near East that is composed of open coniferous forest with (Matthews 1995; Matthews et al. 1997). Such features patches of steppe-like grass and herb communities would relate particularly to the effects on the microthat rapidly became transformed into a more closed structure and porosity through preparation methods deciduous forest. This environment persisted for of the material and building practices. some three millennia with discrete human activity Comparison to the natural soil deposits examcausing subtle vegetation composition changes such ined from the vicinity of the site has shown that the as the reduction in oak and hazel until about the constructional material used in Botai was similar to fourth millennium BC, which then began to witthe very fine sandy/silty clay loam that composes ness the greater opening up of this wooded envithe palaeosols and subsoils in the adjacent gully sysronment and the increase in beech, hornbeam, tems and at the eroding river’s edge. herbs and grasses, along with minerogenic input The micromorphological characteristics of the into basins. Perhaps at Botai the earlier Holocene samples find many equivalents observed in previwas characterized by a mixture of open coniferous ous research on similar constructional materials woodland and steppe grass and herb communities, (Matthews 1992). Despite much bioturbation which which with the occupation of the site led to an inhas strongly affected the microstructure and poroscreasingly open and slightly unstable steppe enviity of the deposits, the dense massiveness of the ronment which persists until the present day. material is readily recognizable, as is the horizontal Obviously without new palynological research at definition of its structure (Fig. 8.6). These two atBotai and its immediate vicinity, these suggestions tributes are related to construction practices, namely cannot be tested further. wetting/drying and compaction. The arrangement 111

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of the clay in the groundmass suggests preparation of the material. More specifically, clay domains in thin section exhibit weak basic orientation, with only occasional formation of striae, as opposed to the other deposits examined from within the structure. This possibly indicates pugging, a preparatory process of blending and compacting the material in order to exclude any excessive air and render it more cohesive and durable (Courty et al. 1989, 119, 241). Also, the homogeneity of the fabric induced by this method has been observed elsewhere (Matthews 1995; Matthews et al. 1997) and is seen also in Botai. It is probable that plant material was intentionally added as a binding agent. Characteristic micromorphological features related to such practice are elongated fine voids of vegetal origin indicating the in situ decay of plant matter, and the high organic content itself. In Matthews’ (1995, 67) study of Abu-Salabikh, Iraq, it is claimed that about 20 per cent vegetal material component would be needed in order to provide essential tensile strength and flexibility to constructional materials. This level of organic component is found in the Botai samples where there is a 20–40 per cent organic matter present, although much degraded. In terms of structure, a well- to moderately welldefined horizontal arrangement of planar voids and resulting small, sub-rectangular blocky peds is mainly due to the expansion (water absorption) and contraction (evaporation) properties of the clay in this material. Repeated wetting and subsequent drying phases are thought to have produced the regular crack pattern. This could be tentatively translated into intentional wetting of each layer of soil in order to provide better cohesion for each consecutive soil lump, in the process of building. To take the interpretation a little further, it could be argued that the concentration of a set of horizontal planar voids in the lowermost part of sample 3/1 may represent the junction between two consecutive constructional units. Finally, the abundance of micritic calcite in these samples could be interpreted either as inherent in the subsoil source material, reprecipitated after the water applied to the material for the construction had dried out, or as having been added intentionally as a hardener for the silty clay due to its natural cementing properties. The former suggestion is most probable, but its natural cementing qualities may well have been known.

rial (similar to the fabric in profile 3), whereas the dark brown upper horizon may represent turf with much biological reworking. The micromorphological analysis of these samples confirmed these suggestions. This turf horizon has seen some disturbance as is indicated by the minor inclusion of irregular aggregates of a fabric similar to the wall material in sample profile 3. The transition from this turf to the underlying material was marked by a distinctive irregular boundary which may have been caused by the collapse of material onto an already disturbed lower deposit. This lower deposit was very similar to the fabric observed in sample profile 3, but is characterized by much less horizontal organization of the fabric. This suggests it is also wall material, but no longer in situ. Profile 5: There were three zones evident in this profile. The lower and upper zones exhibited structural features characteristic of compacted, trampled surfaces, indicative of human or animal presence on the site (after Ge et al. 1993). Inbetween was a zone of organic debris accumulation, much reworked by the soil fauna, with minor amounts of weathered bone fragments and traces of phosphatization (Fig. 8.7). This sequence suggests two clean and one ‘dirty’ period of occupation and use, although the exact nature of activities was not detected. Nonetheless, the middle zone of organic deposition suggests a change of use, and perhaps even a period of use for either the storage of organic material and/or stabling with bedding, or perhaps even a period if disuse and the accumulation of midden-type debris. Profile 6: Overlying the floor levels examined in profile 5, there was a sequence consisting of two main horizons of infilling of the sunken-floored dwelling — a yellowish/reddish brown, very fine sandy/silty clay loam (sample 6/2), which was in turn overlain by a dark grey, very organic, very fine sandy loam (sample 6/1 at the base and sample 6/3 at the top). The lower infilling sediment was probably also collapsed wall material (similar to sample profile 4, fabric B) from the decay and collapse of the out of use structure. It also contained introduced fine organic matter, minute bone fragments and the occasional fragment of coprolite. The overlying dark grey horizon is unlike any other deposit or soil examined at this site. In fact it bears a striking similarity to modern horse dung recovered from a waste dump outside a nearby modern horse corral. Like the horse dung, it is characterized by abundant very fine

Profile 4: Field examination suggested that the deposits in profile 4 represented collapsed wall mate112

Geomorphological and Micromorphological Investigations at Botai

quartz, abundant fragments of plant tissue and much phosphatization, plus numerous eroded fragments of bone suggesting the additional inclusion of midden-type debris. This must have been the result of redeposition of material from stabling layers (Courty et al. 1991), mixed with settlement debris or perhaps debris from areas where butchering had been practised (M. Levine pers. comm.). It is suggested that this collapsing, out-of-use structure was being used as an open-air midden. Several observed features corroborate this interpretation, for example the abundance of comminuted, rounded and heavilydeteriorated bone fragments Figure 8.7. Degraded plant and bone remains, partially replaced by amorphous suggestive of weathered and iron in an excremental, weakly phosphatized fabric which is suggestive of an trampled bone derived from a accumulation of reworked turf, dung/stabling and midden occupation material surface elsewhere, well rounded (plane-polarized light; frame width = 2 mm). coprolitic fragments coated with fine material also suggestive of secondary deposisearch tool to supplement the systematic excavation tion, and the abundant organic and organic-derived of the site. Sampling focused on limited, yet impormineral material which consisted of amorphous, detant archaeological and environmental contexts, with cayed vegetable matter and common tissue remains, the purpose of elucidating primarily those processes within which phytoliths were recognizable. These responsible for the formation of the site. The techlatter features are evident in the modern spot samnique has provided insightful interpretations on procple of horse dung taken from a present-day corral. esses and actions that might have otherwise remained Moreover, the plant-tissue fragments present did not undetected. exhibit any layering which would be in favour of A model of earlier Holocene soil development their interpretation as primarily deposited dung, as occurring in a mixed open woodland and steppeis known to occur in byres (Davidson et al. 1992, 62). like environment has been proposed, later followed The organic and mineral matter in thin section also by erosion and colluvial processes probably from appeared intimately mixed, an attribute known to the Eneolithic period. Woodland here may never have characterize middens (Courty et al. 1989, 118). been as well developed as one might imagine with a Thus this profile evidence has provided secnorthwestern European perspective, and once it beondary evidence of pastoralism through the identificame open steppe grassland it ostensibly remained so. cation of midden material derived from redeposited The structure that was examined revealed claystabling layers. Ideally, further evidence should be rich wall and floor deposits, both in situ and as colsought to test this micromorphological interpretalapsed material, as well as midden waste within the tion through a systematic environmental survey of abandoned structure. Animal dung, and in particuthe archaeological site and its environs, conducting lar horse dung, was apparently being managed and for instance phosphate and magnetic susceptibility stored in at least one abandoned structure, indicasurveys, as well as palynological studies. tive of the strong importance of the horse in the fourth millennium BC at Botai. Conclusions Acknowledgements In the context of archaeological research at Botai, micromorphological analysis was employed as a reThe authors gratitude should be extended to the 113

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Fitzpatrick, E.A., 1993. Soil Microscopy and Micromorphology. Chichester: John Wiley and Sons. French, C.A.I., 1990. Neolithic soils, middens and alluvium in the lower Welland valley. Oxford Journal of Archaeology 9(3), 305–11. French, C.A.I., 1995. Botai, Kazakhstan: Assessment of the Geomorphological Context and of the Deposits within the Sunken-floored Dwellings. Unpublished report. Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge. Gardner, A., 1999. The Impact of Neolithic Agriculture on the Environments of South-east Europe. Unpublished PhD thesis. Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge. Ge, T., M.-A. Courty, W. Matthews & J. Wattez, 1993. Sedimentary formation processes of occupation surfaces, in Formation Processes in Archaeological Context, eds. P. Goldberg, D.T. Nash & M.O. Petraglia. (Monographs in World Archaeology 17.) Madison (WI): Prehistory Press, 149–63. Gerasimova, M.I., S.V. Gubin & S.A. Shoba, 1996. Soils of Russia and Adjacent Countries: Geography and Micromorphology. Moscow: Wageningen. Limbrey, S., 1975. Soil Science and Archaeology. London: Academic Press. Matthews, W., 1992. The Micromorphology of Occupational Sequences and the Use of Space in a Sumerian City. Unpublished PhD Dissertation. Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge. Matthews, W., 1995. Micromorphological characterisation and interpretation of occupation deposits and microstratigraphic sequences at Abu Salabikh, Southern Iraq in Barham & Macphail (eds.), 1–34. Matthews, W., C.A.I. French, T. Lawrence, D.F. Cutler & M.K. Jones, 1997. Microstratigraphic traces of site formation processes and human activities. World Archaeology 29(2), 281–308. Murphy, C.P., 1986. Thin Section Preparation of Soils and Sediments. Berkhamsted: A B Academic. Peterson, G.M., 1983. Recent pollen spectra and zonal vegetation in the western USSR. Quaternary Science Reviews 2, 281–321. Strahler, A.N. & A. Strahler, 1997. Physical Geography: Science and Systems of the Human Environment. Chichester: John Wiley and Sons. Willis, K., M. Braun, P. Sumegi & A. Toth, 1998. Prehistoric land degradation in Hungary: who, how and why? Antiquity 72, 101–13.

following people: The Board of State Scholarships Foundation of the Republic of Greece for the studentship for postgraduate studies in Environmental Archaeology awarded to the second author, Marsha Levine for the invitation to participate in the expedition to Kazakhstan, procuring funding and the provision of valuable unpublished information on the archaeology of Kazakhstan, the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research for providing excellent funding for the fieldwork, Alexander Kislenko, the excavator of Botai, for his advice and humour in the field, Assistant L. Karali-Giannakopoulou, University of Athens, and Martin Jones, University of Cambridge for support and advice. The field expedition team members — Marsha Levine, Victor Buchli, Keith Bennett and Lucy Walker — all proved to be invaluable company. Thin-section manufacture was carried out by Charles French, Julie Miller and Karen Milek of the Geoarchaeology Laboratory, Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge. References Barham, A. & R.I. Macphail (eds.), 1995. Archaeological Sediments and Soils: Analysis, Interpretation and Management. London: Institute of Archaeology, University College. Bullock, P. & C.P. Murphy, 1979. The evolution of a palaeoargillic brown earth (Paleudalf) from Oxfordshire, England. Geoderma 22, 225–52. Bullock, P., N. Fedoroff, A. Jongerious, G. Stoops & T. Tursina, 1985. Handbook for Soil Thin Section Description. Wolverhampton: Waine Research Publications. Courty, M.-A., P. Goldberg & R.I. Macphail, 1989. Soils and Micromorphology in Archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Courty, M.-A., R.I. Macphail & J. Wattez, 1991. Soil micromorphological indicators of pastoralism with special reference to Arene Candide, Finale Ligure, Italy. Studi Liguri A. LVII (1–4), 127–50. Davidson, D.A., S.P. Carter & T.A. Quine, 1992. An evaluation of micromophology as an aid to archaeological interpretation. Geoarchaeology 7, 55–65. Fedoroff, N., 1968. Génèse et morphologie des sols a horizon b textural en France atlantique. Science du Sol 1, 29–65.

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Chapter 9 A Note on the Early Evidence for Horse and the Riding of Equids in Western Asia Joan Oates Ancient evidence for the various equids employed in

ern Syria: see most recently Ismail et al. 1996). On mid-third-millennium monuments, for example the so-called Standard of Ur (Strommenger 1964, pls. 72, XI), ‘battle wagons’ are pulled by harnessed equids, probably donkeys, while the texts tell us that at this time the BAR.AN (kúnga) hybrid was the appropriate animal for drawing the ‘chariots’ of kings and

western Asia comes primarily from the identification of faunal remains and from the cuneiform texts. Pictorial representations, which occur largely in the form of clay figurines and plaques and the impressions of cylinder seals, can be very misleading since we have no means of assessing the intention of the artist or craftsman. Nor are the osteological data straightforward. There is, nonetheless, convincing evidence in Mesopotamia and Syria for the presence of domestic horse at the latest by the last century of the third millennium BC. The riding of equids is attested even earlier. It is the purpose of this paper to provide a brief summary of current evidence. (Much of the background can be found in more detail in: Littauer & Crouwel 1979; Meadow & Uerpmann 1986; Moorey 1970; 1986.) The earliest and always the most common domestic equid in this area was, of course, the donkey (Equus asinus), used for riding, for traction and as a pack animal. E. asinus seems first to have been domesticated in North Africa and possibly in southwestern areas of the Middle East (Uerpmann 1987; Groves 1986); indeed wild donkeys are now reported at Ain Ghazal in Jordan in the eighth/seventh millennium (von den Driesch pers. comm.). Certainly the domestic donkey was present in the Levant in the fourth millennium BC, where clay figurines said to come from Chalcolithic levels depict donkeys with large baskets or ‘panniers’ (Epstein 1985). The cuneiform sign for ‘donkey’ is present already in the late fourth-millennium BC tablets from Warka, and there is osteological evidence of domestic donkey in excavated levels of the same date not only at Warka but also at Uruk colonies on the upper Euphrates, attestation perhaps of the role played by this new pack animal in the establishment of the ‘colony sites’ (Boessneck et al. 1984; J. Weber pers. comm.). Donkeys used for ploughing, traction and the carrying of loads are widely attested in third-millennium texts from Sumer and elsewhere (including Ebla and Beydar in north-

Figure 9.1. Seal impression rolled on a large jar shoulder, depicting a four-wheeled vehicle drawn by four equids, probably the kúnga hybrid on the evidence of the representation itself and the presence of the frontal fringe which seems specific to the hybrid among the third-millennium baked clay figurines from Tell Brak. Late ‘Early Dynastic III’ (c. 2400 BC), from the 2002 season at Tell Brak. (Drawing by H. McDonald.) 115

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Figure 9.2. Seal impressions from Tell Brak (ancient Nagar) and nearby Tell Beydar (Nabada) showing ritual scenes with equid-drawn wagons, occasionally involving some level of ‘conflict’, whether real or ritual. (Seals 1–4, Tell Brak, c. 2250 BC; 5–11, Tell Beydar, c. 2400–2250 BC, after Oates et al. 2001, fig. 313.) 116

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along the major routes is well-attested before the introduction of the horse. The riding of donkeys and perhaps also the hybrid is discussed further below.

gods (Heimpel 1994). This hybrid was almost certainly an onager x donkey cross, though the onager itself was untameable and never domesticated. A recent article (Nagel et al. 1999) examines in detail the classical references to ‘onagers’ in what is now Anatolia, but note that the taxonomic meaning of the name in Classical times may have differed from modern usage. The donkey x onager hybrid is attested in the cuneiform texts from around the middle of the third millennium (Postgate 1986, 201) but is difficult to differentiate among the equid remains. It was both faster and more attractive than the donkey, and remained the preferred animal of traction until the introduction of the horse late in the third millennium. Texts from Ebla, south of Aleppo, dating to c. 2300 BC, tell us that the city of Nagar, almost certainly the ancient site of Tell Brak in northeastern Syria, was especially noted for the breeding of the kúnga hybrid and that this animal cost as much as 40 times the price of a donkey (Archi 1998; Oates 2001). By the mid-third millennium there is also evidence for ‘way stations’ or ‘caravanserais’ which provided various services, initially for the benefit of royal messengers, including provisions, vehicles, repairs and the necessary equids themselves (Heimpel 1994; Sallaberger 1998). At Tell Brak we have excavated a large building near the north gate of the city which we believe was just such a ‘way station’, perhaps also associated with the breeding of the hybrids which cuneiform documents tell us were delivered there (c. 2300 BC: Oates et al. 2001, plan fig. 42). Donkey skeletons recovered here show signs of loadbearing and both crib-biting and bit-wear on their teeth (Clutton-Brock, below). At the same time the newly discovered third-millennium tablets from Tell Beydar, some 40 km from Brak-Nagar and in ancient times a dependency of Nagar, tell us that the ruler of Nagar travelled in state to Beydar in order to attend the local assembly and various festivals, and that his ‘chariots’ were pulled by teams of four equids which were fed and looked after at the Beydar ‘way station’. Unfortunately the type of equid is not specified but it would be surprising if, in such ‘status’ contexts, these were not the hybrids for which Nagar was famous. It is also tempting to see in the sealings recovered from both sites some depiction of these activities (Figs. 9.1 & 9.2). The ‘way station’ at Beydar was manned not only by those who fed and looked after the animals but also by an unusual number of cartwrights, who presumably both made and repaired the vehicles (Ismail et al. 1996; Sallaberger 1996a,b; 1998). Thus the widespread use of harnessed teams of equids and the presence of ‘way stations’

Evidence for the horse (Equus caballus) The origins of the domesticated horse in western Asia remain unclear. Certainly the wild horse, Equus ferus, was native to the Levant where it survived until the end of the Pleistocene, having been identified at a number of sites including the Mount Carmel cave sites and Yabrud. Both horses and hemiones are present at contemporary sites in the Zagros (e.g. Palegawra, Warwasi: Uerpmann 1987, 17), but Equus ferus has not been reported there at sites of Neolithic date. A remnant population of Late Pleistocene horses, however, would seem to have survived in Anatolia at least until the fourth millennium (see, for example, the wild horses of fourth-millennium date at Nors¸untepe and Neolithic horse in the Altinova plain: Boessneck & von den Driesch 1976). Domestic horse bones are reported from the late third millennium in the Khabur area of northeastern Syria (Tell Leilan: Zeder 1995, and most recently from BrakNagar1) and dating to c. 2000 BC at Godin Tepe in the Zagros (Gilbert 1991). Early Bronze Age horse is also reported at Arad in southern Palestine (Davis 1976; see also Grigson 1993). In the cuneiform texts the word for horse first appears in the Ur III period, conventionally dated to the last century of the third millennium BC: in Sumerian ans&e.zi.zi (later ans&e.kur.ra, the ‘ass of the mountains’), derived from Akkadian sı‹sû (sı‹sa#’u), itself probably an Indo-European loanword. That this must refer to domestic horses is clear from the contexts. At this time such animals are always listed in small numbers, under the care of specific persons (Civil 1966, 122). Administrative texts of Ur III date from the state livestock repository at Drehem in southern Iraq (Oates 1986, 44) record small numbers of both horse and the BAR.AN hybrid; indeed several such texts of the time of the Ur III king SÙu-Sin (2037–2029 BC) record the bizarre practice of feeding these expensive animals, both horses and BAR.AN hybrids, probably alive, to lions kept in captivity, presumably for the entertainment of the royal house and their guests at Ur (Owen 1979, 63); more common animals were not employed in such spectacles. There are at this time rare references to ‘mounted messengers’; unfortunately the type of mount is not specified (Goetze 1953, 117), but the donkey’s lack of speed suggests the likelihood of horse. Horses are mentioned in a few literary pas117

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sages related to the Ur III king SÙulgi (2094–2047 BC), which are of contemporary or only slightly later composition. A self-laudatory hymn dedicated to this south Mesopotamian king suggests the use of horses for caravans, that is, as pack animals. (SÙulgi speaks): SÙulgi voluptuously chosen by (the goddess) Inanna am I, A mule set for the road am I, A horse of the highway that swishes (his) tail am I, (ans&e.zi.zi/ans&e.kur.ra har.ra.an.na) ( course am I A stallion of SÙakkan2 eager for the (Kramer 1969, 585; Klein 1981, 189).

Clay figurines depicting equids are found in large

Figure 9.3. Early Akkadian seal impression depicting an equid with rider. The pose of the rider, with knees bent for control and one hand holding the equid’s tail, the other a stick or possibly a spear, resembles that of the horse-rider of Figure 9.7. Date c. twenty-third century BC. (Photograph courtesy of the Ashmolean Museum.)

Figure 9.5. Sealing on tablets of SÙu-Sin (2037–2039 BC) from Ur, showing a rider astride (?) an equid that appears to have the mane and tail of a horse. (After Owen 1991, fig. 11.)

Figure 9.4. Modern impression of serpentine cylinder seal showing a ‘contest scene’ which includes the rider of an equid, apparently trampling a ‘victim’; one leg of the rider is drawn up in order better to control the animal (Akkadianstyle, twenty-third century BC, Louvre AO 22325). 118

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numbers in archaeological levels dat- a b ing to the second half of the third millennium. Among these it is extremely difficult to differentiate horse from the representations of donkeys and the hybrids; a beautifully modelled head from Tell Mozan, a site at the foot of the Tur Abdin in northeastern Syria not far from Brak-Nagar (Buccellati & Kelly-Buccellati 1988, pl. 1), is undoubtedly the most caballine of those published up to now (see also Oates 2001). Seal impressions are equally difficult to interpret, but as early as the mid-third millennium they suggest the use of equid-drawn Figure 9.6. a) Donkey and rider figurine, Tell Selenkahiye (Syria), end of wagons for ‘military’ purposes, as on third millennium. The rider has been broken off but the remains clearly the ‘Ur Standard’ (cf. Fig. 9.2, and see indicate the ‘side saddle’ position (after Liebowitz 1988, fig. 30:3). A esp. the famous stele of Eannatum: number of figurines of this type were identified at the site. b) Detail of seal Strommenger 1964, pl. 66). Seal im- impression from Kültepe Karum II (c. 1950–1850 BC), showing a figure pressions of the late Early Dynastic seated on an elaborate side saddle with foot rest, riding an equid which is and Akkadian periods, that is very almost certainly a donkey. (After Littauer & Crouwel 1979, fig. 38.) approximately the twenty-fourth and twenty-third centuries BC, illustrate the riding of equids for hunting and possibly also in ‘conflict’, but there is no direct evidence to suggest that any of these are horses (see, inter alia, Fig. 9.3 and Collon 1987, no. 685). Perhaps the best depiction of a rider astride is on a seal from the Louvre dated to the Akkadian period (Fig. 9.4); here the shape of the tail clearly indicates that the equid portrayed is not a horse. The rider holds both a stick and a (?) whip and, as in Figure 9.3, uses the pressure of his bent knees for control. An Ur III tablet of the time of SÙu-Sin (2037–2029 BC) bears the impression of a cylinder seal on which is depicted a man apparently riding astride an equid interpreted as a horse owing to its flat mane and apparently full tail (Fig. 9.5, and Owen 1991). A conFigure 9.7. Early second-millennium clay plaque temporary group of equid-with-rider terracotta figshowing a horse, identified by his mane and tail, and urines from Selenkahiye in northern Syria (Liebowitz possibly naked rider. The rider controls the animal by the 1988) depicts donkeys ridden ‘side-saddle’, without pressure of his knees and thighs, and in one hand holds the saddle of course (Fig. 9.6a), in the manner still reins attached to a nose-ring and perhaps the girth, in common in the Near East at the present day. On one the other a stick and perhaps the base of the horse’s tail. figurine on which the rider is better preserved (After Littauer & Crouwel 1979, fig. 37; see also Moorey (Liebowitz 1988, p. 18 & pl. 30:2), the left arm ex1970, pl. 13a.) tends forward and the right arm back, resembling the pose on the SÙu-Sin and earlier seal impressions. but close examination of the photograph suggests at This evidence perhaps strengthens the case for sugleast the possibility that this rider too is ‘side-saddle’ gesting that an equid ridden astride is more likely to (a line apparent on the photograph seems to indicate represent the hybrid or, at this time, conceivably that both legs are positioned on the same side of the even a horse, rather than a donkey. I have not actuanimal, but the photograph is possibly misleading). ally seen the seal impression published by Owen, The actual pose of the riders on the earlier seal im119

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The horse, after he had thrown off his rider (said). If my burden is always to be this, I shall become weak. (Gordon 1958, 19)

pressions resembles that on some of the early second-millennium equid-riding plaques published by Moorey (1970, and see Fig. 9.7), where one hand of the rider appears to rest on the rump of the animal (perhaps even to hold the tail) and the other holds a stick and/or rein through a ring on the equid’s nose (compare in particular Moorey 1970, fig. 12b, which must illustrate the hybrid since the onager itself is not tameable). Here the leg position differs from that on the Ur III seal shown in Figure 9.5. It remains the case that none of the third-millennium equid-with-rider depictions can be unequivocally identified as illustrating a horse. On the other hand, although the hybrid was certainly tameable, there is as yet no cuneiform evidence to suggest that it was ever ridden. It is also possible that these third-millennium equid-riders in some way participated in military duties. This depends, however, on the interpretation of seal impressions on which equids are shown trampling ‘victims’ (Fig. 9.4), a motif common on many of the wagon scenes and conceivably largely of ritual significance (cf. Fig. 9.2). It is also clear from the early second-millennium illustrations that, despite the extensive thirdmillennium evidence for the harnessing of equids to wagons and the osteological evidence for bit wear at Brak (Clutton-Brock, below), ridden horses and perhaps also the driven hybrids continue to be controlled only by reins through a nose ring, a technique originally associated with the use of oxen as draught animals and hardly suited to the more sensitive nose of a horse (see Figs. 9.1:6 & 9.6). (In the third-millennium ‘rest houses’ there was even an official known as the ‘nose-rope holder’: Heimpel 1994, 10.) Not only was the harnessing for riding minimal, but the riders themselves are shown only lightly if at all clothed, perhaps for greater speed. They are often depicted seated well back on the loins of the horse, again as one would ride a donkey. By the eighteenth century BC textual evidence assures us that Equus caballus was no longer uncommon; indeed the riding of horses and their use as traction for spoke-wheeled vehicles and as pack animals is widely attested. The evidence comes largely from contemporary cuneiform tablets in northern Iraq and Syria, in particular Mari, Tell al Rimah and Chagar Bazar. One of the earliest references to horse-riding comes from an Old Babylonian fable, preserved on a tablet of which the date is approximately contemporary with the tablets from Mari, referred to below. Since the ‘fable’ was at that time already part of a standard collection, it almost certainly had an earlier origin:

In the Kültepe texts there are rare references to couriers carrying post or diplomatic messages (Garelli 1963, 303), references which have encouraged the assumption that these special messengers moved rapidly by horse (see also the Goetze reference, above), but there is no direct evidence for the use of horses with the exception of a single reference to the transport of tin by horse (ina si-sa-im: Contenau 1919, 28:13), which refers almost certainly to a pack horse. Nor do the standard rations allocated to messengers make allowance for a ridden animal (Moorey 1970, 48). The equids depicted on the contemporary seal impressions from Kültepe are not easily identified, and certainly not clearly caballine (cf. Moorey 1970, 47 & n. 36). Perhaps more convincing is a letter found at Tell al Rimah, dated to the first half of the eighteenth century BC following the conventional ‘middle chronology’, which reads, ‘let the horses speedily bring the case of silver cups’, the earliest reference to a possible ‘pony express’-type delivery, though even here the meaning is not absolutely unequivocal (Dalley et al. 1976, text 85:11). An even earlier eighteenth-century letter from SÙams&i-Adad to his son in Mari asks for mules and horses as well as chariots/ carts for the celebration of a religious festival in Assyria (ARMT I, 50), while at Chagar Bazar, also at the time of SÙams&i-Adad, a wage-list refers to five ‘grooms’ in the charge of a ‘trainer’ (Gadd 1940, tablet 946). Another lists fodder for 20 horses (tablet 929), and there are references to true mules (ans&e.nun.na = damdammu, tablets 972, 981). Despite the rarity and obviously high status of the horse, it was clear that old traditions died hard. Perhaps the best-known letter of this period is that written to the king of Mari, Zimri-Lim, advising him that My lord should preserve his royal dignity. Even though you are king of the Haneans,3 you are also king of the Akkadians. Thus my lord should not ride horses, but a ‘chariot’ with mules (kudanu), and maintain the prestige of his sovereignty’ (ARMT 6, 76).4

Whatever the protocol, these letters make it clear that by the eighteenth century BC the riding of horses was commonplace, at least in some circles, but that the social traditions which had their roots in the third millennium were not easily abandoned. White horses were particularly valued. Another Mari letter reads, 120

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Figure 9.9. Detail from a seal impression from Kültepe, eighteenth/seventeenth century BC, perhaps a hunting scene. (After Littauer & Crouwel 1979, fig. 36.)

Figure 9.8. Detail from a seal impression from Kültepe (Karum Kanesh II, c. 1950–1850 BC). (After Littauer & Crouwel 1979, fig. 29.)

such means of control are adequate for messengers, military scouts and for hunting. It is only much later, when cavalry became a regular component of armies, that discipline and manoeuvrability in combat required more precise control. The letter to ZimriLim, of course, carries the implication that horseriding was not uncommon among the Amorite tribes of the early second millennium. The fact that we have few illustrations of or references to riding must to a large degree reflect the social customs of the time: to be drawn by horse and carriage was a sign of status, appropriate to both kings and gods, as was the use of the equally valuable hybrid in the third millennium. In the words of a later text from As&su & r:

I spoke to him in the matter of the white horses, and he (the king of Carchemish) said: No white chariot horses are available — I will give orders that they lead white horses to me where they are available. In the meantime I will have them bring him some ‘red’ Harsamna horses (Dossin 1939, 120).

Qatna, north of Damascus, would also seem to have been a source of horses at this time, and a letter from Zimri-Lim remarks, ‘About the white horses that are from Qatna, of which you are always hearing: those horses are really fine!’ (ARM X 147). Despite the evidence for the use of a bit at Tell Brak and perhaps also, early in the second millennium, at Tell Yelkhi in the Hamrin area of eastern Iraq (Zarins 1986, n. 4) and Tal-i Malyan in Iran (Anthony & Brown 1989, 110), it would appear that in the Middle Bronze Age the use of elaborate harness was still restricted to the attachment of horses to chariots, again following the practices of the Early Bronze Age. In the first quarter of the second-millennium pictorial evidence for the riding of horses is found on the terracotta plaques mentioned above (e.g. Fig. 9.7). The lightly-clad riders usually hold a stick in one hand and the reins, attached to a nose-ring, in the other; the animal is controlled by the pressure of knees and thighs and, as Moorey remarks (1970, 43),

O horse, creature of the mountains, you have been given for the chariot of Marduk, the great lord, you have been created by the god to be hitched and unhitched (CAD vol. 15, 331).

Thus in the second millennium the riding of horses was common in both senses of the word. Spoke-wheeled chariots are also well-attested in the early second millennium, almost certainly a development of the two-wheeled vehicles of the third millennium (Moorey 1986, 203ff.; Oates 2001), and with the equids, often now horses, still harnessed with a nose-ring (Fig. 9.8). At this time (Middle Bronze Age) a more refined method of control is 121

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a

b

Figure 9.10. a) Detail of stone relief of Assur-nasir-pal II (883–859 BC) from Nimrud, showing a pair of mounted riders, one of whom controlled both horses to free the hands of the bowman; b) seventh-century BC Assurbanipal relief showing a mounted bowman. (After Littauer & Crouwel 1979, figs. 76 & 78.) illustrated on Syrian sealings where four lines pass from the driver’s hands directly to the heads of the two draught animals (Fig. 9.9); according to Littauer & Crouwel (1979, 61) these indicate ‘proper reins’. Chariots seem still to have been used largely for ceremonial purposes, however, again following thirdmillennium precedents although there does seem now to have been a distinction between ‘chariots’ and ‘swift chariots’ (Dalley 1984, 163). The horse was clearly an animal of high status, perhaps even kept in the context of royal establishments, yet its primary official function persisted as a replacement for the hybrid as the appropriate animal for the drawing of chariots in royal processions and ritual. How early in the second millennium the horse and chariot acquired a military function remains a matter of debate, illustrated again by only a few cylinder seals. There is some evidence to suggest this already by the eighteenth century (perhaps a hunting scene), but the interpretation of the depictions on the relevant seals remain a matter of debate (see discussion in Moorey 1986). Towards the end of this period Hittite texts provide firmer documentation but, as emphasized by Moorey (1986, 203), this military role was not effected by ‘hurling the chariots into the midst of the enemy’ (as Xenophon Cyropaedia VI.1.30) but through use of their speed and mobility essentially as ‘rapid firing platforms’. Indeed, even in Homeric Greece the chariot merely carried a warrior into battle, where he fought dismounted. Surviving

accounts of the Hittite siege of Ursum in southeastern Anatolia during the reign of Hattusili I (c. 1650– 1600 BC) tell of the isolation of that city with a cordon of eighty chariots and eight ‘armies’ of infantry (Moorey 1986, 204). An earlier Anatolian document, the ‘Text of Anittas’, is often cited in the context of the military use of chariots, but the actual reference is to forty teams of horses. In the Late Bronze Age (c. 1500–1200) the evidence of the Amarna letters clearly associates horses with Mesopotamia in a way that seems to belie their assumed northern or eastern origins. The Egyptian Pharaohs constantly demand horses from Babylon, while the Hittite king (Hattusili III), ruler of an area where one would assume the presence of such animals, also writes to the king of Babylon (KadashmanEnlil II) asking for horses: Send me horses, in particular tall stallion foals. The stallions which your father sent me and those which my brother has sent me up to now are good but too small. In Hatti-land the cold is severe, and an old horse will not survive. So send me, my brother, young stallions. (Beckman 1996, 137)

It is in this same letter that the Hittite king remarks that ‘horses are more plentiful than straw in my brother’s land’, that is, Babylonia. The importance of the horse at this time is clear in the salutations with which these letters begin, ‘I and my house, horses, chariots, officials and my country are well indeed. May everything be likewise well with my brother 122

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and his house, his horses, chariots, officials and his country’ (EA 7, Burnaburias& of Babylon to Amenophis IV); in a postscript to EA 9, Burnaburias& adds that he has sent three pounds of lapis lazuli and five teams of horses with five chariots to his ‘brother’. By the Late Bronze Age there is widespread evidence for the use of the spoke-wheeled chariot by messengers and as a vehicle of war as well as in ritual processions, but we continue to lack evidence of mounted cavalry. To quote Littauer & Crouwel (1979, 97) with reference to the later second millennium BC: ‘Neither in Egypt nor in the Near East is there any conclusive evidence of any kind for riders taking part in combat, individually or in special mounted units’. Those rare instances where riders are shown on harnessed horses almost certainly represent grooms returning chariot horses (e.g. Renfrew 1998, fig. 15.11), but rider-messengers are clearly attested, for example in a letter from the Hittite queen Puduhepa to Ramses II which includes the request, ‘The moment the messengers reach you, let my brother send a rider to me. Let documents be brought to the lords of my land . . .’ (Beckman 1996, 127). By the early Iron Age, however, the ridden horse had become a regular component of military strategy. The Assyrian stone reliefs demonstrate that the Assyrian army used mounted cavalry from at least as early as the ninth century BC, the earliest written reference to mounted troops occurring in a text of Tukulti-Ninurta II (890–884 BC). At this time both ridden and draught horses were controlled by a bridle consisting of headstall, reins and a bit, the latter made of both iron and bronze. Horses continued to be used for hunting, as were their equid predecessors in the third millennium. Moreover, by the Iron Age the armour-plating of chariots, horses and riders, already attested in the Late Bronze Age (Littauer & Crouwel 1979, 92), would imply a heavier breed of horse, and both large and small horses are pictured on the Assyrian reliefs. Indeed late eighth-century BC Assyrian sources clearly indicate two breeds of different size, the choice for chariotry being the large ‘Kush’ horse, obtained via Egypt, and a smaller breed for cavalry, at that time brought from northwestern Iran, perhaps on the borders of Urartu where the best cavalry horses and riders were then to be found (Dalley 1985, 43). The Assyrian stone reliefs also illustrate an interesting development in the management of cavalry early in the first millennium BC. In the ninth century, mounted soldiers rode in pairs so that one rider controlled both horses and held the protective shield, leaving the other free to use his bow (Fig.

9.10a). To quote Littauer & Crouwel (1979, 134–5), the chariot complement — warrior and driver — is at this time ‘simply transferred to the backs of its team, the men’s respective functions remaining the same’. By this time also horsemen sit further forward on the horse, in contrast with the position astride the loins, illustrated on the second-millennium plaques. By the eighth-century individual riders are depicted, each controlling his own horse, but these ‘unaided’ horsemen seem at this time to use only spears. These eighth century lancers sit more easily on their mounts, however, with their legs hanging freely (e.g. Barnett & Falkner 1962, pls. 13, 66/67, time of Tiglath-Pileser III = Pulu of the Bible). By the seventh century BC the technique of controlling both horse and bow had been mastered, despite the lack of stirrups (Fig. 9.10b). It would seem, however, that mounted riders in the Late Assyrian period were deployed more for manoeuvrability than speed, and it was not until the invention of the stirrup, apparently in Late Roman times, that the ridden horse became a really effective military instrument. The purpose of this paper has been to provide a very brief summary of the western Asiatic evidence for the use of equids, and in particular the evidence for riding. Its intention is not philological, nor is the author competent to engage in arguments about proto-lexikons. But it may perhaps be useful to add that in the context of the Near Eastern evidence it is still not entirely clear to what extent the origins of horse domestication are necessarily related to speakers of an Indo-European language, there being five different Indo-European roots for ‘horse’ (Coleman 1988), and that there is likely to have been a Hurrian/ Proto-North-Caucasian component to this story, at least in the context of the introduction of the domestic horse into Mesopotamia and northern Syria. Recent evidence from the Khabur region of northeastern Syria strongly suggests that here at least the horse arrived in association with Hurrian-speaking peoples (not the Mitanni!), first identified in the cuneiform records at the time of Naram-Sin (c. 2254–18 BC). Certainly there are important Hurrian city-states in this region by the last quarter of the third millennium (Buccellati & Kelly-Buccellati 1997; Oates et al. 2001, 393–4) while, as we have seen, the earliest written documentation of the horse belongs to the last century of this period. In a recent paper Ivanov (1998) discusses the name of the horse in Hurrian, and comments on the possible relationships, inter alia, of Sumerian ans& e .zi.zi, Akkadian sı‹ s û (sı‹ s a# ’ um) (*sisa’um), Hurrian es&se& , Armenian es& (‘donkey’), Luwian as&su & wa. Unfortunately our knowledge not only of the 123

Chapter 9

Adad letter referred to on p. 120, but the famous Zimri-Lim letter uses the term kudanu.

early domestication of the horse but also of the spread of the North Caucasian, Hurrian and sat´m dialects is at present inadequate to resolve these questions. We can conclude, however, that the domestic horse had certainly been introduced into northern Syria and Mesopotamia by the last century of the third millennium BC. Nor is there any doubt that in the second millennium BC horses were both ridden and used to pull spoke-wheeled chariots, indeed that the riding of horses precedes by hundreds of years the horse-training manual of the Mitannian Kikkuli and other Hittite ‘horse-texts’ of the Late Bronze Age (Kammenhuber 1961; Starke 1995). The military employment of horses as cavalry dates from at least as early as the Assyrian armies of the ninth century BC. Although the Assyrian king Assurbanipal, who was prone to exaggerate his personal achievements, hunts on horseback with a bow (Barnett & Forman n.d., 83–4), Darius III fled Gaugamela ignominiously in his chariot, and it is not until the emperors of the West that the riding of a horse became a suitable royal symbol. Indeed the horse and carriage image remains with us today.

References Amiet, P., 1980. The mythological repertory in cylinder seals of the Agade period (c. 2335–2155 BC), in Ancient Art in Seals, ed. E. Porade. Princeton (NJ): Princeton University Press, 35–59. Anthony, D.W. & D.R. Brown, 1989. Looking a gift horse in the mouth: identification of the earliest bitted equids and the microscopic analysis of wear, in Early Animal Domestication and its Cultural Context, eds. P.J. Crabtree, D. Campana & K. Ryan. (Research Papers in Science and Archaeology, supplement to vol. 6.) Philadelphia (PA): MASCA, 99–116. Archi, A., 1998. The regional state of Nagar according to the texts of Ebla. Subartu 4, 1–15. ARM = Archives Royales de Mari. Paris. Barnett, R.D. & M. Falkner 1962. The Sculptures from the Central and South-West Palaces at Nimrud. London: British Museum. Barnett, R.D. & W. Forman, n.d. Assyrian Palace Reliefs. London: Batchworth Press. Beckman, G., 1996. Hittite Diplomatic Texts. Atlanta (GA): Scholars Press. Boessneck, J. & A. von den Driesch, 1976. Pferde im 4./3. Jahrtausend v. Chr. in Ostanatolien. Saügetierkundliche Mitteilungen 24, 81–7. Boessneck, J., A. von den Driesch & U. Steger, 1984. Tierknochen Funde der Ausgrabungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts Baghdad in Uruk-Warka, Baghdader Mitteilungen 15, 149–89. Buccellati, G. & M. Kelly-Buccellati, 1988. Mozan, vol. 1: The Soundings of the First Two Seasons. (Bibliotheca Mesopotamica 20.) Malibu (FL): Undena. Buccellati, G. & M. Kelly-Buccellati, 1997. Urkesh, the first Hurrian capital. Biblical Archaeologist 60, 77–96. Buccellati, G. & M. Kelly-Buccellati (eds.), 1998. Urkesh/ Mozan Studies, vol. 3: Urkesh and the Hurrians (Bibliotheca Mesopotamica 26.) Malibu (FL): Undena. Buchanan, B., 1966. Catalogue of Ancient Near Eastern Seals in the Ashmolean Museum I. Oxford: Oxford University Press. CAD = Chicago Assyrian Dictionary, vol. 15 (S), 1984. Civil, M., 1966. Notes on Sumerian lexicography, I. Journal of Cuneiform Studies 20, 119–24. Coleman, R., 1988. Comment on A.C. Renfrew, Archaeology and Language. Current Anthropology 29, 449–53. Collon, D., 1987. First Impressions. London: British Museum Press. Contenau, G., 1919. Trente Tablettes Cappadociennes. Paris. Dalley, S., 1984. Mari and Karana: Two Old Babylonian Cities. London: Longman. Dalley, S., 1985. Foreign chariotry and cavalry in the armies of Tiglath-Pileser III and Sargon II. Iraq 47, 31–48. Dalley, S., C.B.F. Walker & J.D. Hawkins, 1976. The Old Babylonian Tablets from Tell al Rimah. London: British School of Archaeology in Iraq.

Acknowledgements I would like to thank both David Hawkins and Roger Moorey for their helpful advice, and Dr Moorey and Annie Caubet for permission to publish the impressions illustrated in Figures 9.3 and 9.4. Notes 1.

2. 3. 4.

A first phalange, identifiable either as a small horse or possibly the kúnga hybrid, and certainly to be dated between c. 2150–2100 BC, was found at Tell Brak in the spring season, 2002 (Emberling & McDonald, Excavations at Tell Brak 2002; preliminary report, forthcoming). I am indebted to Jill Weber for this identification, and for unpublished information concerning the presence of domestic donkey on the Upper Euphrates. Oddly, we have as yet no evidence of fourth-millennium donkeys at Brak, where southerners must have arrived using some different form of transport, perhaps characteristic of the ancient Tigris/overland route to Anatolia and the Mediterranean. SÙakkan was the god of steppe animals. For more detailed comments on the text, see Klein 1981, 167 ff. A tribal confederation. The difference between kudanu- and damdammu- mules is not entirely clear, if there was one at all. According to the CAD, vol. 3, 64, the former were used for riding and the latter ‘were considered elegant draft-animals, as their mention before horses and their use for the Akitu festival procession shows’, see the Shamshi-

124

Early Evidence for Horse in Western Asia

Davis, S., 1976. Mammal bones from the Early Bronze Age city of Arad, northern Negev, Israel. Journal of Archaeological Science 3, 153–64. Dossin, G. 1939. Aplahanda, roi de Carkémis& . Revue d’Assyriologie 35, 115–21. Dossin, G., 1950. Correspondance de SÙams&i-Addu et de ses Fils, ARM I. Dossin, G., 1978. Correspondance Féminine, ARM X. EA = Amarna letter; see most recently Moran. Epstein, C., 1985. Laden animal figurines from the Chalcolithic period in Palestine. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 258, 53–62. Gadd, C.J., 1940. Tablets from Chagar Bazar and Tell Brak. Iraq 7, 22–61. Garelli, P., 1963. Les assyriens en cappadoce. (Bibliothèque arch. et hist. de l’institut française d’Istanbul XIX.) Paris. Gilbert, A.S., 1991. Equid remains from Godin Tepe, in Meadow & Uerpmann (eds.). Goetze, A., 1953. Hulibar of Duddul. Journal of Near Eastern Studies 12, 114–23. Gordon, C., 1958. Sumerian proverbs and fables. Journal of Cuneiform Studies 12, 1–21. Grigson, C., 1993. The earliest domestic horses in the Levant? — new finds from the fourth millennium of the Negev. Journal of Archaeological Science 20, 645– 55. Groves, C.P., 1986. The taxonomy, distribution and adaptations of recent equids, in Meadow & Uerpmann (eds.), 11–65. Heimpel, W., 1994. Towards an understanding of the term siKKum. Revue d’Assyriologie 88, 5–31. Ismail, F., W. Sallaberger, P. Talon & K. Van Lerberghe, 1996. Administrative documents from Tell Beydar. Subartu II. Ivanov, V.V., 1998. Horse symbols and the name of the horse in Hurrian, in Buccellati & Kelly-Buccellati (eds.), 145–66. Jans, G. & J. Bretschneider, 1998. Wagon and chariot representations in the Early Dynastic Glyptic. Subartu IV(2), 155–78. Kammenhuber, A., 1961. Hippologia Hethitica. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Klein, J., 1981. Three SÙulgi Hymns. Bar-Ilan: Bar-Ilan University Press. Kramer, S.N., 1969. Sumerian hymns, in Ancient Near Eastern Texts, ed. J. Pritchard. 3rd edition. Princeton (NJ): Princeton University Press, 573–86. Kupper, J.R., 1954. Correspondance de Bahdi-Lim, ARM VI. Liebowitz, H., 1988. Terracotta Figurines and Model Vehicles: Excavations at Selenkahiye, Syria. (Bibliotheca Mesopotamica 22.) Malibu (FL): Undena. Littauer, M. & J. Crouwel, 1979. Wheeled Vehicles and Ridden Animals in the Ancient Near East. Leiden: Brill. Meadow, R.H. & H.-P. Uerpmann (eds.), 1986. Equids in the Ancient World, vol. 1: Beihefte zum Tübinger Atlas des Vorderen Orients. (Reihe A Naturwissenschaften 19/1.) Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag.

Meadow, R.H. & H.-P. Uerpmann (eds.), 1991. Equids in the Ancient World, vol. 2 (19/2). Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag. Molleson, T. & J. Blondiaux, 1994. Riders’ bones from Kish, Iraq. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 4(2), 312– 16. Moorey, P.R.S., 1970. Pictorial evidence for the history of horse-riding in Iraq before the Kassite period. Iraq 32, 36–50. Moorey, P.R.S., 1986. The emergence of the light, horsedrawn chariot in the Near East, c. 2000–1500 BC. World Archaeology 18, 196–215. Moran, W., 1992. The Amarna Letters. Baltimore (MD): Johns Hopkins University Press. Nagel, W., J. Bollweg & E. Strommenger, 1999. Der ‘onager’ in der Antike und die Herkunft des Hausesels. Altorientalische Forschungen 26, 154–202. Oates, D., J. Oates & H. McDonald, 2001. Excavations at Tell Brak, vol. 2: Nagar in the Third Millennium BC. (McDonald Institute Monographs.) Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research. Oates, J., 1986. Babylon. London: Thames & Hudson. Oates, J., 2001. Equid figurines and ‘chariot’ models, in Oates et al. 2001, 279–83. Owen, D.I., 1979. A thirteen month summary account from Ur, in ‘Studies in Honor of Tom B. Jones’. Alte Orient und Alte Testament 203, 57–70. Owen, D.I., 1991. The ‘first equestrian’: an Ur III glyptic scene. Acta Sumerologica 13, 259–73. Postgate, J.N., 1986. The equids of Sumer, again, in Meadow & Uerpmann (eds.), 194–206. Renfrew, C., 1998. All the king’s horses, in Creativity in Human Evolution and Prehistory, ed. S. Mithen. London: Routledge, 260–84. Sallaberger, W., 1996a. Grain accounts: personal lists and expenditure documents. Subartu II, 89–106. Sallaberger, W., 1996b. Nagar in frühdynastischen texten aus Beydar, in At the Crossroads of Civilisations in the Syro-Mesopotamian Realm, Proceedings of the 42nd RAI. Leuven. Sallaberger, W., 1998. The economic background of a seal motif: a philological note on Tell Beydar’s wagons. Subartu IV(2), 173–5. Starke, F., 1995. Die Keilschrift-luwischen Texte in Umschrift. (Studien zu den Bogazköy-Texten 30.) Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Strommenger, E., 1964. The Art of Mesopotamia. London: Thames & Hudson. Uerpmann, H.-P., 1987. The Ancient Distribution of Ungulate Mammals in the Middle East, Beihefte zum Tübingen Atlas des Vorderen Orients. (Reihe A Naturwissenschaften 27.) Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag. Zarins, J., 1986. Equids associated with human burials in third millennium BC Mesopotamia: two complementary facets, in Meadow & Uerpmann (eds.), 164–93. Zeder, M., 1995. The archaeobiology of the Khabur Basin. Canadian Society for Mesopotamian Studies Bulletin 29, 21–32.

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Were the Donkeys at Tell Brak (Syria) Harnessed with a Bit? Juliet Clutton-Brock T

he finding of six donkey skeletons (Equus asinus) in one deposit from the excavations at Tell Brak with the date of around 4000 BP (uncalibrated) has yielded sound evidence that in life the donkeys were ridden or used as pack animals, and that they were killed and buried in a single event as sacrificial animals (Clutton-Brock 1989; Clutton-Brock & Davies 1993). There are no serious pathologies on any of the skeletons but there are features in the teeth and skeletons which indicate that the donkeys had been: 1) stabled; 2) used as riding and/or pack animals; and 3) that they had been harnessed with a bit. 1. Evidence for stabling: There are notches on the external edges of the incisor teeth (Fig. 9.11) of three of the donkeys that are typical signs of chewing on wood and it may be surmised that the animals spent much of their time in stalls where they developed the compulsive behaviour pattern, known as crib-biting, in an attempt to relieve the monotony of their lives, just as stabled horses will do today when they are bored. 2. Evidence for use: There are exostoses (bony outgrowths) on a hoof core from one of the donkeys, which suggests that this animal had been ridden or driven over hard ground. There is also flatten-

ing and the growth of spongy bone on the tops of the neural spines of the posterior thoracic vertebrae of another donkey, as shown in Figure 9.12, indicating that it had frequently carried a heavy load. 3. Evidence for a bit or rope in the mouth: This is shown by oblique wear on the second premolars (Fig. 9.13) which is most likely to have been caused by a hard bit. At first I believed that the bits must have been made of copper as there are small patches of bright blue-green staining on the enamel of the crowns, underneath the cement, and running through the closed pulp cavities of the roots of the first cheek teeth (upper and lower second premolars) of three of the six donkeys, as shown in Figure 9.14. However, when one of the teeth was sent to the Mineralogy Department at the Natural History Museum, London, for analysis, no evidence of copper could be found and no evidence has been found in the literature to show that copper can intrude into and discolour the enamel and roots of teeth during life. It is remarkable, however, that in three of the skeletons this green staining occurs only on the first cheek teeth, and it is these teeth that would have been

Figure 9.11. Notching on the incisor teeth, probably caused by chewing wood. Scale in mm.

Figure 9.12. Bony outgrowths on the top of the neural spines probably caused by heavy loading on the spine. Scale in mm. 126

Early Evidence for Horse in Western Asia

Figure 9.14. Three views of the lower right second premolar to show the green staining in the tooth. Scale in mm. Figure 9.13. Unnatural wear on the first upper right cheek tooth (premolar 2), probably caused by wear from a hard rope or bit. Scale in mm. in contact with a bit or a rope. The origin of the green staining is therefore, for the time being, a mystery, but there is still evidence in the wear of the teeth for the use of a hard bit, perhaps made of bone. In summary, the teeth and skeletal remains of the six donkeys indicate that they were reasonably wellcared for. They were housed in stalls but were frequently used as pack animals, were ridden or were harnessed to chariots or carts, and were bridled with bits or hard rope that caused wear and perhaps trauma to the first premolars.

Department of Mineralogy (NHM) who did their best to find copper in the tooth. They used Energy Dispersive X-ray Micro-Analysis and Laser Ablation but could only detect calcium, phospherus and some minor sulphur. The Photographic Department at the NHM took the photos. References Clutton-Brock, J., 1989. A dog and a donkey excavated at Tell Brak. Iraq 51, 217–24. Clutton-Brock, J., 2001. Ritual burials of a dog and six domestic donkeys, in Excavations at Tell Brak, vol. 2: Nagar in the Third Millennium BC, by D. Oates, J. Oates & H. McDonald. (McDonald Institute Monographs.) Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, 327–38. Clutton-Brock, J. & S. Davies, 1993. More donkeys from Tell Brak. Iraq 55, 209–21.

Acknowledgements My thanks are due to Richard Sabin, Mammal Division, The Natural History Museum, London (NHM) and to Alan Hart, John Spratt, and Teresa Jeffries,

127

Equids in the Northern Part of the Iranian Central Plateau

Chapter 10 Equids in the Northern Part of the Iranian Central Plateau from the Neolithic to Iron Age: New Zoogeographic Evidence Marjan Mashkour T

his study is based on zooarchaeological remains yielded by three sites on the Qazvin Plain 140 km to the northwest of Tehran. Tappeh Zagheh, Qabrestan and finally Sagzabad belong to the sixth/fifth, fourth and second/first millennia BC respectively (Mashkour 2001). Professor E.O. Negahban, head of the Institute of Archaeology of Tehran University, directed the excavation of the three sites between 1970 and 1978 (Negahban 1977). Approximately 70,000 animal bones belonging to these sites were studied between 1994 and 1997 at the Institute of Archaeology of Tehran University. The original aim of the study stressed palaeo-economic aspects and trends in the diet within a diachronic framework at a micro-regional scale; many other interesting features appeared in the course of the faunal study, regarding namely the taxonomic and palaeo-zoogeographic aspects of the material. The sites are located as seen in Figure 10.1, very close to each other in a flat, semi-steppe/arid zone at an approximate altitude of 1300 m above sea level. The Qazvin Plain, covers an area of 443,200 hectares and is geographically bordered by the Zagros Mountains to the west and the Alborz Mountains to the northeast and southeast. This special configuration and geographic situation was attractive for the study of animal exploitation patterns over five millennia within the Bu’in Zahra micro-region that includes the archaeological site (35°47'N Long., 49°56' E Lat.) in the Southern part of the plain. It should be noted that archaeozoological studies are generally not abundant in the Iranian territory compared to adjacent countries, specially those on its western borders where, owing to increased integration of faunal studies in archaeological investigations, a considerable amount of new data from almost twenty years worth of research has been yielded,

while Iran ceased all international archaeological cooperation. As a consequence of this, archaeozoology, as well as other environmental disciplines, is dramatically under represented for this region (Mashkour 1998). The faunal material yielded from the Bu’in Zahra micro-region in the Qazvin Plain is the largest assemblage studied in Iran since 1979 and the first set of important data for the Northern part of the Central Plateau, a rather unexplored region as is the case in the Eastern zone of the country. These post-Revolution investigations are renewed attempts at obtaining a better understanding of human–animal relationships in Iran. The importance of this large faunal assemblage, aside from the above-mentioned facts, hinges on its specific diversity and the high percentage of equids present, which sheds new light on the late prehistoric exploitation of this steppe area. The lack of data is felt dramatically when it comes to the history of equids on the Iranian Plateau. Generally speaking, at prehistoric sites the contribution of equids to the subsistence economy remains small. In large assemblages, it appears that equids are represented by 0.5 per cent to 6 per cent of all species considered.1 Moreover, the chrono-cultural disparity of the sites is a major handicap for proposing any regional and/or chronological pattern for equid exploitation. Nevertheless, these sites present the advantage of providing zoogeographic indications in terms of presence or absence of some species. Also the morphological data are important for documenting the evolutionary trends of some species and other cultural aspects like zootechnics (e.g. hybrids). At this point it can be noted that the Qazvin Plain sites, especially from the fourth millennium, can be distinguished from the other sites studied in Iran. It should not be forgotten, however, that this difference could be biased by a geographic imbal129

Chapter 10

TURKEY

TURKMENISTAN A ra s

Caspian Sea L ak

Tabrız

ia rm eU

A tr a k

Qe

z el Ow za n

s gro Za

Elbu

rz Qazvin Tappeh Zagheh Qabrestan Sagzabad Buin Zahra

Mts

Damghan

s

Mt

Tehran

IRAQ

Hamadan

Salt Desert

Qom

N Bakhtaran

Kashan 0

300 km

Khorramabad

dak del

Figure 10.1. Geographical location of Qazvin Plain prehistoric sites marked by black squares. Table 10.1. New radiocarbon dates for the Qazvin Plain. Site

Excav./ Year

Trench/ Square

SAG SAG SAG SAG SCM SCM SCM SCM SCM SCM SCM TZ TZ TZ TZ

1974 1974 1970 1970 1970 1973 1973 1973 1973 1973 1974 1973 1994 1973 1970

O XXI/2 N XXI/2 A A A E E E EA E K XX/3 TT FGX A8/4 D IX F IX

Thermoluminesence SAG 1970 A SAG 1970 A

Square Level L XIII L IX L XXIV prev. XIII L XXX prev. VII L XII J15 J15 J15/407 G14 H14

Depth 7 12

100 180–185 200–210 30–40 140–150 85–90 325–335 35 110–130

L XII

Sample code

Age Conv. BP

Gif-10347 Gif-10348 Gif-10349 Gif-10350 Gif-10227 Gif-10409 Gif-10408 Gif-10225 Gif-10411 Gif-10412 Gif-10410 Gif-10226 Gif-10343 Gif-10344 Gif-10345

2950±40 2945±45 2915±60 2820±30 4530±45 4130±50 4720±70 4730±70 4700±80 4890±50 4690±105 6100±60 5930±70 5885±75 5900±55

* *

3272±297, RE 7.72 3156±275, RE 7.29

δ 13C (‰)

Date Cal BC

Bone/Charcoal

–18.03 –19.2 –17.99 –19.56 –19.55 –17.32 –17.34 –17.08 –17.84 –17.45 –18.61 –18.6 –17.66 –17.71 –17.79

[1264–1013] [1294–1000] [1266–920] [1035–863] [3361–3046] [2876–2506] [3641–3358] [3643–3362] [3654–3129] [3782–3540] [3691–3102] [5212–4849] [4963–4607] [4927–4561] [4918–4616]

Equid, Cattle Equid, Caprine Equid Equid Equid, Caprine Equid,Cattle Equid Caprine Equid, Cattle, Mammal Equid,Cattle Cattle Cattle, Mammal caprini Mammal Mammal, Cattle

1276, TE 9.09 ceramique 1160, TE 8.70 ceramique

* = Archaeological Center/National Heritage Organization (Iran) Gif = Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environement/ CNRS (France)

ance in the archaeozoological data in Iran. In fact the major part of the available information derives from the Zagros region, with a biotope which is different

to that in other parts of the country. Meanwhile, one should stress the fact that during the fourth millennium at some contemporaneous sites of Qabrestan, 130

Equids in the Northern Part of the Iranian Central Plateau

Thus palaeoclimatic changes in the past might have shifted the influence of these different zones. Contrary to the well-drained northern slopes of the Elburz Mountains, the Qazvin Plain is located in a dry steppe climatic zone owing to low rainfall corresponding with the approximate 200 mm isohyet (Zohary 1973, 38). According to Zohary’s climatic division it is included in a semi-arid-temperate zone (Zohary 1973, 38) with a temperature range possibly exceeding 60°C between summer and winter. From a phytogeographic point of view the Qazvin Plain lies in the intermediate plateau between the Caspian (Hyrcanian) and the Zagrosian forest, where generally open steppes are to be found. Nevertheless the southern slopes of the Elburz region, as many remnants prove, was once covered by juniper-forest (today Juniperus polycarpus and other shrubs or trees, i.e. almond, berberis and cotoneaster: Bobek 1968, 287). In the neighboring highland, it is adjacent to the semi-humid oak-juniper forest (Bobek 1968, 283). To the west, the Plain is adjacent to another dry forest region; the pistachio-almond-maple forest has now completely moved to the west of Tehran. More steppe and even desert-like formations dominated by Artemisia are also present in the area (Bobek 1968). In these formations, a large number of plant species belong to the Chenopodiaceae, almost all species of which are halophytes (Zohary 1973, 64).

even though located in an appropriate environmental setting for wild equids (especially wild asses), these animals were comparatively much less exploited2 by the prehistoric population. Following this statement regarding the question of equids in Iran, the archaeological context of the Qazvin Plain sites is briefly commented upon below. Several seasons of work at Tappeh Zagheh have resulted in extensive excavations of the mound, measuring almost 1.5 ha which brought to light twelve levels of occupation attributed to the late Neolithic period (Malek Shahmirzadi 1977a). Qabrestan, located 3.2 km from Zagheh is defined by its excavator as a proto-urban settlement, extending over 10 ha (Majidzadeh 1976; 1989). Sagzabad extends over 350 m from north–south and 400 m from east–west. On the basis of different archaeological evidence — pottery type (Malek Shahmirzadi 1977b; Naghshineh 1997), architectural remains and other artefacts (Tala’i 1983; 1984) — the site was occupied from Late Bronze Age to Iron Age II. Sagzabad is an important site for the Iranian Iron Age in the Central Plateau, being among the rare examples of evidence of settlement. In fact, most Iron Age sites of the Central Plateau are necropolises (Kambakhsh-Fard 1991). Another settlement has recently been discovered in southern Tehran (Mehrekian 1997) in addition to Sagzabad. Sagzabad is particularly characterized by its grey ware pottery which, like the horse, is one of the long-lasting indicators of the ‘intrusion’ and ‘spread’ of Indo-Iranian tribes onto the Iranian Plateau. New radiocarbon dates generally confirm the established relative chronology proposed by the each excavator (Mashkour et al. 1999). Two new thermoluminescence (TL) dates have been added to this list here (Bahr ol Olumi pers. comm.) in order to complete previously published data (Table 10.1).

Isotopic investigations Palaeoenvironmental changes in the micro-region under study have been assessed through isotopic studies of skeletal tissues from the three prehistoric sites. Good-quality collagen has been extracted from more than 40 bone samples from wild and domestic herbivores, boar, dog and humans. The carbon isotopic composition of herbivore collagen indicates mainly consumption of C3-plants with, however, a significant amount of C4-plants in some individuals. The amount of consumed C4-plants is correlated with increasing δ15N, suggesting that C4-plants are linked to saline environments. The δ15N and δ13C of wild herbivores seem to decrease with decreasing age, suggesting wetter conditions in the Iron Age than in the Neolithic. Domestic herbivores do not exhibit any trend, maybe because environmental conditions linked to human activity are less variable than natural conditions (Bocherens et al. 2000).

The environmental setting Phytogeographic aspects The northern part of the Central Plateau, where the prehistoric sites under study are located, belongs to the large Irano-Turanian group (Bobek 1968) and more precisely to the Armeno-Iranian sector which comprises the southern slopes of the Elburz Mountains and their continuation towards Azerbaijan and Khurasan (Zohary 1973, 197). It is located at a crossroad between several phytogeographic sectors, i.e. Armeno-Iranian, Kurdo-Zagrossian and Central Iranian sectors (Zohary 1973). Moreover, it is at the boundary of the Hyrcanian territory (Zohary 1973).

Faunal spectra General characteristics The identified animal bones in these assemblages refer mostly to mammals. The small number of bird, 131

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PtL

19

OL

Equus caballus/przewalskii OW

17

PtL

15

13

Equus hemionus onager

11

9

OLW 7 20

22

24

26

28

30

32

E. h. onager PM

E. h. onager M

Zagheh PM

Zagheh M

E. przewalskii PM E. caballus PM

E. przewalskii M E. caballus M

Qabrestan PM Sagzabad PM

Qabrestan M Sagzabad M

34

Figure 10.2. Scatter diagram for upper cheek teeth — Occlusal Length+Width/2 (OLW) versus Protocone Length (PtL) in (mm). (For measurements of Onager cf. Eisenmann & Mashkour 2000; Przewalski and Caballus measurements courtesy of Dr V. Eisenmann.) graphic arguments could be maintained in favour of the presence of pig. The very few camelid bones observed belong, on the basis of metapodial measurements, most probably to dromedary (Camelus dromedarius). The presence of red deer (Cervus elaphus) could only be verified through antlers. It is worth noting the presence of a few saiga (Saiga tatarica) horn cores in the faunal assemblage of the Iron Age. This is a major finding which brings a new light on the question of the distribution range of this Central Asian antelope, never recorded before among Iranian faunal remains. Besides its very curious presence in Iran, at least during the Iron Age, this new discovery raises the problem of interpretation: is it a cultural or a natural sign? Is it related to the overall changes observed throughout northern Iran which are associated with the so-called ‘newcomers’, and thus the result of exchange (of some parts of the animal (the horn) for some specific reason) or the intentional introduction of the species? If it is derived from a ‘natural’ occurrence, then it contradicts the isotopic results which suggest rather

fish and amphibian/reptile remains in the faunal assemblage would almost certainly have been higher if systematic sieving had been undertaken. Mammals comprise domestic and wild species. Among domesticates two major groups, caprids (sheep (Ovis aries) and goat (Capra hircus)) and bovids are distinguished. Bovid bones were generally allocated to the domestic form (Bos taurus) albeit that some could be assigned morphologically to aurochs (Bos primigenius); the latter are very poorly represented in the assemblage, an observation that is also supported by metrical analyses (Mashkour 2001). Among the bones assigned to wild mammals, the majority are of herbivores. Wild sheep (Ovis orientalis) and goat (Capra aegagrus) may be distinguished on the basis of morphological and metrical observations. Within the important sample of gazelle horn cores, almost all could be allocated with confidence to Gazella subgutturosa, the distribution range of which covers the northern part of the Iranian Plateau (Uerpmann 1987, 98). Suids (wild boar (Sus scrofa scrofa)), are rare in these sites and neither morphological nor demo132

Equids in the Northern Part of the Iranian Central Plateau

wetter conditions in the Iron Age compared to previous analyzed periods, given that the saiga is particularly sensitive to humidity. A solution would be that climatic conditions at this time became much more humid in southern Turkmenistan, the southeastern limit of the present-day distribution of saiga, compelling the animal to move, in this case, towards northern parts of the Iranian Plateau. The scarcity of data should be taken seriously into account and not over interpreted until other evidence is found from other parts of the Northern Central Plateau.

Table 10.2. Measurements for some of the Qazvin plain upper cheek teeth in (mm): S = Sagzabad; SC = Qabrestan, TZ = Zagheh; OL = Occlusal length; OW= Occlusal Width; Lpt= Length of the Protocone.

The equids The equid group comprises mostly wild forms. Owing to the taxonomic diversity and complex biogeographic distribution of these animals, especially in Southwest Asia, their remains have been scrutinized very cautiously. Detailed study of morphometric and morphoscopic observations was undertaken on cranial and post-cranial remains and is discussed in detail elsewhere (Eisenmann & Mashkour 1999; Mashkour 2001). As a result, the majority of the material can be allocated to hemiones (Equus hemionus onager and E.h. biangadensis, nov. sub. sp.). In addition, very few remains of hydruntinus (Equus hydruntinus), so far unreported from Iran, could be identified in Qabrestan and Sagzabad. Horse and ass were also present in the faunal assemblages of the sites. For the hydruntinus there is still a debate concerning its distribution range during the Holocene in the Near and Middle East (Uerpmann 1987). However, morphological and morphoscopic data tend to confirm its presence in the northern part of the Iranian Plateau as late as the Iron Age (Eisenmann & Mashkour 1999). Considering the importance of this finding and its zoogeographic and archaeozoological implications, DNA investigations are now deemed to be necessary some of the samples are currently being analyzed.3 From an economic point of view, an interesting observation is the parallel increase of cattle (from 3 per cent to 17 per cent) and equid remains (from almost 1 per cent to 24 per cent) from Zagheh to Sagzabad, i.e. from the late Neolithic to the Iron Age. In the two older sites cattle are more important, and conversely an opposite tendency is visible at Sagzabad. The major part of the equid assemblage in this latter site could be allocated to the hemiones.

Tooth code Tooth ident.

OL

OW

OL+OW/2 Lpt

S145 S150 S157 S164 S198 S21 S5 S169 S174 S197 S197 S198 SC1 SC11 SC12 SC14 SC15 SC20 SC3 SC4 SC74 SC75 SC76 SC78 SC79 SC80 SC84 SC85 SC90 SCx SC81 SC89 SC69 SC70 SC71 SC17 TZ1 TZ10 TZ2 TZ23 TZ3 TZ6 TZ8 TZ1 TZ1 TZ11 TZ12 TZ2 TZ5

25.1 23.4 24.3 25.4 26.3 24.0 25.5 28.5 27.8 30.7 26.6 29.5 23.0 23.0 25.0 21.0 22.0 23.0 23.5 23.0 23.1 22.2 24.3 25.1 25.8 26.8 25.7 23.4 23.5 23.7 27.5 26.7 27.4 25.8 29.2 26.5 25.0 23.0 21.7 22.7 22.0 24.0 24.0 29.0 28.0 25.0 26.5 25.0 26.5

26.6 25.1 26.1 27.0 28.2 25.0 27.5 26.2 27.0 28.5 28.5 29.1 25.0 24.0 26.0 23.5 23.5 25.0 24.0 25.0 23.9 25.3 25.5 25.6 24.6 24.3 23.8 25.4 24.6 23.7 29.0 26.0 26.8 27.2 24.0 25.0 26.0 22.7 25.0 25.4 24.0 26.5 24.0 29.0 28.0 25.0 26.0 27.0 25.0

25.9 24.3 25.2 26.2 27.3 24.5 26.5 27.4 27.4 29.6 27.6 29.3 24.0 23.5 25.5 22.3 22.8 24.0 23.8 24.0 23.5 23.8 24.9 25.4 25.2 25.6 24.8 24.4 24.1 23.7 28.3 26.4 27.1 26.5 26.6 25.8 25.5 22.9 23.4 24.1 23.0 25.3 24.0 29.0 28.0 25.0 26.3 26.0 25.8

M2 M1/2 M1/2 M1/2 M1 M1/2 M1/2 P3/4 P3/4 P3 P4 P4 M M M M1 M M M2 M M M M M M2? M2? M M M cf M2 P P P3/4 P3/4 P3/4 P4 M1 M M1 M M M M P3 P4 P P P4 P

13.5 13.2 13.1 13.2 13.1 13.0 14.0 13.6 15.0 13.7 12.3 14.5 10.5 10.0 11.6 11.3 10.3 11.0 11.2 10.6 12.1 10.1 13.3 10.0 12.0 11.4 11.2 11.2 12.5 10.9 12.8 9.5 13.1 13.2 13.7 10.5 14.0 12.0 11.2 12.5 10.6 11.7 11.0 13.5 13.0 11.0 11.8 12.0 11.0

skeleton (teeth, humerus, calcaneus, second and third phalanges). In Figure 10.2 the measurements of modern onager (Eisenmann & Mashkour 2000), domestic horse and przewalski4 (Eisenmann pers. comm.) and the archaeological specimens from Zagheh, Qabrestan and Sagzabad have been plotted considering the protocone length and the sum of the length plus width

The horse evidence These faunal studies also provided new information about the presence of the horse as early as the Late Neolithic at Zagheh. Osteometric analysis shows that its presence is evidenced by different parts of the 133

Chapter 10

Humerus

8 65

Sagzabad Qabrestan Zagheh

60

*

55

E. hemionus onager

50

E. ferus/caballus 45

* * *** * * * * * * E. hemionus onager *

40 35

6

cf. E. asinus, E. hydruntinus or E. h. binagadensis 30 50

55

60

65

70

75

80

85

90

95

Figure 10.3. Scatter diagram for Humerus — Distal articular breadth (6) versus Medial height of trochlea (8) in (mm). (For bone drawings and measurements of Onager cf. Eisenmann & Mashkour 2000.)

60

Calcaneus

7

Sagzabad Qabrestan Zagheh

55

*

E. hemionus onager

50

E. ferus/caballus

* * ** *** *** * * * * ***** ***** * *

45

40

E. hemionus onager

35

cf. E. asinus, E. hydruntinus or E. h. binagadensis

1

30 78

83

88

93

98

103

108

113

118

Figure 10.4. Scatter diagram for Calcaneus — Greatest Length (1) versus Greatest breadth (7) in (mm). (For bone drawings and measurements of Onager cf. Eisenmann & Mashkour 2000.) of each tooth divided by two (Table 10.2). The curved line indicates the approximate division between horses and hemiones. It clearly appears that one part of the archaeological assemblage falls into the variation range of E. caballus. It is indeed difficult to distinguish, between

E. przewalski and the domestic horses, on the basis of our modern data base. Considering the chronology of Zagheh and the low representation of this species in the fauna, it is logically difficult to allocate this group to a domestic form. The most critical point would be the status of the specimens from Qabrestan, 134

Equids in the Northern Part of the Iranian Central Plateau

Table 10.3. Measurements for humerus in (mm): S = Sagzabad, SC = Qabrestan, TZ = Zagheh.

Table 10.4. Measurements for Calcaneus in (mm): S = Sagzabad, SC = Qabrestan, TZ = Zagheh.

Site Excav./ Trench/ Year Square

8

Site Excav./ Trench/ Year Square

42.1 42.5 46 32.7 42.4 35.4 51.9 41.2 43.2 43.1 46.8 59.5 37.2 44.9 42.7 41.2 50.4 44.1 45.9 42.9 39.7

S S S S S S S S S S S SC SC SC TZ TZ

S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S SC SC SC TZ TZ

1971 1971 1971 1974 1974 1974 1974 1974 1974 1974 1974 1974 1974 1974 1974 1970 1973 1973 1973 1973 1973

N XX/4 NXXI/4 O XX/2 O XXI/3 O XXI/3 O XXI/3 O XXI/3 O XXI/3 O XXI/3 N XXI N XXI/4 O XXI/3 A EA/G13 II EA/G14 EA/G14 F XI

Locus Level

Depth 6

L VII L VIII pit 2 pit 2 pit 2 pit 1 pit 1 pit 2 L VIII L VIII LX L VII 401 409

66.3 66.1 68.1 54.6 63.9 58.6 74.6 64.7 64.2 71.5 70 75.9 57.4 69 65.7 63.4 88.2 67.8 70.5 66 61.2

1970 1971 1971 1971 1971 1971 1974 1974 1974 1974 1974 1971 1973 1973 1973 1973

A

N XXI/1 O XXI/3 O XXI/3 O XXI/3 O XXI/3

Level Depth 1

7

L XII

43.3 42.5 43.7 46 49 55.8 41.2 44.2 40.5 42.3 46.7 51 44.3 36.6 45.6 55

pit 1 pit 2 LX pit 2 LX

EA/G14 EA/G135 402 E IX 401 F XI

80–85

102.3 100.4 99.3 101 106.8 112.8 96.3 92.8 101 96.7 104.6 104 99.7 80 107 111.5

Table 10.5. Measurement for third metacarpal from Qabrestan (in mm). 10 41

SC72

0.08

Locus

11 41

12 31

13 25

14 26.7

10. Distal supra-articular breadth 11. Distal articular breadth 12. Depth of sagittal keel 13. Smallest depth of medial condyle 14. Greatest depth of medial condyle

Equus przewalskii (n = 29)

0.07 0.06 0.05 0.04 0.03

Qabrestan (SC 72)

0.02 0.01

E. hemionus kulan (n = 10) log difference with E. h. onager

0 10

11

12

13

14

Figure 10.5. Log Ratio Diagram for third Metacarpal. (For bone drawings and hemione measurements cf. Eisenmann & Mashkour 2000; for the Przewalski measurements cf. Eisenmann & Beckouche 1986.) precisely because of the chronology of the site (mid fourth millennium BC). The oldest evidence for the presence of domestic horse in Iran currently seems to come from Godin IV (3000 BC) contemporaneous to the ‘Yanik culture’ (Gilbert 1986). Qabrestan is a few

centuries older and the horse is apparently present. The presence of horse is also evidenced on other skeletal parts (Figs. 10.3, 10.4 & Tables 10.3, 10.4). Figure 10.5 represents a logarithmic diagram, in which the distal metacarpal profiles for E. prze135

Chapter 10

walski, kulan and the specimen from Qabrestan are compared to the onager (for computation of the method see Simpson 1941 or Eisenmann 1986). The Qabrestan equid has a comparable profile with the E. przewalski, but is of smaller size (see Table 10.5 for raw measurements). The chronological debates on horse domestication being critical for understanding this event in general and, in a wider sense, on the Iranian Plateau, it seems necessary to adopt a multivariate approach, noted also by Levine (1999), using different sources of data. Isotopic studies have proved to be very efficient in palaeoenvironmental research and interesting archaeological implications are constantly being developed by workers in this field. As a matter of fact, the method seems to be promising for distinguishing between wild and domestic populations, and has already been tested positive on bovids (Balasse 1999). This problem is now under investigation for the horse in Iran, at the Biogeochemistry Laboratory of Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris (see also, Bocherens et al. 2001).

must still remain extremely cautious about the integration of such data in socio-cultural analyses, for many of these theories are based, at least in the northern part of Iran and Central Asia and especially for the faunal material, on old studies under debate (i.e. Levine et al. 1999). A more important fact is the new evidence for the presence of the wild horse (Equus ferus) as early as the Neolithic. In fact the problem is interesting because, until now, evidence for the wild horse in Iran came from two Palaeolithic sites in the Zagros, Tamtama cave (Coon 1951) and Warwasi shelter (Turnbull 1975) and (Bakken 2000). No relevant remains were found in the circum Caspian Palaeolithic/Early Neolithic sites of Belt and Ali Tappeh Caves (Coon 1951; Uerpmann & Frey 1981; Uerpmann 1987, 18–19). These new data emphasize, once more, the need for archaeological studies covering other regions of Iran besides the Zagros. I personally believe, on the basis of some recent studies in the northern part of the Central Plateau, that systematic research in this wide area along the Alborz range toward Afghanistan, is promising for archaeozoological investigations and especially for understanding the role of equids in the ancient societies that inhabited the region. But at this point of the study, considering the restricted amount of data, it is safer not to overinterpret the information. It should only be stressed that a probably wild caballin equid was present in the northern part of Iran in the Neolithic with the same or modified status in the Chalcolithic. An interesting question to be posed, relevant to the socio-economic and political setting of the studied sites would be: is this gradual diachronic increase in horse (Equus caballus) percentages in the Qazvin Plain simultaneous to the general increase of equids, all represented species considered, in the faunal assemblages from the three sites? Does it, result from an internal endogenous dynamic or was it the consequence of exogenous factors?

Conclusion The archaeozoological results from Zagheh, Qabrestan and Sagzabad faunal remains in Qazvin Plain have yielded palaeo-economic information relevant to the presence/absence of different groups of animals, stressing general patterns in abundance of each exploited animal, expression of cultural choices as well as ecological potentialities. Aside from the importance of artiodactyls as a major source of food, the impact of wild equids, especially during the Chalcolithic and the Iron Age, should be emphasized. A gradual modification of dietary habits, tending curiously from a less diversified fauna during the Neolithic to more a complex system during the Iron Age is discernible; the modification of faunal profiles is expressed by a general increase in wild species, i.e. hunting practices, striking in Sagzabad, where wild caprine, gazelle, suids and especially equids (major portion being wild equids i.e. hemiones and in a very lower rate, hydruntinus) provide almost 40 per cent of the identified remains. The aim of this paper was to show the importance of the exploitation of equids on the northern part of the Iranian Plateau. Regarding this problem, the Iron Age upheavals in Iran are most commonly linked to migration theories of Indo-European people (e.g. Dyson 1973) and its inseparable component — the domestic horse. In this respect, the increase in horse remains at Sagzabad is noteworthy, but one

Acknowledgements I am indebted to Dr Véra Eisenmann who acquainted me with the ‘Universe’ of equids, for her constant help and kind attention. Also the ESA 8045 of the CNRS/MNHN should be thanked for its scientific and financial support. Notes 1.

136

E.g. Tal-e-Malayan (Zeder 1986), Godin (Gilbert 1986),

Equids in the Northern Part of the Iranian Central Plateau

2. 3.

4.

modern Equus, wild and domestic, in Meadow & Uerpmann (eds.), 117–63. Eisenmann, V. & M. Mashkour, 1999. The small equids (Perissodactyla, Mammalia) of the Pleistocene of Binagady (Azerbaijan) and Qazvin (Iran): E. hemionus binagadensis nov. subsp. and E. hydruntinus. Geobios 32, 105–22. Eisenmann, V. & M. Mashkour, 2000. Data base for teeth and limb bones of modern Hemiones, in Fiche d’Ostéologie Animale pour l’Archéologie, Série B: Mammifères, eds. J. Desse & N. Desse-Berset. Juan les Pins: CNRS/APDCA. Gilbert, A.S., 1986. Equid remains from Godin Tepe, Western Iran: an interim summary and interpretation with notes on the introduction of the horse into Southwest Asia, in Meadow & Uerpmann (eds.), 75–122. Hole, F., K.V. Flannery & J.A. Neely, 1969. Prehistory and Human Ecology of the Deh Luran Plain: an Early Village Sequence from Khuzistan, Iran. (Memoirs of the Museum of Anthropology 1.) Ann Arbor (MI): University of Michigan. Kambakhsh-Fard, S., 1991. The Three Thousand Two Hundred Years Tehran, on the Basis of Archaeological Excavations. Tehran: Faza Edition. [In Persian.] Levine, M., 1999. The origins of horse husbandry on the Eurasian steppe, in Levine et al. 1999, 5–9. Levine, M., Y. Ramassakin, A. Kislenko & N. Tatarintseva, 1999. Late Prehistoric Exploitation of the Eurasian Steppe. (McDonald Institute Monographs.) Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research. Majidzadeh, Y., 1976. The Early Prehistoric Cultures of the Central Plateau of Iran: an Archaeological History of its Development during the Fifth and Fourth Millennia BC. Unpublished PhD Thesis, University of Chicago, Chicago. Majidzadeh, Y., 1989. An early industrial proto-urban center on the Central Plateau of Iran: Tepe Ghabristan, in Essays in Ancient Civilization presented to Helene J. Kantor, eds. A. Leonard & B.B. Williams. Chicago (IL): The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 157–73. Malek Shahmirzadi, S., 1977a. Tepe Zagheh: a Sixth Millennium BC Village in the Qazvin Plain of the Central Iranian Plateau. Unpublished PhD Thesis, University of Pennsylvania. Malek Shahmirzadi, S., 1977b. The excavation of the Sagzabad Mound, Qazvin Plain, 1970–71. Marlik 2, 67–79. [In Persian.] Mashkour, M., 1998. Archaeozoological Studies in Iran: State of the Question. Unpublished paper presented at ‘Archaeozoological World Literature (1940–1995) Session, International Council of ArchaeoZoology (ICAZ), Victoria/Canada, 23–29 August 1998. Mashkour, M., 2001. Chasse et élevage du Néolithique à l’âge du Fer dans la plaine de Qazvin (Iran): Etude archéozoologique des sites de Zagheh, Qabrestan et Sagzabad. Unpublished PhD thesis, l’Université de Paris I-Sorbonne.

Tal-i Iblis (Bökönyi 1967), Mushki (Payne 1986), the sites of Dehloran (Hole et al. 1969) and Shahr-i-Sokhta (Compagnoni 1978). See for instance at Tepe Yahya where it is represented at less than 1 per cent (Meadow 1986). The analyses are being processed under the direction of C. Hänni at the Centre de Génétique Moléculaire et Cellulaire de l’Université Claude Bernard, Lyon 1. I used the E. przewalski measurements as representing a form of wild horse (Equus ferus), this being the only large and available large data base. This does not mean that the Equus przewalskii was actually present in Iran.

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Uerpmann (eds.), 132–77. Simpson, G.G., 1941. Pleistocene felines of North America. Am.Mus. Novitates 1136, 1–27. Tala’i, H., 1983. Late Bronze Age and Iron Age I architecture in Sagzabad - Qazvin Plain - The Central Plateau of Iran. Iranica Antiqua 18, 51–7. Tala’i, H., 1984. Notes on bronze artefacts at Sagzabad in Qazvin Plain Iran, circa 1400 BC. Iranica Antiqua 19, 1–42. Turnbull, P.F., 1975. The mammalian fauna of Warwasi Rock Shelter, west-central Iran. Fieldiana (Geology) 33, 141–55. Uerpmann, H.-P., 1987. The Ancient Distribution of Ungulate Mammals in the Middle East. Wiesbaden: Dr Ludwig Reichert Verlag. Uerpmann, H.-P. & W. Frey, 1981. Die Umgebung von Gar-e Kamarband (Belt Cave) und Gar-e ‘Ali Tappe (Behshahr, Mazandaran) heute und im Spätpleistozän, in Contributions to Environmental History of Southwest Asia, eds. W. Frey & H.-P. Uerpmann. Wiesbaden: Ludwig Reichert Verlag, 134–90. Zeder, M.A., 1986. The equid remains from Tal-e Malayan, southern Iran, in Meadow & Uerpmann (eds.), 366–412. Zohary, M., 1973. Geobotanical Foudations of the Middle East. Stuttgart: Gustav Fischer Verlag.

Mashkour, M., M. Fontugne & C. Hatté, 1999. Investigations on the evolution of subsistence economy in the Qazvin Plain (Iran) from the Neolithic to the Iron Age. Antiquity 73, 65–76. Meadow, R.H., 1986. Animal Exploitation in Prehistoric Southeastern Iran: Faunal remains from Tepe Yahya and Tepe Gaz Tavila-R37, 5300–3000. Unpublished PhD thesis, Harvard University, Cambridge (MA). Meadow, R.H. & H.-P. Uerpmann (eds.), 1986. Equids in the Ancient World. Wiesbaden: Dr Ludwig Reichert. Mehrekian, J., 1997. Study about the unknown architecture of the Grey Ware culture in Tepe Ma’mourin, in Proceedings of the ‘History of Architecture and Urbanism in Iran’ Congress (Bam-Kerman, 1996), vol. 3, ed. National Cultural Heritage Organization. Tehran: National Cultural Heritage Organization, 345–56. [In Persian.] Naghshineh, A.S., 1997. A Study of the Grey Ware Pottery at Sagzabad in Qazvin Plain and Aryan Migration. Unpublished Masters Thesis, Tarbiyat Modaress University, Tehran. [In Persian.] Negahban, E.O., 1977. Preliminary report of Qazvin expedition: excavations of Zagheh, Qabrestan, Sagzabad (1971–1972). Marlik 2, 26–44. Payne, S., 1986. Early Holocene equids from Tal-i-Mushki (Iran) and Can Hassan III (Turkey), in Meadow &

138

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Chapter 11 A Walk on the Wild Side: Late Shang Appropriation of Horses in China Katheryn M. Linduff Representations

of horses, such as the little jade pair depicting the tenacious, wild Equus przewalskii from the Fu Hao Tomb (M5) at Anyang (Fig. 11.1) (Institute of Archaeology, Beijing 1980, pl. 30:2) and the inscription in the shape of a long-eared wild ass on the base of the bronze ritual vessel gui (Fig. 11.2) from Jingjiecun, in Lingshi, Shanxi province (Shanxi 1986, 14), are rare in Shang period China (c. 1550– 1050 BC). Even so, their portrayal follows Shang artistic predilection for depiction of wild animals on artefacts used in ritual. Their features — stocky build, erect manes and shaggy tails — are not comparable, however, to the longer-legged and elegantly-proportioned bodies of the horses that have been found buried in sacrificial pits and tombs at the last capital of the Shang Dynasty at Yinxu, Anyang (Fig. 11.3). Evidence of highly-trained horses and the associated equipment such as those buried in these tombs has not been documented elsewhere in ancient China before about 1250 BC. The practice appears full-blown at Anyang as part of a well-established set of rituals — of burial, hunt, and war (Creel 1970; Yetts 1934). The simultaneous appeal of representations of wild,

and sacrifice of tamed, horses in ritual use in late Shang society raises questions about the attraction of this dichotomous manner of display as well as the availability of such tamed and untamed animals. How, when and why this occurs within the context of late Shang history and politics is the focus of this investigation. The excitement surrounding the discovery and excavation at Anyang centred on the data it provided for understanding the sophisticated state level culture of the ancient Chinese. Evidence of economic,

1

2

3

Figure 11.1. Jade horses from the Tomb of Lady Hao at Yinxu, Anyang, Henan province. (From the Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Science 1980, pl. xxx:2.)

4

Figure 11.2. Bronzes from M1, Jingjiecun, Shanxi Province. (From WW 1986.11, fig. 8.) 139

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bells, bow-shaped fittings (Fig. 11.4), and the rare small jade replicas of equids — A and/or skeletal remains of J 50 K the domesticated horse themK J E selves. These discoveries pro35 vided unequivocal evidence I 3 of the use of trained, domes5 ticated horses in a controlled H H 1 2 G ritual setting as early as G 31 3 8 4 27 30 c. 1250 BC. And as an obvious 20 9 26 18 19 6 J J 3 29 28 24 2322 21 17 12 corollary, their discovery im37 6 36 13 I 7 15 25 F plied the need for specialists F 14 10 who bred, trained and man11 32 D aged horses as well as individuals who designed, 33 34 produced and adjusted the gear for Shang purposes. As part of an elaborate Shang ceremonial apparatus, these large and colourful aniE mals, their gear, their probable heritage outside of Yinxu as well as their role in Shang 41 life can also be documented 38 45 in early written records. And, 43 39 N 46 their prominence and the 42 40 ritual behaviour that they 51 52 record have been frequently 50 49 44 47 reconfirmed in reoccurring 48 0 1m excavations at Anyang since C B dak del their first recovery in the 1930s (Anyang 1979). Their Figure 11.3. Chariot burial of Tomb 175, Dasikong, Anyang, Henan province: introduction and exceptional A) driver; B & C) horses; D–I) impressions of various parts of the chariot; J) traces appearance have been noted of red lacquer; K) dark-coloured material; 1) bronze bell; 2) sheet of gold leaf; in many past studies (Chow 3) cowrie shell; 4) bronze ladder-shaped fitting; 5 & 25) bronze pang bow-fittings; 1984; 1989; Olsen 1988; 6) stone ko; 7, 14, 15 & 36) bronze arrowheads; 8–10, 18, 20, 24, 28 & 37) bone Shaughnessy 1988), but what tubes; 11) bone arrowheads; 12, 30, 31, 35 & 39–42) chariot fittings; 43, 44, 47, they might signify about 48, 51 & 52) horse fittings; 13) bronze pen socketed axe; 16) bronze knife; 17 & early Chinese political con22) mi bow-tips; 19, 21 & 26) shell buttons; 23, 27 & 32) bone ornaments; 29) trol, foreign affairs, social pobronze arrow rack; 33, 34, 38, 45, 46, 49 & 50) bronze buttons. (From Cheng sition and cultural identity 1960, 71.) has not been explained. Data including horse gear and chariots are faideological, political and social lifeways was found miliar in the debris from Andronovo societies loat the site which could be recognizably associated cated far to the west of Anyang in the steppe zone of with the foundations of the historic Chinese culture. eastern Eurasia from at least as early as c. 2000 BC Many features of the remains, however, were not convincingly explained as indigenous to the Shang (Anthony 1995; 1998; Gening et al. 1992; Kuzmina homeland. Conspicuous among those ‘foreign’ re1994a) and suggest that knowledge of these pracmains were items either associated with the use of tices in China was due to contact with horse-using the horse — latent impressions of highly-ornamented communities far beyond their established Dynastic chariots with bronze attachments (Fig. 11.3), tack centre. But the evidence from Anyang, however simiincluding bronze bits, cheek pieces, small animal lar to that of the steppe, was either adapted in deco140

Late Shang Appropriation of Horses in China

ten evidence for the use of horses and for contact between Shang dwellers at Yinxu and outsiders who were supposedly and/or evidently connected to horse management, care and use. The final section considers the overall implications of this large-scale appropriation during the Anyang period and notes its impact on early Zhou culture and subsequent Chinese history.

a

d b

Archaeozoological evidence of horses Neolithic and early Metal Period The early practice of animal domestication in China as in other parts of the world, emphasized animals that provided food reserves and hide — the pig, sheep, and cattle — and/or the extended benefits of assistance in herding or companionship — the dog. Although much debated, the horse, on the other hand, was unlikely to have been domesticated for the sole purposes mentioned above, but additionally perhaps as a working animal and/or as a means of transportation, providing mobility for human beings (Bökönyi 1984, 166; Levine 1999, 8–14). The definitions of animal domestication vary among scholars, but Bökönyi’s description is relevant,

c

Figure 11.4. Bronze objects associated with horses in burials: a) bronze bow-shaped fitting from M5, Anyang, Henan; b) bronze cheek pieces from M5, Anyang, Henan; c) bronze bell for dog from M5, Anyang, Henan; d) bronze ‘crop’ from M1, Jingjiecun, Shanxi. (a–c: Institute of Archaeology 1980, pls. 75.1, 74.5 & 79.2; d: WW 1986.11, fig. 20.1.)

The essence of domestication is the capture and taming by man of animals of a species with particular behavioural characteristics, their removal from their natural living area and breeding community, and their maintenance under controlled breeding conditions for mutual benefits. (Bökönyi 1989, 22)

Or put another way, ‘the repercussions of domestication would have reverberated throughout the whole society’ (Levine 1999, 20). First, the availability of wild species is significant.1 Pleistocene fossil horses have been found in eastern Siberia, Mongolia and China (Olsen 1988). Based on their prevalence in the fossil record, horse populations must have been large in Eurasia in the Pleistocene. Most researchers agree that wild horses preferred open grasslands, but were often associated with forest-steppe environments as well. They were primarily grazers, but also depended in a minor way on browsing woody plants (Olsen 1997, 1). New World horses apparently preferred fibre-rich medium to tall grasses near rivers and, to a lesser extent, sedges and minor amounts of brush. And, according to Chase’s studies on equids of the Middle Palaeolithic (1986), certain geographic regions were more suitable for horses over a long time. These areas were well-watered by large rivers and supported vast open grasslands, although forests were

ration and practice at the Shang centre in a distinctively Chinese fashion or invented there. Review here of reported remains of horses in adjacent regions and dating prior to the occupation of Anyang and of their use and care, will disallow an argument for any sort of endemic regional development of full domestication and training prior to the Shang, but does support the proposition that its abrupt arrival in the late Shang implies active association with horseusing groups nearby, but outside the city centre. Analysis of that interaction and its results in ritual, its manifestation in political and social life, and its display in material culture converge in this study. The first section reviews the remains of horses, questions about domestication and use in China prior to and including the obvious ritual uses by the élite at Anyang, and analysis of the process and content of interaction established in the late Neolithic and early Metal Period (c. 2000–c. 1200 BC). The second part looks at Anyang itself, at the material and writ141

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often at the margins. In any environment or period and with any method, however, wild horses were not easy to hunt. They, like Equus przewalskii, could be quite fierce and aggressive, as well as agile. Distinctive models for hunting developed — including stalking and herd drives — and these techniques required different strategies (Levine 1999, 43). Herd drives, for example, necessitated large-scale human co-operation and at least seasonal aggregation (Levine 1999, 43), while stalking could be managed with a few individuals. Equus przewalskii lived in abundance for many centuries in areas of central and western Asia and was restricted to western Mongolia and northwest China (Xinjiang) a few decades ago due to over hunting (Bökönyi 1984, 167). The abundance of this species in areas adjacent to those where Chinese civilization eventually emerged suggests to some that this was the early stock known to the Chinese and their neighbours (Chen 1984; Xie 1985; Olsen 1988). Second, the behavioural patterns of candidates are of crucial importance for the success of domestication — the horse required less modification of wild characteristics than many other animals. In the Chinese dynastic setting, ecology and cultural features probably played a significant part in their eventual and relatively late capture and behaviour modification (Chen 1984; Xie 1985). Third, the degree to which horses integrated into the natural and socio-cultural environment depends on local cultural contexts. These features varied among pastoral groups and agriculturally-based states. Some have suggested that the combined introduction of domesticated grazing animals (cattle and sheep), innovation in means of transport (horseback riding and wheeled vehicles), and the emergence of a complex interplay of technologies and ideologies (of bronze metallurgy and copper mining, and of the horse-drawn chariot as an instrument of élite competition) revolutionized lifeways of the Andronovo peoples of the eastern Eurasian steppe during the third millennium BC to agro-pastoralism (Kuzmina 1986; Anthony 1996, 2). Because the lifestyle of those peoples of southern Siberia was both comparable to and distinctive from the Late Neolithic and early dynastic peoples of the Central Plain, the Chinese case serves as a good point of departure for testing that model. The adoption of the domesticated pig, sheep and goat, cattle and dog has a long history in several regions in China and is peculiar to regional topography, ecology as well as custom of the settled life of farmers (Olsen 1988). Such is not as clear in the case

of the horse in the ancient Chinese cultural complex. No clear indication from the north Asian archaeozoological context thus far confirms that the earliest Neolithic populations in China domesticated horses on a wide-scale, although wild horses were known. The excavations of sites from that period show, however, that animal husbandry and crop raising occurred together and both pig and dog remains were found (Chow 1984). Mid to late Neolithic remains The mid to late Neolithic period has often been considered the earliest period in which remains of horses in deliberate relation to human activity can be identified in China (Olsen 1988) (Table 11.1; Fig. 11.5). There too, however, there are no unequivocal signs of domestication such as horse gear or chariots found in excavations.2 The earliest datable remains of horses in habitation debris are the two molars and first phalanx of horse found at Banpo, Shanxi (c. 4500– 3000 BC), reported as Equus przewalskii (Chow 1989). Along with evidence of hunting and fishing and of the domestication of the pig at the site, the recovery of these few horse remains in habitation debris leads to the conclusion that horses were at the most supplemental to the diet, or simply a chance remnant of exotic capture by hunter-members of the community. Excavators of several Longshan period sites have reported horse bones (Equus sp.) in large numbers from the Chengziya site in Shandong (Academia Sinica 1934), in fewer numbers at the Baiying site in Henan (Yang 1984), and most recently, the Beiwutun site in Dalian (Fu 1994). These materials were recovered in habitation contexts and are dated to before 2000 BC and are usually thought of as kitchen debris (Academia Sinica 1934, 90). Whether the livelihood and breeding of these animals were directly under human control, however, has not been investigated. Study of the age and gender of these animals as well as exploration for pens or corrals would greatly help to determine whether they were intentionally kept and/or, bred or whether they were captured in the wild. The early Metal Period: dietary and ritual roles A larger number of sites containing the remains of horses have been reported dating from the late Neolithic and early Bronze Age periods (c. 2000– 1500 BC) (Fig. 11.5). Most are located outside, rather than within, the dynastic centres in the Central Plain, although it should be noted that recovery and analysis of animal remains has not been a high priority among Chinese archaeologists. To the north, for ex142

143

Xindian and Qijia cultures

Xindian and Qijia cultures

1950–1513 BC Siba culture Majiayao culture Yangshao culture

Jijiachuan, Yongjing, Gansu

Zhangjiazui, Yongjing, Gansu

Huoshaogou, Yumen, Gansu

Majiawan, Yongjing, Gansu

Banpo, Xian

Gaodui, Linfen, Shanxi

horse bones in dwelling pit (*KGXB, 1957.1)

two teeth, one piece of toe bone (GDYGR, 1959.1)

horse bone (*KG, 1975.2)

horse bones (*WKZSS, 1990)

three teeth of Equus sp.; 15 spades made of horse/cattle bones (*KGXB, 1980.2)

five spades made of horse/ cattle bones (*KGXB, 1980.2)

bone of horse in Baiying, dwelling and Tangyin, burials (*KGXB, Henan 1975.2)

bones (*KGXB, 1974.2)

Central

Key: *GDYGR - Gujizhui dongwu yu gurenlei (see References: Anon. 1959) *KG - Kaogu *KGXB - Kaogu xuebao *WKGSS - Wenwu kaogu gongzuo sanshinian *WWCZ - Wenwu ziliao congkan *ZKX - Zhongguo kaogu xuebao

Zhuanlongzang, Baotou, Inner Mongolia

Qijia culture

2114–1748 BCE Qijia culture

Qinweijia, Yongjing, Gansu

Neolithic Dahezhuang, Yongjing, Gansu

West/North

Table 11.1. Neolithic sites in China with reported remains of horses (c. 4000–1500 BC).

2601–1890 BC Longshan culture

Yangshao culture horse bones in ash pits (*KG, 1980.3)

horse teeth (*WWCZ, 1956.9) Beiwutun, Dalian, Liaoning

Chengziya, Licheng, Shandong

Northeast/East

6000–3500 BC

Longshan culture

horse bones in dwelling pit (*KGXB, 1994.3)

bone of Equus sp. (*ZKX, no. 1, 1934)

Late Shang Appropriation of Horses in China

Chapter 11

R U S S I A N F E D E R AT I O N K A Z A K H S TA N Heilongjiang

MONGOLIA

KYRGYZSTAN

Jilin

Gansu Huoshaogou

N ei M on

g g ol

Z

a) oli o ng M r n ne u (I Zhuanlongzang iz hiq

Liaoning

NORTH KOREA

Beijing Hebei Majiawan

★

Ningxia Huizu

Dahezhuang Qinweijia Jijiachuan Zhangjiazui

Xizang Zizhiou (Tibet)

Shanxi Shaanxi Gaodui

★

★

★

★

Yellow Sea

Shandong Jia

ng

su

Henan Hu a

i

He

Anhui

CHINA

SOUTH KOREA

Hubei

Shanghai

East China Sea

Jia

g

L

an

A

ng

Ch

EP

ua

Baiying

Banpo

Qin Ling Mts

N

H

e H

ng

Qinghai

Bo Hai ) ow ell (Y Chengziya

(Y an gtz e)

Xinjiang Uygur Zizhiqu

BUTAN

Zhejiang

Sichuan Jiangxi

Hunan

N

Fujian

Yunnan

★

Guangxi Zhuangzu

TAIWA

N

Guizhou

Guangdong

VIETNAM

South China Sea Hainan

0

800 km dak del

Figure 11.5. Distribution of horse remains in Neolithic China (4000–1500 BCE). in metal working as well as casting.3 Identification of these horses has not been made with regard to species or type but their association with metal workers may be of significance, for at Huoshaogou they were intentionally sacrificed at burial (Gansu Work Team, IA, AS 1974; Zhang 1990). Moreover, from the same period and area comes the only evidence of a wheel in north Asia prior to those discovered at Anyang. In Qinghai at a site called Dulan in Nuomuhonghalehe both a ‘corral’ and a wheel with sixteen spokes were reported (CPAM of Qinghai Province et al. 1963, 17– 41), although the interpretation of the remains is much debated (see note 2). Nevertheless, the greatest number of horse remains of any kind dating from the late Neolithic are found in the Gansu corridor

ample, in western Inner Mongolia at Zhuanlongzang, a site near Baotou (Wang 1957) associated with the Arshan culture (c. 1500 BC), horse bones were reported. In middle Gansu three molars of Equus sp. were recovered from Zhangjiazui (Xie 1980), a site associated with early Xindian (Phase B), a culture with simple and robust hand-formed, painted local types of pottery, copper and bronze objects dating from the second half of the second millennium BC. At sites in eastern Gansu associated with the Qijia culture at Qinweijia near Yongjing (Xie 1975) and Siba culture at Dahezhuang and Huoshaogou in Yumen (Gansu Museum 1979; Xue et al. 1990), horse remains were associated with communities dating from between c. 2000–1600 BC and were actively engaged 144

Late Shang Appropriation of Horses in China

and contiguous areas in Qinghai, and not in the Central Plain where state level society emerged at least as early as the Shang c. 1550 BC, and perhaps even two centuries earlier. A further look at the evidence from the Gansu Corridor is revealing. The Qijia culture mentioned above is distributed in eastern Qinghai, Ningxia, Gansu and southwestern Inner Mongolia (Li 2002). The culture is characterized by advanced farming, by villages located on terraces above rivers with no external fortifications, by ‘stone circle’ ritual sites where animals were probably sacrificed, by remains of oracle bones and metal objects (knives, axes, spoons, rings, and small ornaments) including ones of almost pure copper, and of bronze (Linduff et al. 2000, 15–19). Metallographic analyses of certain of the items show that these people were reducing local copper-zinc ores from as early as about 3000 BC in this region4 but that the alloying of metals was limited until about 1900 BC, or comparable to other regions in presentday north China. Some burials there include sacrificed pigs (in large numbers) and sheep. Local pottery includes yellow or buff ware with combed or incised designs and shapes particular to the culture, especially a flatbottomed jar with constricted neck, flared mouth and two large vertical double handles. Both handand wheel-formed Yangshao and Longshan pottery types and designs show affinities with the cultures to their east in the Central Plain, suggesting indirect contact.5 Burials show wide variance in size and amount of grave goods indicating social and, probably, job differentiation. Unlike the custom in the Central Plain at Erlitou (dating from about 1700 BC), the burial practice that marks high status in these cemeteries is animal sacrifice, not the inclusion of metal items. In the somewhat later but related culture known as Siba, a remarkable change occurs. Dating between 1900 and 1600 BC, the Siba culture vigorously begins to produce alloyed metals, especially bronze. This development can be characterized by looking at the sites of Ganguya (Li et al. 1988), Donghuishan (Xu 1988), and Huoshaogou.6 Information on these three sites confirms the existence of advanced technological sophistication. Tin bronze, lead bronze and leadtin-bronze have been found in all three Siba sites. Multi-mould casting was in use, showing that this advanced technology was on a par with that of contemporary cultures in the Central Plain. Even so, a large number of artefacts, for example most weapons and implements from Huoshaogou, were made of copper, while most ornaments were made of

bronze. Most metal artefacts were small, and no metal vessels were found at this level of the archaeological remains of this region. The production of many artefacts made of an alloy of copper and arsenic found at Ganguya and Donghuishan is unusual in this part of the world, but typical of materials excavated from cultures of somewhat earlier date in eastern Eurasia7 where this alloy was used long before tin bronze. The fabrication of arsenical bronze at Huoshaogou, however, was due to use of local ores containing copper and arsenic (Sun & Han 2000, 175–200). Manufacturing techniques including both casting and forging were typical of this region and set it apart from the metal-using cultures of the Central Plain (Sun & Han 2000, 175–200). Socio-cultural factors, as determined from study of burial and habitation remains at Huoshaogou, also set this area apart from the dynastic centres in the Central Plain. For instance, in the 312 burials excavated at Huoshaogou, 106 contained bronze objects. These objects were cast in single or bi-valve stone moulds that have been found at the site in an area identified as a foundry by the archaeologists, but not yet published. Analysis of the cemetery remains clearly shows social differentiation — in small burials only one or two ceramic pots were found, but in rich burials there are up to 12 or 13 pots recorded as well as jades, turquoise and agate beads, local and sea shells, and bronze, gold and silver (only one) items. In twenty other tombs, another feature marks special status individuals — human and/or animal sacrifice. Among the animals sacrificed, sheep are the most numerous, but pigs, cattle and horses were also killed at funerary rituals. Two features of these burials are worth investigating further: the bronzes themselves and the presence of horse sacrifice. Over 200 items of bronze have been recovered: axes, chisels, knives, daggers, spears, arrowheads, awls, needles, sickles, buttons, tubes, a pickaxe, bracelets and mirror-like ornaments, but no horse gear (Fig. 11.6). These are cast objects made from controlled alloys of copper and tin as well as lead. They do not represent an experimental stage in metal production, but are artefacts executed by knowledgeable craftworkers who were called upon to produce both ornamental and utilitarian items. The uses and metallic content of these artefacts were clearly regularized as were their typology and function. Both the types and uses of these bronzes are important for this discussion. For instance, five types of single burials can be identified at Huoshaogou: one included a gold nose ring and a pair of bronze 145

Chapter 11

a

e

c a

f

e

h

c

d

f

Figure 11.7. Metal earrings from China and Siberia: a) bronze earring from Tagirmen sai near Amu Darya River in the Aral Sea region (from Pyankova 1994, 366); b) bronze earring, Andronovo culture, western Siberia (from Masson & Danic 1992, 349, fig. 4); c) bronze earring, Malyi cemetery near Tomsk, Andronovo culture (from Gimbutas 1965, 101, fig. 61:14); d) bronze earring, Andronovo culture, western Central Asia (from Masson & Sarianidi 1972, 149, fig. 40); e) gold earring from Liujiahe, Pinggu, Beijing (from Lin 1986, 249, fig 50:8); f) copper earring covered with gold foli from the Altai (from Jettmar 1951, pl. I:B:10).

d

b

b

g

i M260

Figure 11.6. Copper objects from the Qijia culture: a) strip-shaped ornament from Huangniangniangtai, Wuwei, Gansu (from KGXB 1981.3, 278, fig. 6:1); b) knife from Huangniangniangtai, Wuwei, Gansu (from KGXB 1981.3, 278, fig. 6:2); c & d) awl from Huangniangniangtai, Wuwei, Gansu (from KGXB 1981.3, 278, fig. 6:3, 4); e) chisel from Qinweija, Yongjing, Gansu (from KGXB 1981.3, 278, 7:1); f) axe from Qinweija, Yongjing, Gansu (from KGXB 1981.3, 278, fig. 7:2); g) ornament from Qinweija, Yongjing, Gansu (from KGXB 1981.3, 278, fig. 7:2); h) knife from Dahezhuang, Yongjing, Gansu (from Shiqian Yanjiu no. 1 1984, 40, fig. 2:1); i) mirror from Gamatai, Guinan, Qinhai (from Shiqian Yanjiu, no. 1 1984, 40, fig. 2:7).

M247

Button 0

Earring (gold)

2 cm

Nose ring (gold)

M266

Nose ring (silver copper alloy) 0

Bronze pendants

5 cm 0

3 cm

Figure 11.8. Bronze ornaments, Siba culture, from Huoshaogou, Yumen, Gansu.

earrings; several held two bronze earrings; several others included one gold earring; still others had two gold earrings; and the fifth type included only one bronze earring (Figs. 11.7 & 11.8). An explanation for this differentiation was not offered by the excavators, but it suggests that some sort of personal identification was afforded by the inclusion of these very distinctive items as well as their material of manufacture. These particular metal ornaments were cast and then hot forged, or cold hammered,8 and both their shape and method of manufacture can be found in comparable examples in present-day northeast, but not in the Central Plain (Linduff et al. 2000, maps 1–4). Other bronze items such as curved knives, leaf-

shaped and pierced blades (bishou), spearheads, mace heads and socketed axes are unique finds in East Asia at this time (Figs. 11.9 & 11.12), but are well known among groups identified archeologically in eastern Eurasia and more particularly in Andronovo (Kuzmina et al. 1986) and Seima-Turbino (Chernykh 1992, 219; Anthony 1998) sites of southern Siberia. In addition to these ‘imported types’, the dominant presence of a local ceramic tradition9 along with sacrificial horse remains in burials and of horse bone used for manufacture of shovels/hoes, temptingly suggests that by the end of the third millennium BC this region hosted newcomers, or at least knowledge of 146

Late Shang Appropriation of Horses in China

further to its east. The evidence in Gansu, and especially of the Siba culture, shows no parallel in concentrated use and production in the Xinjiang region as yet. Still, the northwestern region of Xinjiang may have been in a key position with regard to its contact with its Andronovo neighbours in what is now Kazakhstan and Kirghizia (Mei & Shell 1998). Based on current knowledge and on the clear parallels in tool types and metallurgical content of the objects, this region could very well have been the entry point for metallurgical knowledge and, with it the preference for domesticated horses, into the Gansu Corridor. In contexts which are somewhat later in date and located to the northeast of the Central Plain, remains of Equus caballus (domesticates) were recovered and reported in Zhoujiadi, Xiajiadian, Nanshan’gen, and in the Zhizhushan where the debris was associated with the Upper Xiajiadian culture (c. 1000–600 BC) then scattered in eastern Inner Mongolia and parts of Liaoning province (Cui 1988). All are associated with habitation debris and suggest that the horse was either hunted, along with deer and other wild animals, or kept in limited numbers as a food source. Since the earliest clear evidence of intensive use of domesticated and trained horses in China comes from late Shang period and at Anyang, many Chinese archaeologists have argued that Chinesestyle residential agriculture did not welcome the use of horses for food because dietary protein from animals was, and had been for many decades, provided from pig, cattle, sheep and goats. Therefore, they argue, there was no direct stimulation for farmers in the Central Plain to domesticate horses (Chen 1984; Xie 1985). Moreover, the Yellow River Basin was shot with communities settled close to rivers, sometimes tree covered and always in regions with very fertile soil. The ecology and topography of the Central Plain allowed for intensive agriculture to develop to a high degree during the middle and late Neolithic, but did not hold large tracts of open lands for grazing for wild or captive animals. The lack of draught animals and wheeled vehicles in the region in prehistory underscores the existence of easily tillable and fertile soil where digging sticks and stone hoes were commonly used well into the historic period. On the other hand, the regions in the zone north and west of the Central Plain with its rocky, mountainous terrain and often arid climate where most of the Neolithic horse bones were reported, is one where horses could be thought to be useful in everyday life. Recovery of horse bones in numerous sites in Shaanxi, Inner Mongolia and Gansu support part of this assumption. Of the horse bones associated with

M254:4

M114:7

M100:4

0

5 cm

0

5 cm

Figure 11.9. Bronze spatulas (bishou), Siba culture, from Huoshaogou, Yumen, Gansu. their metallurgical technology, their tool, weapon and personal ornament types and even perhaps their horse-using life-style.10 Moreover, our knowledge of prehistoric metallurgy in Xinjiang (to the west of the Gansu Corridor) has been enriched by recent archaeological finds revealing the earliest appearance of copper, the practice of casting (stone moulds), the use of leadedcopper and tin bronze, and the smelting of arsenic copper.11 Mei Jianjun and Colin Shell have reviewed the information available and suggest that there are three centres for the use of copper and its alloys. The centres are close to copper resources, suggesting the possibility of local metal production. The earliest types from there, comparable to those found in Gansu, were excavated in sites which have been dated and calibrated from between c. 1800–400 BC and become widespread by about 1000 BC (Mei & Shell 1998, 583). The evidence in the earliest period is scant, but nonetheless suggests that in this area, experimentation with metal was taking place as it was 147

Chapter 11

those of sheep, roe deer and dog collected from Zhuanlongzang (c. 1500 BC) in the Baotou area, Inner Mongolia, no clear indication of whether the bones belong to domesticates was given. Polished stone tools and a large number of microliths and pottery with basket-weave patterns lead the archaeologist to claim that ‘residents of Zhuanlongzang were farmers engaged in animal husbandry as well as hunting’ (Wang 1957). Another group of late Neolithic sites in Yongjing County (including Dahezhuang, Qinweijia, and Zhangjiazui) in Gansu province has yielded horse bones. In the Zhangjiazui site, for instance, bones of domesticates — cattle, sheep, pig, and dog — were found with those of horses and deer. The large-scale residential area excavated there and the sizeable residue of animal bones including those fashioned as implements point to agro-pastoralism as the base of the subsistence economy. Of the total number of horse, pig, sheep, cattle, dog, deer (including roe deer) bones at Dahezhuang, those of horses make up only 1.13 per cent of the total (Gansu Work Team, IA, AS 1974). The small percentage of horse remains in the debris of this agricultural community suggest that these were not the main staple of the diet and that they may have been captured (stalked) from wild herds living in the vicinity. Most Chinese scholars agree that the process of domestication was a slow and late development and can be recognized in the remains of the Longshan period. For the Central Plain, several scholars have suggested that the Equus sp. found in Banpo, Shaanxi, evolved from the local wild horse in the steppe area of northwestern China (Wang 1980, 99; Xie 1985, 285). At Chengziya in Shandong, where horse bones make up one third of the total amount of bone remains, ready availability of horses must be understood. Further evidence found in the northwest and northeast suggests that there was easy access to horses in those areas as well and some argue that some control over herds of horses can be assumed (Song 1983). Li Yuanfang concluded that because horse bones in most Neolithic sites made up only a small portion of the total bone remains recovered, a much later date for horse domestication than other animals could be expected in China (1987). For most Chinese scholars, domestication of horses emerges about 2800 BC. But, because of difficulties in determining domestication from analysis of bone and the lack of solid evidence of intentional containment, breeding and/ or training (tack) from archaeological remains, this position must remain disputable. Review of the evidence, however, can be said to have pointed out

that: 1. the earliest remains of horses associated with human habitation were late Neolithic communities in the north, northwest (Gansu and Qinghai) and east (Shandong) of the Central Plain suggesting that there were at least two centres where horses were a substantial part of the lives of local sedentary, agricultural groups; 2. the only evidence of horses in ritual was in the west (Huoshaogou, Gansu); 3. the connection between metallurgy and horses may have had special meaning in relation to cultural interaction among groups living to the west of Gansu and elsewhere to the northwest of the dynastic centre; 4. horses did not play a significant role in the lives of the agricultural groups in the Central Plain prior to the Anyang period. Evidence from the Anyang period: exploited captives, local or imported domesticates? In the Central Plain, clear evidence of horse domestication and training under harness was brought to light with the discovery of the ruins of the Shang centre. Both in burials of Shang male élite (especially M1001, M1004), their female companions (M5), and unidentified individuals (M45), and in actual chariot or horse pits (Li 1957; Liang et al. 1948), related equipment and/or horses were excavated in ritual contexts (Table 11.2; Figs. 11.10 & 11.11). Here there is no doubt about their domestication for their harnessing to chariots is well displayed in burial. The remains can be dated to as early as about 1250 BC. Horses, chariots and their burials During the eleventh excavation of the Yinxu site at Anyang, several horse pits were unearthed: thirtyseven horses were buried in the largest pit and only one horse in the smallest. The usual number buried in a pit was from two to four. All horses in pits wore harnesses and were decorated with bronze fittings. The connections between this discovery and written records that mention horses are quite direct. Second, horses were harnessed to chariots and were used by Shang kings in rituals of hunt, burial and war. Over fourteen chariot pits have been unearthed since the 1930s and, among them, thirteen contain one chariot and two horses; one other contains one chariot and four horses. By contrast, horses and chariots have seldom been recovered from the settlement or in a region of the cemetery of ordinary people. The horses and chariots were associated at death primarily with 148

Late Shang Appropriation of Horses in China

R U S S I A N F E D E R AT I O N K A Z A K H S TA N Heilongjiang

MONGOLIA

KYRGYZSTAN

Jilin

Xinjiang Uygur Zizhiqu Gansu N ei M on

g g ol

Z

u( iz hiq

In

M n er

o ng

a) oli

Liaoning

NORTH KOREA

Hebei Beijing

Bo Hai

✢

Datuotou Qinghai

Ningxia Huizu

Shanxi Shaanxi

Jingjie

▼

✢✹

an

g

Anyang Hu Shandong

✢

Liaoniupo

✹✢

su

Hu a

i

He

Anhui

CHINA

East China Sea

Jia

ng

Hubei

Shanghai

g

L

an

A

ng

Henan

Ch

EP

Jia

Zhengzhou

Qin Ling Mts

N

Yellow Sea

(Y an gtz e)

Xizang Zizhiou (Tibet)

SOUTH KOREA

) w llo Ye e( H

BUTAN

Zhejiang

Sichuan Hunan

Jiangxi

N

Fujian

Yunnan

Guangxi Zhuangzu

TAIWA

N

Guizhou

Guangdong

✹ ✢

VIETNAM

South China Sea

▼ Hainan

0

800 km dak del

Figure 11.10. Distribution of Chinese sites of late Shang date (c. 1250–1050 BC) with evidence of horses. the Shang élite (Shih 1993; Yang 1994). The chariot increased from its first ritual use in sixteen Shang-date sites in and around Anyang (Fig. 11.10) to virtually every major Western Zhou-date site from Gansu to Shandong and Liaoning (Shaughnessy 1988, 190). The seven locations at Anyang that have yielded pits complete with chariots and tack are by far the most abundant remains of this material anywhere until the beginning to the Zhou Dynasty. Their disposition at Anyang is worth examining. They are buried in pits, all of which correspond to human burial grounds or to sacrificial pits among palace/temple constructions. Their placement is located on Figure 11.11:

1. in five pits next to the Palace area; 2. in five pits discovered in the west of Xiaotun among burials; 3. in four pits unearthed in Dasikongcun in an area with small burials; 4. in two more pits discovered in a cemetery at Baijiafen in a cemetery of mid-sized graves, and; 5. in the royal cemetery at Xibeigang, Houjaizhuang in M1136 and M1137 where chariots were also found in the tombs. The dating of this group spans a period from at least as early as 1240±145 BC from M1613 in Xiaomingtun, west Yinxu, at the beginning of the occupation of Anyang to one of the five well-known chariots from 149

Late Shang date

150 c. 1050 BC

Destroyed (*AERY 1994, 60, 139) 1 horse, 1 human sacrifice (*KG 1987.5, 462–3) 2 horses, 1 chariot and 2 human sacrifices (*KG 1987.5, 463)

Xiaotun M45, Anyang, Henan

Xiaotun M202, Anyang, Henan

2 horses, 1 chariot and 3 human sacrifices (*AERY 1994, 60)

Xiaotun M40, Anyang, Henan

Xiaotun M164, Anyang, Henan

1 horse found in a horse pit (*KG 1987.5, 463)

4 horses, 2 chariots, 3 human sacrifices (*KGXB 1947.2, *KG 1987.5, 463)

Xiaotun M20, Anyang, Henan Xiaotun H33, Anyang, Henan

1 horse in a horse pit (*EY 1987, 288)

1 horse and chariot pit (*KG 1998.9, 73)

Guojiazhuang M147, Anyang, Henan

North Miaopu, T129(5)H139, Anyang, Henan

1 horse and chariot pit (*KG 1998.9, 73)

Guojiazhuang M146, Anyang, Henan

2 horses, 2 human sacrifices (*AERY 1994, 131)

4 horse and chariot pits (*AERY 1994, 133)

Southeast Dasikong, Anyang, Henan

a horse pit (*AERY 1994, 86)

2 horses, 1 chariot (*AERY 1994, 142)

Dasikong M757, Anyang, Henan

Hougang 71M3, Anyang, Henan

2 horses, 1 chariot,1 human sacrifice (*AERY 1994, 141)

Dasikong M755, Anyang, Henan

North Miaopu IVF1, Anyang, Henan

1 horse (*EY 1980, 81)

Dasikong H415, Anyang, Henan

2 horses, 1 chariot, 1 human sacrifice (*AERY 1994, 140)

inscription of Dasikong M292, Anyang, Henan horse design (associated with ‘Maqiang’ described in oracle bones) on the bottom of bronze gui, horse fittings. (*WW 1986.11)

Jingjie, Lingshi, Shanxi

1040-850 BC

2 horses, 1 chariot, 1 human sacrifice (*KGXB 1955.9, *KG 1987.5, 463)

horse bones found in a bone workshop (*AERY 1994, 95)

2 horses (*WW Dasikong M175, Anyang, Henan 1988.6, 1)

Beixinzhuang, Anyang, Henan

Central

Laoniupo M17, Xi’an, Shaanxi

Laoniupo Pre-dynastic 2 horses, 1 M27, Xi’an, Zhou chariot (*WW Shaanxi 1988.6, fig.11)

West/North

Table 11.2. Sites in China of Late Shang date (c. 1250–1050 BC) with evidence of horses.

horse teeth (*KG 1966.1)

Northeast/East Datuotou, Tianjin

Chapter 11

West/North

Table 11.2. (cont.).

1 chariot, 2 horses, 1 human sacrifice (*AERY 1994, 140)

Xiaomintun, M7, West Yinxu, Anyang, Henan

151

30 sacrificial pits yield a total of 117 horses totally; M39, M40, M41 contain human sacrifices. Horsebones are suspected to be found about 80 pits not yet excavated at the site (*KG, 1987.12)

M5: 1430– 1137 BC; M39: 1020– 810 BC (*RDCA, 171) 1376– 1010 BC

Wuguangcun, north, Anyang, Henan

Wuguancun north M110, Anyang, Henan

2 horses (*KG 1977.1)

horse leg bone (*KGXB 1979.1)

horse bones with other animal bones found (*KGXB 1987.1)

West Yinxu, M260, Anyang, Henan

horse leg bone (*KGXB 1979.1)

1 horse (*KGXB 1979.1)

West Yinxu, M217, Anyang, Henan

West Yinxu, M699, Anyang, Henan

1 horse (*KGXB 1979.1)

West Yinxu, M216, Anyang, Henan 1370– 1091 BC

West Yinxu, M700, Anyang, Henan 1370– 1091 BC

2 horses (*KGXB 1979.1, fig.45)

West Yinxu, M150, Anyang, Henan

BC

2 horses, 1 chariot (*AERY 1994, 141)

1 chariot, 2 horses, 1 human sacrifice ( *AERY 1994, 140)

Xiaomintun, M2, West Yinxu, Anyang, Henan

1240±145

1 chariot, 2 horses, 1 human sacrifice ( *AERY 1994, 140)

Xiaomintun, M1, West Yinxu, Anyang, Henan

Xiaomintun, M1613, West Yinxu, Anyang, Henan

1 chariot, 2 horses (*AERY 1994, 141)

Baijiafen M151, West Yinxu, Anyang, Henan

2 horses, 1 chariot, 1 human sacrifice discovered in a pit and a horse pit with 1 horse found at the northern ramp (*AERY 1994, 147, *KG 1987.5, 463)

2 horses found in a horse pit (*KG 1987.5, 463)

Baijiafen M150, West Yinxu, Anyang, Henan

Xiaomintun M698, West Yinxu, Anyang, Henan

1 chariot, 2 horses (*AERY 1994, 140–41)

Baijiafen M43, West Yinxu, Anyang, Henan

1389– 1055 BC

destroyed (*KG 1987.5, 463)

Central Xiaotun M204, Anyang, Henan

Northeast/East

Late Shang Appropriation of Horses in China

152

a horse pit (*KG 1987.5, 462) 3 horses found in a horse pit (*KG 1987.5, 462) horse bone in dwelling (*KGXB 1957.1)

Zhengzhou, Henan

3 horses found in a horse pit (*KG 1987.5, 462)

Xibeigang, M1887 Anyang, Henan

Xibeigang, M2017 Anyang, Henan

1 horse and chariot pit yield 2 chariots (*AERY 1994, 118, 139 )

Xibeigang 1136-1137, Anyang, Henan

Xibeigang, M1963 Anyang, Henan

20 horse pits (*AERY 1994, 117)

Xibeigang, Anyang, Henan

a horse pit (*KG 1987.5, 462)

37 horses found in a horse pit (*KG 1987.5, 462)

Xibeigang, Anyang, Henan

Xibeigang, M1912 Anyang, Henan

30 horse pits (*AERY 1994, p. 117)

Xibeigang southeast M1550

4 horses found in a horse pit (*KG 1987.5, 462)

1 chariot pit yield 25 chariots (*KG 1987.5, 462 )

Xibeigang, near HPKM1001 and HPKM1003, Anyang, Henan

Xibeigang, M1911 Anyang, Henan

2 chariot pits yield 1 chariot in each pit (*KG 1987.5, 462 )

Xibeigang HPKM1003, Anyang, Henan

2 horses found in a horse pit (*KG 1987.5, 462)

7 horse pits and 1 chariot pit yields 1 chariot (*AERY 1994, 106, *KG 1987.5, 462 )

Xibeigang HPKM1001, Anyang, Henan

Xibeigang, M1888 Anyang, Henan

6 horse pits yield a total of 28 horses (*AERY 1994, 108–9)

Central Wuguandamu (50WGKM1), Xibeigang, Anyang, Henan

Key *AERY - Archaeology excavation and researches in the Yin ruins [Yinxu faxian yu Yanjiu] (see References: Institute of Archaeology, CASS, 1987) *EY - Excavation of Yinxu [Yinxu fajue baogao] (see References: Institute of Archaeology, CASS, 1980) *KG - Kaogu *KGXB - Kaogu xuebao *RDCA - Radiocarbon Dates in Chinese Archaeology 1965–1991 [Zhongguo kaoguxue zhong tan shisi niandai shuju ji 1965–1991]. *WW - Wenwu

West/North

Table 11.2. (cont.). Northeast/East

Chapter 11

Late Shang Appropriation of Horses in China

J i n g h a n ra

the Xiaotun palace district in M20, considered to be the latest example at the end of the N Dynasty (Anyang Archaeological Team, IA, CASS 1984, 505–609; Yang 1994, 547) (Fig. 11.11). Altogether there are 16 ✢✹ Xibeigang chariot and horse pits, and all but one contained two-horse chariots (Guo 1951). In one of ✢ Wuguangcun the large tombs, Wuguan✢ ✹✢ damu, excavated in 1950 only Beixinzhuang horse sacrifices were found; ✢✹ on the north ramp there were Dasikongcun ✢✹ ✢✹ three pits with 16 horses, on Yinxu, West Xiaotun the south ramp there were also three pits with 12 horses. ✹ In M1003 the bases of two ✢ Baijiafen Hougang chariot cabins were excavated an Miaopu ✢ Hu next to two rib bones of a ✹ whale. Guojiazhuang At Dasikongcun 166 tombs were discovered. Tomb M175 contains a chariot comSites with horse remains in Anyang plete with horse and driver as well as an abundance of River items associated with warfare City of City wall and harnessing horses to the Anyang Railway chariot — yoke, harness and ✹ chariot remains ✢ horse sacrifices bit parts; bronze weapons, animal bells, arrowheads, and dak del four whetstones for sharpening blades (Fig. 11.3). Figure 11.11. Sites with horse remains in Anyang, late Shang period. (Based on Tomb M20 at Xiaotun Cheng 1960, 2, map 1.) was among the latest chariot burials at Anyang and is located under a layer of as listed above, it lacked ritual bronze vessels of pounded earth and inside a boundary marked with Shang type and commission. These same attributes red lacquer in the palace/temple complex. These of the frontier also accompanied Fu Hao (M5), the five pits were placed in a deliberate order that sugconsort of King Wu Ding who died about 1200 BC, to gests a ritual function. M20 is the only one of these her grave — curved knives, bow-shaped objects, arfive pits which was discovered intact. This burial rowheads, horse gear (bronze cheek-pieces, bridle included four horses, a driver and two archers, and and rein buttons), and animal bells and identify her a full range of tools and fittings as well as curved non-Shang heritage (So & Bunker 1995, 36; Linduff knives with animal-headed terminals and whetstones 1996) (Fig. 11.13). nearby (Hu 1949, 82). The abrupt appearance of the chariot at Anyang Tomb M164 at Xiaotun is very unusual. A sinhas spawned a great deal of study about the origins gle male was buried with a horse and gear — curved of the vehicle type (Shaughnessy 1988; Yang 1994), knife and whetstone at his left hip in frontier fashion but their prominence at Anyang has defied explana(BIHPAS, XXIII 1952, 467) — and a bow-shaped obtion. Of all the themes leading to a discussion of ject, arrowheads, and pottery guan typical of ones ancient Chinese relations with Inner Asia, the chariot from the region west of Anyang were also included. is the most debated (Dewald 1964; Hayashi 1959; He was presumably a horse trainer or charioteer, Piggott 1974; 1978; Yang 1984). Actual contact canand although this tomb contained bronze implements not be fully substantiated by archaeological evidence, il w a

y

153

Chapter 11

M19:5

M171:6

M100:5

M185:13

a

Tanged blade 0

5 cm

b Scraper

0

c

d

e f

3 cm

M79:22

g Tanged knife

M304:15

Scraper 0

5 cm

Knife 0

j

2 cm

h

M299:9

k

l

Figure 11.13. Bronzes of Northern Zone-type unearthed from the Fu Hao tomb and their northern counterparts: a–f) from Fu Hao tomb; g–l) from various sites in the Northern Zone. (From Lin 1986, 252.)

M112

0

i

the Urals and Kazakhstan (Kuzmina 1994b, 38). The wooden chambered tombs with chariots and sacrificed horses, such as the one from Krivoe Ozero of the Sintashta-Petrovka culture in western Kazakhstan, date from between c. 2136 to 1904 BC (Gening et al. 1992; Anthony 1995, 2). The chariots are light, with a body measuring 1.2 m × 0.7 m and with 10 to 12 spoke wheels which are one metre in diameter. It is not clear that these Central Asian versions were prototypes of the more refined Shang models, however remote in time and location, but in the context of the Shang oracle inscriptions, chariots were identified as prized booty from Shang adversaries to the west of Anyang and/or in relation to the king’s personal use for hunting (Shaughnessy 1988, 215; Chen 1984). Were, then, the chariots found buried at Anyang built by and/or captured from non-Shang groups? The debate over the origins of these types will not be furthered here, but an interpretation which gives them an active part in the Shang socio-political and ritual system and which invests them with a role that values them as exotica associated with Shang

5 cm

Figure 11.12. Bronze tools and weapons, Siba culture, from Huoshaogou, Yumen, Gansu. even though the horse and chariot only became a regular ritual burial feature during the occupation of Anyang, and not before. Textual and artefactual evidence lead to more firmly grounded argument for their introduction into dynastic China from outside of Anyang. The sites in closest proximity to Anyang where chariots, sometimes with teams of bridled horses, were found in warriors’ graves are at Sintasta, Ulyubay, Veljanka IV, Berlik and Satan cemeteries in 154

Late Shang Appropriation of Horses in China

is more pictorial than those representing domesticated animals such as cow, sheep, dog and pig. This suggested to Ding Su (1966, 2b) that the Shang had horses later than the others, and that the Shang were unfamiliar with these animals since their graphs for tiger and deer were pictorial in the same fashion as that of the horse. Keightley, on the other hand, speculated that certain animal graphs might have been more detailed for religious reasons (1978, 110). This debate has not been resolved, but it is quite clear that the early oracle-bone graph for horse (Mair this volume) depicts the wild Equus przewalskii with tufted tail, short body and legs, and a stand-up mane. Moreover, the word is used in inscriptions that discuss dealings with non-Shang peoples, or to name those groups directly. The association with wild horses and those outside the late Shang political realm is confirmed with this evidence as it was with the jade figurines from the Fu Hao Tomb at Anyang (M5) and the inscription on the ritual bronze vessel from Jingjiecun (Figs. 11.1 & 11.2). According to Shaughnessy (1988, 233–4), the word ma for horse occurs more often than the word che for chariot, and the greatest number of these occurrences refers to proper names rather than to the horse per se. Three inscriptions refer to their capture in the course of battle; and a series of inscriptions refers to the place called Mafang, or ‘horse country’ and thereafter to various groupings of ma peoples presumably all related to the Mafang. The location of Mafang is generally assumed to be in western Shanxi, somewhat east of the Yellow River. Mafang appears in the earliest inscriptions as an enemy of the Shang, a relationship that continued until Wu Ding expanded into the area of eastern and central Shanxi around 1250 BC. Although effective control by the Shang during the Anyang period does not seem to have extended much beyond the Fen River, the Shang did make attacks against certain groups located in that area. One of these states was the Qiangfang who at the time were assumed to be the leaders of a confederation that included the Mafang. The Qiang continued to be an enemy throughout the Anyang period, and qiang became a generic term used for any adversary that lived to the west of the Shang. After Wu Ding came to control the western region, inscriptions often refer to the duoma Qiang, or ‘the Qiang of many horses’, who acted as allies, defended the borderlands and perhaps even continued to serve at Shang court by the name, duoma ya, or the ‘Many Horse Guard’ (Shaughnessy 1988, 233). By the reign of Lin Xin, the 25th of 30 Shang

central authority and probably with the kings themselves follows. Given that there is almost no evidence of the use of wheeled conveyances in northern China prior to their introduction in burial at Anyang, that there is mention in oracle bone inscriptions for their use in the royal sport of hunting (Ho 1975, 225; Shaughnessy 1988) and in war, and that they were useless without teams of well-trained and equipped horses and drivers, we must question from where and whom they acquired the necessary expertise to breed, care for and train horses.12 Although they may have captured the equipment from the encounters of war as is argued by many, it is likely, perhaps even inevitable, that the Shang adopted horse management, including breeding, training and veterinary medicine (Meserve 1995) through some sort of exchange rather than war booty (Bunker 1995; Linduff 1996). If this were the case, some degree of control over, or at least co-operation with, knowledgeable ‘outsiders’ was necessary to maintain these vehicles and their horses in working condition. Excavations of horse remains prior to the Anyang period, already discussed, come from sites in the Gansu/Qinghai region, from one site in Shandong, from one site in Henan and from the Bronze Age site at Baotou (c. 1500 BC) in western Inner Mongolia (Figs. 11.5 & 11.10). The bones from all these sites were indeterminate species. These finds are sporadic; they come from lands peripheral to the Shang and correlate with early metal working and casting sites dating from at least as early as c. 2000 BC (Linduff et al. 2000, map 1). The discoveries of horse remains neither document widespread controlled breeding nor use over time. There are no horse remains at Erlitou (c. 1700–1500 BC) or Zhengzhou (middle Shang-date centre), for instance, nor evidence for the development of equipment or ritual practice associated with their domestication until the late Shang period at Anyang. They played a role there which had consequences for the kings as horses were found sacrificed throughout the occupation and burial sites. All burials at Anyang were dedicated to the glorification of the kings and the state, and the cemetery was not for general use of the Shang populations. Burial of horses must have been an effective reminder of the power and prestige of the living as well as deceased leaders. Inscriptional evidence Oracle inscriptions that mention horses confirm the late Shang acceptance and use of the horse. Interestingly, the earlier form of the character ma, for horse, 155

Chapter 11

leaders, ma units were incorporated into the Shang army, attesting to the growing familiarity with and acceptance of horsemanship on the part of the Shang. The Zhou, who lived to the west of the Qiang and with whom they were allied, may also have been familiar with horses and chariotry some time before their conquest of the Shang. This is attested to in the one chariot burial outside of the vicinity of Anyang, M27 at Liaomupo near Xi’an, which contains one chariot and two horses (Fig. 11.10). Immediately upon their defeat of the Shang, the Zhou buried chariots in large numbers. This display confirmed the heightened significance of the horse and chariot to their newly gained power and authority and perhaps their mixed, ‘western’ heritage (Hsu & Linduff 1988). Such items were no longer restricted to the king either in use or in access, but were much more broadly available among Zhou leadership. Presumably, they were no longer exotica and were demystified through full incorporation into military practice and expanded ownership. Written records on oracle-bones often mentioned the function of horses and described them in some detail. Many sentences carefully list the colour of their hair, for example bronze, white, red, black, yellow and parti-coloured. Other combinations of characters represent particular colours: dark black, roan, and black with yellow on their back ends. Besides the description of hair colour, oracle inscriptions also combined animal terms in order to describe the character of certain horses. A ‘deer horse’ described an alert horse, while a ‘pig horse’ was a fat one. Detailed identifications of horses were probably associated with their use depending on function. The Shang élite apparently chose the type of horse to meet the need (Wang 1980) indicating that such choices were possible and that breeding and selecting for type, colour and size was possible and important to meet both the requirements of function as well as ritual. Shang inscriptions on ritual bronzes from the late Shang address the sources of horses. For example, one inscription reads, ‘the head of Double-bow Kingdom’ contributed white horses to the Shang royal court. Wang Yuxin proposed that this person was a relative of Fu Hao, a wife of Wu Ding buried in Tomb 5 at Anyang (1980, 102). In addition to horses, the Double-bow people also contributed bronze vessels to Wu Ding — a round tripod and five nao (bell) — thought to be tribute. According to the Zhouli, written in the late first millennium BC, over eight titles were reserved for the officers who took charge of the training, driving, riding and medical care of horses in Shang royal court.

Horses were part of ritual life — they were portents; they were used to pay homage; they pulled the conveyance of the king as he faced his subjects or adversaries. They were used as sacrifices when the Shang élite paid homage to their ancestors, were praying for harvest or erecting a building. Often, the number of horses, the colour of their fur and their age was recorded in inscriptions, tempting us to think that those features had some ritual significance. References to horses and chariots appear most often in the oracle records and in association with the king. He might ask the diviner if there was a problem with his horse harnessed on the left of the chariot rig, or if a white horse from the south was a good omen. The king might order the drivers to prepare horses for hunting events, or to use a number of war captives and horses from Qiang as sacrifices to his ancestors. A particular character referred to driving a team — a horse and a hand — and was used to record the moments when the royal guard drove the chariots in ceremonies and/or when the King was driven in a chariot to be presented to dukes from other states. Wang Yuxin read one inscription from the latest period at Anyang as follows: In a battle against the Weifang, officer Qiang captured the commander of the Weifang — Mei Zhe took 24 captives, killed 1570 people and wounded over 100. He also received more than 1000 horses, 2 chariots, and 180 shields . . . One of the leaders of Weifang — Bai Bin was killed as a sacrifice to the Shang ancestor Da Yi; another person was sacrificed to Zu Yi; and Mei Zhe himself was killed in honour of Zu Di. (Yinxu wenzi xucun 2)

From such an inscription, we learn that the late Shang leadership accumulated horses and chariots from outside groups by means of warfare. We also learn that those outsider groups had their own equipment. It is difficult to determine whether what we see at Anyang was produced outside of the dynastic centre since only one chariot pit near Xi’an has been recovered outside of Anyang so far (Fig. 11.10). Interaction between the states in the Central Plain and groups in the Northern Zone had already lasted for many centuries. The two sites of Panlongcheng, Hubei (Bagley 1977) and the latest levels at Zhukaigou, Inner Mongolia (Linduff 1995) attest to arrangements including colonization as in the case of Panlong and exchange through trade as in Zhukaigou. Since these sites date from the middle of the Shang period (c. 1500 BC) before the Shang capital moved to Anyang, they attest to the expansive char156

Late Shang Appropriation of Horses in China

acter of middle Shang ‘foreign policy’. Apparently, a reciprocal relationship was established, through which the goods could flow peacefully. During this period there is no evidence to suggest that horses were either a trade commodity or a ritual necessity for there are neither osteological remains nor equipment relics in burial or otherwise at these sites dating from this period. By the Anyang period, there is not only material debris but also literary evidence of this exchange indicating that each side attained necessities through ritual exchange, war and capture. Horses and chariots may reflect one part of the whole activity that began in the pre-Anyang period as part of a neighbourly exchange system between the dynastic Shang and pastoral societies who lived along their northern frontier and emerged as an essential part of a supply system for stately ritual during the occupation of Anyang. By the later Zhou period, such official texts as the Zuo Zhuan, Hanshu, Zhouli and Shiji, all suggest that the original breeding grounds of horses were in the west in what is now Gansu, central Shanxi and adjacent provinces, and northern Inner Mongolia (Guo 1985). They associate this skill with various groups (for example the Rong, Zhai, Beidi, Yandai) ) and places peripheral to the political power centre and in border areas where broad scale agriculture gives way to agro-pastoralism, and ultimately to steppelands. By the time of the late first millennium BC, the Qin State used horses introduced from Gansu as draught horse to draw chariots and ones from Mongolia for riding. These distinctions can be observed from the terracotta models in Qinshi Huangdi’s mausoleum dating from 210 BC. In the Pit no. 1, most are draught horses displaying pony-size bodies, short ears, thick limbs and big hooves, all important for drawing loads. Horses found in Pit no. 2, on the other hand, have sleek bodies, long ears and long, thin legs and must be models of elegant breeds for riding (Guo 1985, 295).

whom we have evidence of an interest in the use of horses for parade and not for food. Their state-level apparatus must have been sufficiently elaborate to support such a labour-intensive activity. They probably maintained their stables only through frequent contact, both cordial and hostile, with non-Shang groups. Intensive breeding and training is not indicated in dynastic lands before that time and further support the notion that alliances with groups to the west and north of Anyang provided the best sources for horses, but also for breeders and trainers as well as equipment. The possession of horses among adversaries and/or their friends, or among the late Shang themselves must have given the owners an advantage — in transporting their leaders as well as goods. Burial evidence from Anyang underscores the notion that horses also counted when sacrificing to the ancestors or other spiritual beings. Inscriptional evidence expands our understanding of the high regard in which horses were held — their features including colour, size, number and confirmation were recorded and associated with special aspects of character (speed, strength, power) which was accorded those in association with the steeds. Burial practice and the contents of the tombs indicate that those associated directly with trading, breeding, training and managing horses were ‘outsiders’. And likewise, these outsiders shared knowledge of horses and use of metal tools with peoples living as far west as the Urals during the second millennium BC. In the Shang, association with the horse and horse gear could indicate cultural identity or affiliation as it did with Fu Hao in Tomb M5. As effects of the royal tombs, the horse and the chariot were part of the complex apparatus of power, both political (chariot) and spiritual (horse sacrifice). The wild counterparts of the great parade animals, on the other hand, were memorialized in jade (Fig. 11.1) or were described in pictographs (Fig. 11.2) and were thereby transformed into static symbols signifying ‘outsiders’. Throughout the realm in the early Zhou nearly all burials of high-level officials included chariot and horse sacrifices, providing a unifying image of the power of the Zhou (c. 1050–900 BC) and affiliation with it. Highly trained horses and drivers were available to and perhaps necessary for the political élite and the mysteries of the horse and chariot as exotic booty was clearly forgotten.

Conclusion Taken together all the evidence points to limited control of horses primarily for dietary and burial purposes in northwestern present-day China before they were introduced for ritual purposes for the Shang dynastic élite at Anyang. Osteological remains are inconclusive with regard to domestication, but do underscore the availability and varied use of horses to groups outside of the Central Plain from no later than 2000 BC. The Shang are the first for

Acknowledgements With the assistance of a grant from the Chiang Ching157

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excavators for showing me this unpublished material in May, 1995, and to Emma Bunker for first bringing the existence of a gold earring from there to my attention (see also Bunker 1994, 31–9). Gold was one of the earliest metals worked by the peoples to the west and northwest of dynastic China. Similarly shaped examples have been found in Liaoning at Niuheliang, the Hongshan site (see Liaoning Provincial Institute of Archaeology et al. 1992a, 403, fig. 8:5; 1992b, 452, fig. 14:19, and 35 [knife]); in Hebei (see CPAM, City of Beijing 1976, 60, fig. 4:2); at Zhukaigou, Inner Mongolia and in Lower Xiajiadian sites. New sites in Gansu have been reported on by Li Shuicheng, this volume. 7. Arsenical bronzes are typical of alloyed metal artefacts in certain west Asian and Eurasian settings, but tin bronze are more typical of cultures from the Altai, including the Andronovo, in the third and second millennia BC (see Chernykh 1992, 190–234). Coghlan (1975) reviews the use of arsenic bronzes (see also Tylecote 1992, 12). In his study of the Yamnaya, Anthony (1998, 44–113) points out that they were the first to intensively exploit steppe copper ores and to produce arsenical bronzes — probably as a result of increased movement over and familiarity with the steppe landscape. 8. Personal communication from Han Rubin, Institute of Science and Technology Beijing, May, 1998. 9. Li reports the presence of styles of pottery that are not local in the region. Whether these types, which are similar in décor to Andronovo, according to Li, were locally made or imports is not known (see Li this volume). 10. This is precisely the period that Anthony proposes the beginning of large-scale trans-continental exchanges. Among the factors that he claims revolutionized steppe lifeways, the development of metallurgy and mining are listed along with innovations in means of transport — the introduction of wheeled vehicles and horseback riding — and domesticated grazing animals (1998, 95–103); and map 3 (p. 100) which locates Andronovo culture sites at the base of the Altai Mountains on the eastern edge of the Eurasian Steppe along the Yennesei, Ob and Irtysh Rivers. 11. Recent studies have suggested that this material can be organized into eight cultural groups (Shui 1993, 447–90). On the basis of typological studies of ceramics, burials, and other finds, another study suggest ten archaeological cultures (Chen & Hiebert 1995, 243–300). 12. Because the possibility of driving the light-bodied and slender-wheeled Shang chariot at high speed over the terrain of north China in combat is highly unlikely, we must presume another use for them. Use in parade or as a launching platform for leaders is much more likely.

kuo Foundation, research for this paper was begun in 1995 with Qiao Xiaoqin, then a Research Associate of the University Centre for International Studies, University of Pittsburgh. His help was essential. Li Jianjing diligently prepared the maps and charts, begun by Hsu Miao-lin some time ago. Chiou-Peng Tze-huey read the manuscript and helped clarify my argument. I am indebted to them for their assistance. This version of the paper was formed after the invitation to participate in the seminar on ‘The Late Prehistoric Exploitation of the Eurasian Steppe’ at Cambridge University in January 2000. My thanks to Professor Colin Renfrew and Dr Marsha Levine for their inspiration, patience and preparation of the seminar, and for their courage in bringing us all together. Notes 1. 2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

For a review of the theories of domestication, see Levine 1999, 8–9. At a site called Dulan in Nuomuhonghalehe in Qinghai, there is a mention of a corral along with a wheel with sixteen spokes, see, CPAM of Qinghai Province et al. 1963, 17–41. A C14 date for the wood was published in Meacham 1983, 143, but there are two dates reported. One of these is c. 2000 BC (2175±110 BC [ZK61]) which came from tests on a piece of wood. The other date [ZK62] is 955±140 BC, and was taken from a sample of woven fabric. Donald Meacham (1983, 168) quotes an uncalibrated date of 2166± BC for ZK61. ‘Copper’ implements (analyses of one metal knife and awl showed 99 per cent copper with impurities of lead, tin and so on of less than 0.4 per cent) including knives, chisels, and awls, as well as earrings, finger rings, and mirrors (for instance, at Gamatai in Guinan, Qinghai) were unearthed. See Archaeological Work Team, Gansu Provincial Museum 1980, 22–4; Xie 1981, 76–83; Hu 1980, 77–82. Copper-zinc alloying is not common in China, but ores containing both metals have been located in the region (Linduff et al. 2000, map 7). The most obvious contact culture is Kexingzhuang II, distributed in present-day Shaanxi. See Liang 1987, 407–11, and 1994, 397–424. A notice of this well-excavated site is in Wenwu Editorial Committee 1990, 142–3. Excavations conducted by Wang Hui and Chai Shengfang at the site were begun in 1975 and continued through 1990, but unfortunately full publication of the material has not yet occurred. The site is carbon-dated between 2000 and 1600 BC (uncalibrated), or contemporary with the other metal producing sites in the Northern Zone. About 300 tombs were excavated, and although a habitation site is known nearby, it is located under village buildings where excavation is not possible. At another local site, fragments of pottery kilns and a metal furnace including slag have been found. I am grateful to the

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chaeology. Beijing: Wenwu Press. Xue, Y. et al., 1990. Ten years of archaeological fieldwork in Gansu province [Gansusheng Wenwu Kaogu Gongzuo Shinian], in Ten Years of Archaeological Fieldwork 1979–1989 [Wenwu kaogu gongzuo shinian] 1979– 1989, ed. Gansu Institute of Archaeology. Beijing: Wenwu Press, 317–18. Yan, W., 1984. A discussion of the Chalcolithic age in China [Lun Zhongguo de tongqi bingyong shidai]. Shiqian Yanjiu 1, 36–44. Yang, B., 1984. The discovery and reconstruction of Shangdynasty chariots [Yindai chezi faxian yu fuyuan]. Kaogu 6, 546–55. Yang, B., 1994. Chariot and horse pits found in Yinxu [Yinxu faxian de chemakeng], in Archaeology Excavation and Researches in the Yin Ruins, ed. Beijing Institute of Archaeology. Beijing: The Institute of Archaeology, CASS, Science Press, 138–47. Yetts, W.P., 1934. The horse: a factor in early Chinese history. Eurasia Septrionalis Antiqua 9. Zeuner, F.E., 1963. A History of Domesticated Animals. London: Hutchinson. Zhen, R., 1987. On the chariot and horse burials of the Shang dynasty [Shilun Shangdai de chemazang]. Kaogu 5, 462–9.

yanjiu] 1, 447–90. So, J.F. & E.C. Bunker (eds.), 1995. Traders and Raiders on China’s Northern Frontier. Seattle and London: University of Washington Press. Sun, S. & R. Han, 2000. A study of casting and manufacturing techniques of early copper and bronze artifacts found in Gansu, in Linduff et al. (eds.), 175–94. Tianjing Bureau of Culture Archaeological Team, 1966. Trial diggings at Tatuotou, Taguang Hui autonomous county, Hebei province [Hebei Daguang Huizu zizhixian Datuotou yizhi shijue jianbao]. Kaogu 1, 8– 13. Tylecote, R.F., 1992 [1976]. A History of Metallurgy. London: Institute of Materials. Wang, Y., 1980. Horse and horse domestication in the Shang dynasty [Shangdai de ma he yangmayie]. Zhongguoshi yanjiu 1, 99–108. Xie, C., 1985. The beginning and development of animal domestication in early China [Zhongguo yuanshi xumuyie de qiyuan he fazhan]. Nongye kaogu 1, 282–91. Xie, D., 1981. On the Qijia culture [Shilun Qijia wenhua]. Kaogu yu wenwu 3, 76–83. Xu, Y., 1988. The Siba culture site at Huoshaogou, Donghuishan, Minle County, in The Almanac of Chinese Archaeology (1988), ed. Beijing Institute of Ar-

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Chapter 12 The Horse in Late Prehistoric China: Wresting Culture and Control from the ‘Barbarians’ Victor H. Mair T

he coming of the domesticated horse to East Asia, both in its own right and as part of a cultural complex including the chariot and other highly distinctive traits, was utterly transformative. Despite the overwhelming importance of the horse for civilization in China and neighbouring countries, many difficult questions confront the investigator who attempts to assess its significance. Among these are the basic problems of when it arrived, who brought it, where it came from, and the uses to which it was put. These problems can only be solved by recourse to both archaeological and linguistic data. A careful examination of the available data yields, among others, the following findings: 1. the domesticated horse came to China toward the end of the second millennium BC, after domesticated ovicaprids and cattle, both of which were already present by the third millennium BC; 2. the first use of the horse in China was for chariot traction; 3. during the first half of the first millennium BC, China’s northern and western neighbours did ride the horse, but primarily for purposes of hunting and transportation; 4. the people to the north and the west of China began to engage in mounted warfare during the second half of the first millennium BC, but the Chinese themselves did not do so until near the end of the fourth century BC. While grappling with these matters of sheer chronology, other interesting facts emerge. For example, by studying the language and the script of the Shell and Bone Inscriptions (c. 1200–1050 BC) and Bronze Inscriptions (c. 1050–400 BC), it is possible to determine the extent of Chinese knowledge concerning the horse and the applications to which it was put. Furthermore, comparison with equine and related terminology in Indo-European languages yields ex-

tremely interesting and valuable information about possible paths of cultural transmission. The emperor had previously divined by the Book of Changes and been told that ‘divine horses are due to appear from the northwest’. When the Wusun came with their horses, which were of an excellent breed, he named them ‘heavenly horses’. Later, however, he obtained the blood-sweating horses from Ferghana, which were even hardier. He therefore changed the name of the Wusun horses, calling them ‘horses from the western extremity’, and used the name ‘heavenly horses’ for the horses of Ferghana1 (from Shi ji [The Grand Scribe’s Records], scroll 123, in reference to the Western Han emperor Wudi, c. 120 BC).

From the Western Han dynasty (206 BC–AD 8) onward, Chinese emperors repeatedly sent tens of thousands of soldiers marching halfway across Asia on expeditions designed to procure the finest horses. Such expeditions often ended in failure, but this did not deter the Chinese rulers from trying again and again, often at huge expense and with great loss of life, to possess for themselves a few of these magnificent beasts. When it finally dawned on the Chinese rulers that war was not always the most efficient means for obtaining the much-coveted steeds, other methods were sometimes adopted. In the mid-seventh century, for example, a Tang emperor dispatched a Chinese princess to marry a Turkic khan — for the bride price of 50,000 horses, with a substantial number of camels and sheep thrown in for good measure. In the late Tang, when the khans had perhaps tired of the charming eastern princesses, the Chinese were paying the exorbitant price of a million bolts of silk for 100,000 horses every year. The drain on the empire’s economy can well be imagined and no doubt contributed to its downfall. 163

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According to Paul Smith (1991, 13), who has made a detailed study of Chinese efforts to purchase large quantities of horses during the Northern Song Dynasty (960–1126), which succeeded in reuniting China after the break-up of the Tang, ‘From the rise of the mounted archer around the fourth century BC until the incursion of European imperialism in the eighteenth century AD, the chief external threat to sedentary China issued from the nomad warriors of Inner Asia’. Assuming that this was indeed the case, how did the Chinese attempt to defend themselves? Various strategies were adopted, including playing off one group of nomads against the other. Beginning around the third century BC, the Chinese also built a series of defensive walls. To man the walls and occasionally expand beyond them, they raised huge standing armies. Much attention was paid, furthermore, to armaments industries to provide the soldiers with adequate weapons and to fortify the system of walls. Above all, from the third century BC on, the Chinese developed their own cavalry, giving them increased mobility on open plains and enabling them to project power outward when it was thought to be necessary. Maintaining a sizeable cavalry meant that large quantities of horses were required. Ironically, the only source of suitable mounts was from the nomads themselves, posing a not inconsiderable dilemma.2 There can be little doubt that Chinese authorities during the last two millennia perceived the horse to be essential to the war-making capability of the regime. The centrality of the horse in the vast majority of expeditions to the north and west can be appreciated by glimpsing the logistics of a single operation. Plans that were drawn up in January 1548 for a Ming Dynasty campaign to recover the Ordos3 region from the Mongols called for 60,000 men, 67,500 camels, and 85,000 horses. The magnitude of this operation in feeding the horses alone can be imagined when one considers that a single horse consumed about four pounds of grain per day and the working load of a camel was computed at 266 pounds. This means that it would have taken about 1275 camel loads per day just to feed the 85,000 horses requested for this campaign (Waldron 1990, 134–5, 245n395). If we go back in history beyond the time of the first incursions of mounted and armed nomads, however, it would appear that the Chinese were fascinated by the horse no later than the last two centuries of the second millennium BC and strove mightily to obtain a steady supply of them from the peoples to their north and west. Bronze inscriptions of the early first millennium BC already show the extreme impor-

tance that was attached to horses of good breed (Hsu & Linduff 1988, 138–40). The extraordinarily high status of the horse in all sorts of Chinese imperial rituals from the Shang and Zhou dynasties right down through to the end of the empire in 1911 is remarkable for a sedentary people.4 It would appear, then, that the Chinese desire for noble horses was far more profound than can be explained by the need to respond militarily to the attacks of mounted nomads in the latter part of the first millennium BC. When we examine the roots of this compelling desire to secure the finest horses on earth, we find that they are psychological and symbolic as well as strategic. Furthermore, they can only be adequately explained by carefully investigating the circumstances under which the Chinese first encountered horses that were controlled by humans. To comprehend the deeper significance of the horse for Chinese civilization, we must ask (and attempt to answer) the following questions: 1. When did the domesticated horse first appear in China? 2. From which direction did it come? 3. Who was it that brought the domesticated horse to the attention of the Chinese? 4. For what purpose(s) was the horse initially used in China? 5. When was the horse first used for traction in China? 6. When was the horse first ridden in China? (Renfrew 1999, 3) Inscriptional evidence The aims of this paper are strictly limited to answering the above questions, and the types of sources that it utilizes are severely restricted. Only materials that have been archaeologically recovered and can be reliably dated to the relevant period (chiefly the Late Neolithic and the Bronze Age) will be cited here. Chinese historical sources do speak about these times, but they were written many centuries or millennia later, are fraught with serious problems of composition and transmission, and are prone to various biases and misconceptions.5 As much as possible, we shall restrict ourselves to primary sources, eschewing all texts except those that have been dug up out of the ground and pertain to the time when they were originally composed, i.e. the Bronze Age itself. For the Shang Dynasty, this means that we will be utilizing Shell and Bone Inscriptions (SBIs, called jia&gu&we¤n in Chinese). For the Western Zhou Dynasty, we will be relying on bronze inscriptions (BIs, called jiînwe¤n in Chinese). For the Late Neolithic, the only 164

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In the tenth month, because the Xianyun rose up and broadly attacked the Jing (‘Capital’) Garrison,13 a report concerning pursuit of them was made to the Zhou king. The king ordered Duke Wu (‘Martial’): ‘Send your best troops to embark in pursuit of them at the Jing Garrison’. Duke Wu ordered Duo You14 to lead the duke’s chariots in pursuit at Jing Garrison. On the guiÛweiô 15 day, the Rong16 attacked Xun,17 taking many captives. Duo You pursued them to the west. On the morning of the jia&she#n18 day, he engaged them in battle at Qi.19 He cut off heads and took prisoners for interrogation. Altogether, relying on the duke’s chariotry, he decapitated two hundred and . . . 20-five men, took 23 prisoners, captured one hundred and seventeen of the Rong chariots, and recovered a large number of captives from Xun. Then he did battle at Gong,21 decapitating thirty-six men, taking two prisoners for interrogation, and capturing ten chariots. Duo You continued to follow them, pursuing them to Shi,22 where he did battle, decapitating more men and taking more prisoners for interrogation. Then he raced in pursuit till he reached Yang Zhong23 where the duke’s chariot forces decapitated one hundred and fifteen men and took three prisoners for interrogation. However, the captured chariots could not be used, so Duo You burned all of them. He used the horses to transport the wounded and he recovered captives from the Jing Garrison. Thereupon, Duo You presented to Duke Wu the left ears24 his men had captured together with the prisoners for interrogation and Duke Wu presented them to the king. Thereupon the king said to Duke Wu: ‘Since you have pacified the Jing Garrison, I will reward you by bestowing upon you fields and land’. On the diîngyo&u25 day Duke Wu was at the Presentation Hall. Thereupon, he ordered Xiangfu26 to summon Duo You who was thus invited into the Presentation Hall. The duke27 personally spoke to Duo You, saying, ‘I have sent you on this initial assignment and you did well. You did not disobey and you accomplished the task by numerous captures. You have pacified Jing Garrison, so I bestow upon you a jade-handled ladle for sacrificial wine, a set of fine metal bells, and a hundred ju#n of qia@otia@o28 bronze’. Duo You dares to respond by extolling the Duke’s generosity, using it to make this ritual tripod whereby he may strengthen the bonds of friendship. May his sons and grandsons eternally treasure and use it.29

prima facie evidence that will be admitted are artefacts and remains directly pertaining to that period.6 The Chinese interest in the northern people and their horses is documented already in the very earliest period of the SBIs (beginning of the twelfth century BC).7 An inscription dating to that period may be translated as follows: ‘On the jia&che¤n8 day of the first month, Zheng asked the oracle: “We will lead a campaign against the Horseland (Mafang). Will the Di support us?”’9 This ‘place of horses’ was apparently in northern Shaanxi. As used in the SBIs, the term refers both to the area and to the people living there. Since this was one of the main areas where the Chinese10 sought breeding horses later in historical times, it is probable that they were intent on procuring good stock during this expedition as well. Another interesting feature of this inscription is the ambivalent role of the Di in Chinese conflicts with the peoples of the steppe. While such semi-pacified groups were vital conduits in the perennial contestations and negotiations between the Chinese and their neighbours to the north and northwest, they were by no means considered reliable, perhaps because of their very liminal status. It was also in the north that the Chinese frequently encountered opponents possessing chariots, some of which they occasionally captured in battle. From the number of chariot wrecks mentioned in the SBIs, it would seem that the Chinese of the late Shang period were not fully in command of this new technology that had recently come into their hands. Here is an example of one such accident: [An oracle bone was caused to] crack on the guisÛ iô day (the thirtieth in the cycle of sixty) and Que divined, ‘Will there be any danger within the next ten-day period?’ The king prognosticated [that there would be] and now a calamity actually did occur that was in accord [with the divination]. On the jia&wu& day (thirty-one in the cycle of sixty), the king went out to hunt rhinoceros. The Minor Vassal was driving the chariot [and caused] the horses [to crash against] a cliff, damaging the king’s chariot. Ziyang11 also fell out.12

By the latter part of the ninth century BC, it would seem that the Zhou successors of the Shang were better able to handle their chariots, as is evidenced by a long inscription on the Duo You Tripod. This large bronze vessel was discovered only recently, having been unearthed in November of 1980 at Xiaquan Village, Chang’an District, Shaanxi Province. It probably dates toward the beginning of the reign of King Xuan (r. 827–782 BC); the exact date may be 816 BC.

This is an extraordinary account in many respects. Aside from being the second longest bronze inscription in existence, it is virtually unique in the extent of its narrative description of events, most other bronze inscriptions being rather perfunctory ritual expressions about relationships, gifts, and wishes for the future prosperity of the descendants of the 165

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owner of the vessels upon which they are engraved. The Duo You Tripod inscription deserves separate treatment of its own.30 The amount and type of information that it contains lead to all sorts of vital issues. Here we need list only the following: 1. It mentions by name a specific group of northern antagonists called the Xianyun who are also referred to in later historical texts. 2. Even as late as the latter part of the ninth century BC, there is still no indication that the Xianyun or other northern and western peoples rode horses into battle. 3. Both the Xianyun and the Zhou possessed chariots numbering in the hundreds31 and used them for fighting. 4. Duo You, the protagonist of this account, did not have his own chariots, but was commanded to use those of the duke. 5. The fact that Duo You was not able to use all of the chariots he captured but had to burn some of these valuable vehicles is tantalizing. Since he was able to employ the horses for transport, does this mean that he lacked a sufficient number of extra trained drivers? It is worth noting that, aside from the gift of bronze itself, among the most valuable conveyable (i.e. not land or other types of stationary property) items that could be presented to a Western Zhou vassal were gifts of chariots and horses which are often mentioned in BIs of this period.32 They are mentioned, for example, in the inscription on the Bigger Yu Tripod (Da Yu Ding), the biggest Western Zhou bronze tripod ever discovered. Dating to the period 1004– 978 BC, it was unearthed around the second quarter of the nineteenth century in Li Village, Qishan District, Shaanxi Province.33

significant numbers associated with burials in the heartland of what is now China (viz. Anyang, in the modern eastern province of Henan, the capital of the late Shang period, c. 1250–1050 BC: Fig. 12.1), the archaeological evidence is inadequate to draw the conclusion that they were local domesticates. Quite the contrary, there are many indications, both archaeological and inscriptional, that these first unquestioned remains of significant numbers of domesticated horses in China proper (i.e. the area of the Shang polity) were imports. Not only do they seem to have been acquired from outside (viz. from the north and northwest of the Shang polity) through forcible capture, strategic alliances, amicable exchange, and other means (So & Bunker 1995, 26–7), for the initial two centuries of their appearance in China proper, significant numbers of unmistakably domesticated horses are exclusively and tightly restricted to the immediate environs of Anyang. It is only when the Shang Dynasty is replaced by the Zhou Dynasty, which originated far to the west of the late Shang capital (i.e. nearer to the horserich, bronze-using cultures of the Gansu Corridor mentioned two paragraphs above), that archaeozoological indications of horses appear in significant numbers at sites outside the immediate environs of Anyang (Linduff this volume). Indeed, the Zhou themselves are suspected of having a non-Sinitic background, despite the fact that — like countless other northern and northwestern peoples who came to rule over all or part of China — they early on adopted Sinitic as their language (at least for the purposes of ritual and rule recorded in writing). No less than the ‘Second Sage’ of Confucianism, Mencius (371–289 BC), declared that the nominal founder of the Zhou Dynasty, King Wen himself, was ‘a man of the Western Yi (barbarians)’ (Mencius 4B.1). Among herded animals, the horse was definitely a relative latecomer to China. The earliest faunal domesticates in north China are the pig (Sus domestica) and dog (Canis familiaris). Large quantities of their bones are found in Neolithic Yangshao (5000– 3000 BC) and Longshan (2500–2000 BC) sites and at all Shang and Zhou sites. Pig bones were found in practically every ash pit at Banpo (near Xi’an in Shaanxi Province, c. 4800–4300 BC), with a markedly high proportion of yearlings and young adults. Dog bones are also common at Yangshao sites and therefore must have been domesticated. Cattle, sheep, and goats are occasionally found at some Yangshao sites, but are extremely scarce and were probably not fully domesticated in China till the Longshan period. For the horse, domestication occurred much later. Any

Archaeological evidence Indications of horse domestication in China before the middle of the second millennium BC are extremely scanty and problematic. Those sites where horse bones are culturally prominent before this time (such as those belonging to the Qijia and Siba cultures) relate to the first half of the second millennium, are located on the western fringes of what is now China (though they were not part of a Chinese polity while they were in existence), and — in contrast to the cultures of the Central Plains at the same time — possessed economies that were unmistakably involved with metalworking (Fitzgerald-Huber 1995; Yang 1998; Li 1999). When horse remains do begin to show up in 166

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Figure 12.1. Map showing archaeological sites in China mentioned in the text. Even in late prehistoric and early historic times, the pig still remains overwhelmingly dominant among faunal remains, followed by the dog. Cattle, however, are by now well entrenched at sites along the northern and western fringes of China proper, as are sheep, but goats are still rather rare, and horses are even fewer in number (Ho 1975, 101).

horse remains found in the heartland of China before the late Shang period, and they are very few and often problematic, are generally considered to be wild (Chang 1977, 29; Ho 1975, 93–4; Hsü & Ward 1984, 65, 75n4.9). The pig is still tremendously prominent at Longshan sites, which lie farther to the east than Yangshao. As with Yangshao, the dog is next in number after the pig. It is noteworthy that cattle remains are increasingly evident during Late Neolithic Longshan times, but still far from being ubiquitous like those of the pig. Sheep become slightly more numerous yet can hardly be thought of as common. The goat is rarer still, and the horse is barely present (Ho 1975, 96ff.; Barnes 1993, 155).

The ambivalent role of the horse and its keepers To return to Anyang, where we have the first unmistakable evidence of the horse in the heartland of China, its bones were restricted in number and confined almost exclusively to sacrificial burials, not in refuse pits or elsewhere at the site (Chêng 1960, 89– 167

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later phase of the city (twelfth–eleventh century BC) (Watson 1961, 94). Another indication that the horsedrawn chariot entered China as a new and poorly understood technology late in the reign of Wu Ding (roughly in the second decade of the twelfth century) may be gleaned from the fact that, of the 16 occurrences of the graph for che# (‘chariot’) in the SBIs, there are 13 quite distinct variants (Shaughnessy 1988, 215). The combination of inscriptional and archaeological evidence for the horse in Shang society indicates that it was virtually restricted to royal (and, perhaps, occasionally and latterly aristocratic) circumstances. Horses appear to have been so limited in numbers that, unlike cattle and sheep, they were not to be wasted for sacrifice other than in magnificent burial contexts. Overall, one gains the impression that horses and chariots in the latter part of the Shang were primarily for ‘show’, not for such utilitarian matters as transportation or even military applications. Even in royal burial contexts, one senses that the horse and chariot were there because it was considered fitting for a monarch to go the Otherworld accompanied by them. This was simply the way things were done if one was to be thought of by posterity as a genuine thearch. K.C. Chang indicates that the Shang horses were not raised locally but had to be imported; SBI inscriptions mention the ‘entry’ of horses. Hu Houxuan believes that they were imported from the northwest (Chang 1980, 143). SBIs mentioning the horse are only slightly more numerous than those for the chariot and far more often relate the horse to the northern and northwestern enemies, or at best allies, of the Shang than to the Shang themselves. The Mafang (Horse Place/Country and the people therefrom) are mentioned half a dozen times, usually as a threatening force that the Shang either needs to defend against or attack. There are about half a dozen other instances of the word Ma (‘Horse’) used alone as a personal name. Most of these instances are ambiguous, but at least two refer to a force that needs to be defended against or attacked, although others seem to indicate a person (or group) who might be called upon to assist the Shang. Unlike the Mafang who are always referred to as adversaries in the SBIs, the Duoma Qiang (Qiang of Many Horses) are always referred to as allies. Of the eight inscriptions mentioning the Duoma Qiang, one has them being commanded to defend against another group not belonging to the Shang polity, one has them being commanded to carry out some unspecified task, two have them allying with the Shang and resisting an

91; Yang 1950). Unlike dogs, cattle, sheep, pigs, and chickens, whose bones were found in garbage heaps at Anyang, there is no evidence that the horse was consumed by the Shang period Chinese. The horse appears to have been a rare and valuable animal which was probably used almost exclusively for pulling chariots. Chariot use itself, however, was highly restricted and limited. There is now virtually universal scholarly acceptance that the chariot originated in West Asia and was transmitted to China (Bagley 1999, 203–4; Barbieri-Low 2000; Shaughnessy 1988; 1989; Piggott 1977[8]) Nevertheless, the chariot seems not to have made a deep imprint in the archaeological record between the southern Urals, where it is welldocumented from the early second millennium BC (Anthony & Vinogradov 1995), and its ritualistic appearance in Shang Dynasty contexts late in the same millennium. Perhaps this may be due to the relative rapidity of its passage from west to east. If the transmission of the chariot from west to east was as quick as it appears to have been, its archaeological tracks would naturally be ‘shallow’. There is no evidence that the Shang actually used the chariot in battle and only rarely did they encounter enemies who seem to have employed a few chariots in warfare. At best, the chariot during the waning years of the Shang Dynasty may have served as a mobile command platform. It seems to have been almost purely for show or display, as in parades and royal burials. There is little discernible, practical purpose to the chariot during the Shang period. SBIs containing the word for chariot indicate that it was used for hunting (e.g. to chase rhinoceros and deer) and, most interestingly, to net horses — a dangerous business, but one in which the king himself and his princes felt compelled to engage (Shaughnessy 1988, 214). There is unmistakable evidence that the Shang Dynasty Chinese attempted to use sheep to draw small chariots (Barbieri-Low 2000, 52–3). This raises a host of questions: Was it because they did not have access to a steady and sure supply of horses? Was it due to their having to rely largely on foreign trainers and charioteers to handle the horses? Was it the result of their having had too many serious accidents with swift, horse-drawn chariots? Were the sheep-drawn mini-chariots meant for young princes? In any event, this was not a workable solution to the need for wheeled vehicle traction, since sheep cannot pull a heavy load and are not very obedient, whether in or out of harness. The siting of chariot-pits of the Shang royal burial grounds at Xiaotun, Anyang link them with a 168

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unspecified group, one has a guard of theirs named Chi being commanded to join in an inspection, one has a guard of theirs encountering misfortune, one has them being called out to chase and catch deer, and one has them being called out to shoot and net unspecified animals. The Qiang, who were a sheep- and goat-herding people located to the northwest of the Shang, are often mentioned in the SBIs as enemies. The Shang had to field vast armies against them (on one occasion 13,000 men were sent into battle), resulting in large numbers of the Qiang being killed or captured. Of those who were captured, thousands met their end in sacrificial rites, while others became slaves employed in agriculture, for hunting, or for other purposes. Clearly the Qiang were not part of the Shang polity. Considering their ambivalent status as enemies, slaves, and quondam horse-rich, horse-wise allies, the Qiang would have been a prime source of horses for the Shang royal house. The likelihood that they supplied their services and horses to the Shang only under extreme duress is great, since they eventually joined with another northwestern people, the Zhou, in bringing an end to the Shang (Chang 1980, 227–31, 249). The Qiang are almost always described as Tibeto-Burman by modern scholars (Pulleyblank 1983, 417ff.), largely on the basis of their identification with a current minority group bearing that name who live in Sichuan Province and do speak a TibetoBurman language. But there are many reasons to doubt the identification of the northwestern Qiang people mentioned on the oracle bones with the southwestern Qiang minority of today. First of all, it was Han period historians, more than a millennium after the Shang period, who loosely applied the designation ‘Qiang’ to a variety of non-Han peoples living to the west of the Chinese heartland. Secondly, the self-designation of the modern minority in question is actually Rma (Olson 1998, 286), Qiang being the ethnonym applied to them by Sinitic speakers. Thirdly, whenever we find Shang and Zhou visual representations of people who can plausibly or securely be identified with the Qiang or their successors in the same locale, they almost always have clearly Europoid characteristics (large and long noses, round and deep-set eyes, narrow faces, thin lips, prominent jaws, beards, tattoos, etc.) (Chang 1980, fig. 59; Fig. 12.2). Unless there is some hitherto unexplained Europoid component among Tibeto-Burmans, it is difficult to imagine these late Shang and early Zhou period individuals as being TibetoBurman speakers.

Figure 12.2. Magnificent, exquisitely wrought bronze halberd showing a bearded, tattooed, cattle-herding Europoid. Found just to the west of the early Zhou capital at Baicaopo, Lingtai District, eastern Gansu Province. Western Zhou (1045–771 BC). 23.3 cm. (After Yang 1992, 80, fig. 103.) General references to the horse (i.e. not in connection with chariots or as an element in the names of non-Shang peoples/lands) on the SBIs, of which there are a score, fall into the following categories: being taken, being sent, being brought, being led, being tethered, associated with the Qiang or other people outside the Shang polity, reaching (a certain place) and resisting, having the misfortune of encountering (?) a tiger, being made to precede or advance and thus preventing rain (especially on a hunt) or encouraging others to ally with the king’s troops, orders for them to be raised, and being white (and, apparently, therefore auspicious). The numbers of horses mentioned in any given SBI are relatively small, ranging from one to five, twenty, or thirty. The overall impression one gains from the late Shang inscriptional evidence concerning general references to horses is that they were few in number, essentially acquired from real or potential enemies, mainly thought of in symbolic or propitious rather than pragmatic terms, and still considered as something alien (almost otherworldly) that nonetheless bestowed great power upon their possessor (Shaughnessy 1988, 235–7). We have already briefly mentioned the importance of the Qijia culture (c. 2500–1600 BC, flourished mostly c. 2000 BC) for metallurgy and herded animal 169

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of distant contacts. Metal artefacts (particularly certain types of knives and axes) suggest a connection with Siberian and Central Asian cultures, especially the Seima-Turbino complex (Fitzgerald-Huber 1995). During the last couple of centuries of the second millennium BC, the people of the area formerly occupied by the Qijia culture were referred to on the SBIs as Qiang. The character used to write their name prominently incorporates the semantic component for ovicaprid with the graph for person (i.e. goat/ shepherd; people who are associated with ovicaprids) and they were quite familiar with the horse, as we have already seen. In their encounters with the Shang people, so often were they taken captive and enslaved that many occurrences of the graph for Qiang on the SBIs include a third element, viz. a rope or other restraining device around their neck. ‘Qiang captive’ becomes almost a cliché in SBI language, on a par with horses, dogs, and bovids sent in to the Shang court from outlying regions (Keightley 1978, 12, 35, 180). Farther to the east and slightly later than the Qijia culture, developments in the Xiajiadian culture of the southeastern Mongolian Plateau are important for the subsequent utilization of the horse in China. Xiajiadian culture is located at various sites in Inner Mongolia and the northeastern province of Liaoning. Lower Xiajiadian (c. 2000–1500 BC) sites have small metal objects (bronze knives, pole tops, arrowheads, earrings, etc.) and bones used for divination. Caches of bovine scapulae are particularly intriguing in light of the importance of scapulimancy at the Shang court later. Xiajiadian culture displays a similar range of domesticated animals as Neolithic sites in north China, but cattle and ovicaprids grow in abundance. Since their remains are found in houses, hearths, and burials, the population must have been a relatively settled one. Larger bronze objects (including ritual vessels, axes, and helmets) have been found in the Lower Xiajiadian culture range for the period 1500–1000 BC, but it is not certain that they belong to any phase of Xiajiadian culture. In comparison with Lower Xiajiadian sites, Upper Xiajiadian (1000–300 BC) sites show two innovations: a) the appearance of animal-style bronzes among the cultural artefacts; b) the clear addition of the domesticated horse to the faunal repertoire. At Upper Xiajiadian sites, we find evidence of the horse being sacrificed as well as ovicaprids (Barnes 1993, 157). Furthermore, it is at an Upper Xiajiadian site (Nanshan’gen) that we find the first unmistakable evidence for horseriding in East Asia (Fig. 12.3) not long after it is known in West Asia (Fig. 12.4b). From

Figure 12.3. The first evidence for horseback riding in East Asia. Two mounted hunters pursuing a hare on a bronze, buckle-like fitting from Tomb 3 at Nanshan’gen, Ningcheng District, Inner Mongolia. Eighth century BC. (After So & Bunker 1995, 49, fig. 17; also Bunker et al. 1997, 70; fig. A105) Among the Scythians, the spearing of hares from horseback was a sort of national sport (Rolle 1989, 98). domestication. Closer examination of Qijia as a potential source of horses that could ultimately be conveyed to the Chinese heartland is merited. Naturally, this would have to be accomplished by its successors via geographically intermediary groups. Qijia was located to the northwest of the Chinese heartland, with its main centre near the base of the Gansu Corridor, but it also reached northward and eastward toward what is now Inner Mongolia and was present along the upper reaches of the Yellow and Wei rivers. Dogs, pigs, cattle, and ovicaprids are prominent at Qijia sites, but what distinguishes Qijia from other early cultures in the region is the addition of numerous domesticated horses. The bones of all these animals, with the exception of dogs, were used for the purpose of divination, foreshadowing the late Shang predilection for this practice. The remains of houses and cemetery burials are found at Qijia sites. Consequently, they must have engaged in herding within the framework of settled society. Qijia was a culture of advanced farmers for whom animal husbandry was of greater importance than it was for agriculturalists in the heartland of China (Chang 1986, 282; Barnes 1993, 156; Di Cosmo 1999, 900–901). Qijia culture was distinguished by the use of copper and bronze; indeed, it is one of the earliest bronze cultures in East Asia. This raises the question 170

The Horse in Late Prehistoric China

a

b

Figure 12.4. a) Use of the horse-drawn chariot for hunting: a bone plaque from Tomb 102, Nanshan’gen, Ningcheng District, Inner Mongolia. Eighth century BC. (After So & Bunker 1995, 49, fig. 16; also Bunker 1997, 69, fig. A102.) b) Ancient horseriding hunters wearing trousers in Southwest Asia: impression of a cylinder seal from Tepe Sialk Cemetery B, east of the Zagros Mountains and on the western fringes of the Iranian Plateau. Later ninth or eighth century BC (After Jettmar 1967, fig. 134.)

a the same site, there is also direct visual evidence of the use of the horse-drawn chariot for hunting (Fig. 12.4a). Still farther to the east, additional evidence of mounted hunters is found at the early second-century site of Xichagou in Xifeng County, Liaoning Province. Here was discovered a bronze plaque depicting two warriors with long swords in scabbards suspended from their belts (Fig. 12.5a). One of the warriors carries a hunting bird on his right wrist. Falconry can be documented in Anatolia from the third millennium BC (Bunker 1997, 80–81), suggesting a possible transmission along with the sort of cattle- and sheep-herders who are known to have engaged in this sport on the Eurasian steppe during the past two millennia. The men on the Xichagou plaque are probably so-called Dong Hu (Eastern Hu) who were by this time absorbed into the Xiongnu (Hun) confederation. This plaque, which offers the first excavated representation of falconry for the eastern Eurasian steppe, was most likely produced in Buryatia or Mongolia where falconry is still practised. Similar Xiongnu mounted warriors with long swords suspended from scabbard slides are shown on a gold belt plaque from southern Siberia dating to around the same time (Fig. 12.5b). One is shooting an arrow at full gallop as the other is humorously jolted from his horse. Although both the pair of men on the Xichagou plaque and the pair on the south

b

Figure 12.5. A bronze and a gold belt buckle showing mounted warriors on the northern borders of China in the Western Han (second century BC): a) Eastern Hu, Liaoning Province, Xifeng District, Xichagou; b) Xiongnu, South Siberia. (After Sun 1996, 32, fig. 12.) 171

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0

necessarily by the Chinese themselves, since the individual depicted on the mirror looks steppic. Despite the tremendous amount of attention that has been devoted to the mummies of Eastern Central Asia (Xinjiang/Sinkiang, East Turkestan, Uyghurstan) and their associated cultures in recent years (Mair 1998a; Barber 1999; Mallory & Mair 2000), the main path of transmission for herded domesticates and the chariot across Eurasia would have been the relatively hospitable steppes to the north, not the formidable deserts and mountains to the south. Nonetheless, just as the northern steppe traffic flowed down into China when it reached its eastern terminus, so did branches of it spill south toward the Tarim Basin along its middle portion. Thus, traces of the herded domesticates (cattle and ovicaprids) and the horse are found in Eastern Central Asia from the second millennium BC. There is, however, no clear evidence of horseriding in Eastern Central Asia until the first millennium BC. The earliest, clearest, and most massive evidence of the appearance of the horse in Eastern Central Asia is at the site of Charwighul (Chawuhugou) (c. 1000–500 BC) at the base of the southern foothills of the Tängri Tagh (Tian Shan, Heavenly Mountains) about 50 miles north-northeast of Korla and closer than that to the northwest of Baghrash Köl (Lake Bostan). Here we find numerous remains of horses associated with human burials (Wang & Lü 1999). There can be little doubt that the Charwighul people were deeply involved in the initial exploitation of the extensive high mountain pastures in the valleys of the Tängri Tagh during the first half of the first millennium BC. The horse was obviously crucial for their ability to herd their flocks in these vast spaces with excellent summer grass and to move them great distances down to lower pastures in winter. In the southeast corner of the Tarim Basin at the village of Zaghunluq in Chärchän (Qiemo) County, one of the hundreds of tombs belonging to an ancient cemetery (c. 1000–650 BC) has yielded a large, upholstered saddle and the foreleg of a horse. Here we also find deceased males wearing trousers suitable for riding. At the cemeteries of Subeshi (c. 400 BC), on the eastern edge of the Turfan Basin, Lü Enguo recovered a beautiful, upholstered saddle with bone toggles, complete with bridle, straps, and ropes that seem as good as new. Another possible instance of the early utilization of the horse in Eastern Central Asia are the massive, tripartite disk wheels found outside the village of Qaradöwä (Wupu) at the Qizilchoqa cemetery approximately 40 miles west-northwest of Qumul (Hami), which lies near the eastern

2 cm

Figure 12.6. Bronze plaque showing a cavalryman with sword drawn against an enemy. Xichagou (cf. Fig. 12.5a). (After Sun 1960, 30, fig. 17.)

Figure 12.7. Horseriding in the heartland of China. Scene on a bronze mirror found at the Late Zhou dynasty capital of Loyang. Fourth century BC (?). (After Barnes 1993, 157, fig. 70.) Siberian plaque have the look of men who could easily engage in mounted warfare, none of them is actually caught in the act of doing so. Instead, they are shown as hunters in the chase. Another bronze plaque from Xichagou (Fig. 12.6), however, does depict a mounted warrior with drawn sword apparently about to decapitate or scalp an enemy. Although the scene is somewhat enigmatic, it is obvious that the horse is here being used for cavalry. A mounted hunter with sword drawn against a tiger is depicted in a scene on a late Zhou period bronze mirror from Loyang (Fig. 12.7). Located in modern Henan Province, this piece indicates that horseriding was known in the Chinese heartland from about the fourth century BC, although not yet 172

The Horse in Late Prehistoric China

end of the Tängri Tagh. Dating 1 2 N to approximately 1200 BC, these 4 two disk wheels are of the ut30 most importance in tracing the 3 spread of wheeled vehicles, but 5 we cannot be certain that horses 31 provided the traction. Farther to the east, in the 8 neighbouring province of Qing6 21 22 hai, at the site of Nomhong near 23 19 20 7 18 Dulan (about 100 miles to the 28 17 southwest of Kokonur), the re25 24 16 mains of two wheels were found 9 at the entrance to a Bronze Age sheepfold. Because of the advanced bronze technology, the 15 wheels, and an abundance of 26 10 superb woollens that were found 14 at this site, its dating has occasioned controversy in China. A 29 calibrated C 14 reading taken 13 from one of the posts of the 12 sheepfold yielded a date of 11 2195–1935 BC (ZK-0061; Institute of Archaeology 1991, 285). On the other hand, the wheels are associated with socketed axes 27 and knives that are said to point 0 1 2 to a date of around 1500 BC dak del (So & Bunker 1995, 26). Whether 2195–1935 or 1500 BC, this is a very early date for the cultural Figure 12.8. The first concrete evidence for spoked wheels in East Asia. Two complex found at Nomhong well-shaped hubs (nos. 1, 2) outside the gate of a corral. Nomhong, Qinghai when compared with comparaProvince (Kokonur), c. 1500 BC or earlier. 3) Horizontal wooden bar for gate; 4– ble cultures of the Chinese heart22, 30) wooden posts; 23–6, 31) wooden cross-pieces; 27) wild ox horns; 28 & land. 29) post-holes. (After Qinghai Sheng 1963, fig. 8.) The ground of the Nomhong corral was covered with a thick layer of ing has been circulated (fig. 18 in the preliminary ovicaprid droppings, about 15–20 cm deep. There site report) is actually a hub made of rough pine were also some cattle, horse, and camel droppings in with an axle hole 6.5 cm. The hub is 26 cm long and the corral. It is probable that the inhabitants of has places for 16 spokes, the fragments of which Nomhong also raised yaks since a pottery model of reveal that they were made of a better quality of one was found at the site (artefact 057, drawing 20 in wood. A red substance had been smeared on the the preliminary site report). The placement of the holes for the spokes, indicating a sort of ritualistic wheels in front of the enclosure gate seems to have ‘burial’ of the hub. The cross section of the spokes is been both deliberate and significant. We may also oval and about 6 cm in width. Judging from the number of spokes and from the size of the axle, hub, note that, opposite the entrance, at the back of the and spokes, the wheel would not have been very corral, was placed an enormous pair of wild ox (Bos large and must have belonged to a small cart, not a gaurus) horns measuring nearly a metre in width. chariot. One also suspects that the animal used to Owing to their tremendous size, careful placement, draw the cart would not have been a full-size horse, and neat cutting, the excavators of the site specubut perhaps a pony or donkey. A photograph of the lated that the horns possess religious significance. As for the wheels, one (designated Q1:2) whose drawsecond wheel fragment (Q1:1), also a hub, has been 173

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published as plate III, no. 7 in the preliminary site report and the authors indicate that it is similar to the hub just described. However, in the drawing of the entire corral (fig. 8 in the preliminary report, Fig. 12.8 in this paper), Q1:1 appears to be part of a solid, tripartite disk wheel, but also one which is of small dimensions. Since the photograph of Q1:1 actually seems identical to the drawing of Q1:2, down to the size and direction of the cracks, one suspects that either the drawing or the photograph has been mislabelled and, instead, that the drawing and the photograph are indeed of the same object. Thus, there may well be only one spoked hub and one small disk wheel (Qinghai Sheng 1963). The horse does not thrive in the environment of the Tarim. The sandy terrain, great heat, and lack of good pasture preclude extensive usage of the horse. Cattle also do not generally prosper there, except in a few of the larger oases and next to lakes (such as Bostan) or large rivers near the edge of the desert. In the past, as today, the most successful herded domesticates around the Tarim have been ovicaprids (especially goats), and the favoured animals for transportation have been donkeys and camels. For the Tarim Basin and immediately surrounding areas, ovicaprids take pride of place in earliness, quantity, and distribution. From the early second millennium when they entered the region in significant numbers, their hardiness (the ability to withstand poor conditions of pasturage and tremendous temperature differentials) has enabled ovicaprids to serve as an invaluable source of wool, meat, milk, and other products for the inhabitants of the Tarim Basin and immediately surrounding areas. Horses, though present in the circum-Tarim from the latter part of the second millennium BC, only began to play an increasingly vital role in the exploitation of the intramontane pastures of the surrounding Tängri Tagh, Pamirs, Qurum Tagh, and Altun Tagh as mounts from the first millennium BC. This is in conformity with the chronological spread of horseriding on the grassy steppes to the north and across them to the border areas northwest and north of China. We do have a fairly good idea of when the Chinese of the heartland themselves decided to adopt horseriding, since there is a historical record of a policy decision that was made regarding it. This occurred in the year 307 BC and took place in the northern state of Zhao, which had built some of the earliest Chinese defensive walls in a vain attempt to prevent the horseriding peoples from entering its lands. After agonizing discussions about how to cope with the northerners, the ruler of Zhao finally de-

clared, ‘Now I am going to teach the people to “wear hu@ dress and shoot arrows while mounted” (hu¤ fu¤ qiê she$)! Later generations will surely criticize me for this, but what can I do?’ (Shiji [The Grand Scribe’s Records or Records of the Grand Historian], c. 91 BC, Kaiming ed., 152a). The four syllables of the quotation within the ruler of Zhao’s declaration become a classical statement of the necessity of the Chinese people to adopt the ways of the northern nomads. The term hu@ is a very broad reference to peoples to the north and west of China, including the Xiongnu (Huns). The fundamental veracity of this celebrated passage is supported by a thorough study of archaeological and textual evidence which confirms that riding astride in north China began only during the latter part of the fourth century (Goodrich 1984; Creel 1970, 199, 262–3n61). The ruler of Zhao may have been the first to make such a ringing declaration of the utility of barbarization, but the fatal attraction with the ways of the steppe continued throughout Chinese history. To cite a single example from the second half of the second century AD, ‘Emperor Ling (r. 168–189) was fond of hu@ dress, hu@ screens, hu@ beds (actually a kind of folding camp chair), sitting like a hu@, hu@ food, hu@ harps, hu@ flutes, and hu@ dance. All the members of the royal family in the capital vied in affecting these things’ (Hou Han shu [History of the Later Han], AD 445, Kaiming ed., 695d). Riding and tending horses were a very hú thing to do. Tang period (618–907) tomb figurines and wall paintings clearly attest that camel grooms and attendants of the finest horses were commonly depicted as non-Chinese from the north or the west. Visual materials from the following Song, Ming, and Qing dynasties still maintain the convention of the foreign groom. It was as though the ridden animal were still somehow, after two or three thousand years of Chinese acquaintance with mounted mammals, properly the preserve of men (and women) from the steppes. And rightly so, as the history of language and writing attests. Linguistic and graphic data I. SBI forms of graphs a. For ovicaprids

174

The Horse in Late Prehistoric China

Here we see that the legs and the body have been reduced to conventionalized lines, but the eye has grown to truly enormous proportions. It is obvious that the scribes of the Western Zhou had finally done for the horse what they had already done centuries earlier for the goat/sheep and the bovine, namely, they had taken one part (the eye in the case of the horse, the horns in the case of the sheep/goat and cattle) to stand as the most salient identifying characteristic of the animal. By the Han period, the flowing mane became increasingly elaborate until, as with current forms of the graph that are still in use today, the body and legs amount to a mere afterthought (cf. Ding 1966, 2b).

b. For bovines

c. For horses

Source for all forms in this section: Mizukami 1995, 1039, 829 & 1467.

In each case, the earliest (period I [see note 7 for periodization of SBIs]) forms are on the right and the latest (period V) are on the left. We may observe that, from the time of the very earliest SBIs, the forms of the graphs for ovicaprids and bovines are already highly stylized and schematic, whereas those for the horse are determinedly representational. The forms for pig and dog are also more abstract in comparison with the pictorial quality of the forms for horse. This strongly suggests that the Chinese acquired the domestic horse considerably later than they acquired sheep, goats and cattle, and that they initially strove to render this animal to which they were unaccustomed as faithfully as possible. Already in the SBIs, however, we can detect an increasing process of abstraction during the roughly a century and a half from around 1200 to 1050 BC. By the time of the Western Zhou BIs, when the Chinese had become much more used to the animal, the forms of the graph for horse became quite schematic:

II. Identifiable SBI graphs by period a. Relating to ovicaprids I

I

I

ya¤ng

mie#

gao#

gu&

me&i

goat, sheep

bleating of lamb

lamb

ram

beautiful

*I Qia#ng

†I

I

I

I

mu$

sha#n

shepherd

rank, goatish

* ‘Name of a Proto-Tibetan people’; enemies of the Shang; often used in sacrifice. † This graph is written with an ovicaprid signific in the SBIs but with a bovine signific in the BIs and later.

Note that every single one of these eight identifiable graphs is from period I. Nine other graphs with the signific are of unknown meaning, eight of which date to period I and one to period IV. Three others are suspected to be place names and date one each to periods I, II, and V. One other signifies an ovicaprid intended for use in sacrifice and dates to period I. One is the name of a person and dates to period I. One is the name of a tribe and dates to period IV. One is an unspecified kind of ovicaprid and dates to period I. There are 41 additional graphs containing a component that are considered to belong under other significs. Total = 65.

BI forms of the graph for horse 175

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b. Relating to bovines I

Total = 19.

*I

V

niu@

mu&

ga#ng

cow, cattle

bull; male domesticated quadruped

bull

I

*I

Two striking facts emerge from a consideration of the materials gathered here: 1. the number of graphs containing the horse signific are relatively few in comparison with those containing an ovicaprid or bovine signific; 2. all except one of the graphs containing the horse signific appear only relatively late or very late in the SBI record in comparison with graphs which contain ovicaprid or bovine significs, nearly all of which are found in the SBIs dating to the first period. The latter phenomenon is particularly remarkable and almost certainly indicates that the domesticated horse became familiar to the Chinese after they had acquired ovicaprids and bovines. We can be more specific and state that — on the evidence of the dates when graphs for horse slowly begin to proliferate on the SBIs — the domesticated horse became familiar to the Chinese around 1150 BC.

piôn female domesticated quadruped

†I

she#ng

la@o

complete bovine for use in sacrifice

corral; pen for ovicaprids, horses or bovines

* This graph is now written with the bovine signific, but on the SBIs it could variously be written with bovine, ovicaprid, canine, pig, horse, and deer significs. † This graph is now written with the bovine signific, but on the SBIs it could variously be written with the horse or ovicaprid signific as well.

Note that five of these six identifiable graphs are from period I and only one is from period V. There are 17 other graphs containing the component that are considered to belong under other significs.

Source for all data in IIa–c: Jiagu wenzi dian, pp. 413–24, 337–8, 78–84 & 1067–76.

Total = 23. c. Relating to horses I

I

I

I

ma&

liê

bo#

xiê

horse

black horse

pied horse

horse with long hair on its legs

*I xiîng roan, sorrel; reddish horse especially favoured for sacrifice

III. Ratios of SBI forms (c. 1200–c. 1050 BC) to BI forms (c. 1050–c. 700 BC) and small seal forms (c. AD 100) (Source: Hanyu da zidian, s.v.) a. For graphs having the (‘ovicaprid’) signific SBI forms 12 BI forms 15 SS forms 38 The largest modern dictionaries of sinographs now have approximately 220 different characters grouped under the signific.

†I biô

* This graph, now usually written as , is composed of three components: horse, ovicaprid, bovine. † The meaning of this graph on the SBIs is not clear, but it later comes to signify a ‘short, sturdy horse’.

(‘bovine’) signific b. For graphs having the SBI forms 8 BI forms 10 SS forms 52 Large dictionaries of sinographs now have over 350 different characters grouped under the signific.

Note that only the graph for ‘horse’ itself belongs to period I, while four of the other five graphs belong to period III and one belongs to period V. There are, in addition, ten other graphs containing the horse signific which are said to be the names of horses; two of them are from period III and eight are from period V. One graph containing the horse signific is thought to be the name of a person and dates to period III. The form of the graph for ‘corral’ containing a horse dates to period III (unlike that containing a bovine which dates to period I) and a graph which consists of a horse next to a corral with a bovine inside dates to period III.

c. For graphs having the (‘horse’) signific SBI forms 4 BI forms 13 SS forms 126 Large dictionaries of sinographs now have in excess of an astonishing 550 characters grouped under the signific. 176

The Horse in Late Prehistoric China

From these figures, we can discern the following pattern. Namely, of these three important domesticated quadrupeds that derived from the west, the Chinese first and foremost became familiar with ovicaprids, next with bovines, and last with horses. As time passed, however, the relative importance of the three animals was completely reversed (at least in the élite strata of politics, society and culture), so that the horse became overwhelmingly dominant, bovines retained their middle position, and ovicaprids fell to last place. The early primacy of ovicaprids in Chinese culture can nonetheless be recovered by a kind of grammatological ‘excavation’ which reveals the surprising abundance of SBI graphs signific: (me&i, for key concepts that include the ‘beauty’), (ya&ng, ‘raise’, — written , this word (xiu#, later comes to mean ‘nourish, nurture, rear’), ‘present ([humble] offering of food, especially mutton)’; this later evolves to mean ‘shame, embarrassment’), (yiô, ‘righteousness, justice’), (sha$n, ‘good’), (xia#ng, ‘felicitous, auspicious’), ( jia#ng, place where the mythological ‘Divine Farmer [Shennong] dwelled’). No other animal in China can lay claim to have provided the inspiration for so many fundamental, positive cultural concepts, certainly neither the horse nor bovines can begin to compete with sheep and goats in this regard. So dramatic was the impact of ovicaprids at the foundational level of Chinese civilization that we cannot escape drawing the conclusion that shepherding pastoralists must have been intimately involved with its establishment.

qu#

liê

gallop

black horse

(?) name of a horse

shiÛ(?), liô(?)

name of a horse

* The identification of this graph, which also occurs with a bovine instead of a horse in the bottom right corner, is not agreed upon by all authorities.

Between 13 and 20 additional SBI forms, depending upon how one counts, may be considered as unidentifiable graphs containing the signific. Two other forms will be separately discussed in the next section because of disagreement concerning them and because of their importance for the history of horseriding and horse traction in China. b. Modern equivalents of identifiable BI forms To the above eight SBI graphs, of which the first, second, fourth, fifth, and sixth are also to be found in the BIs, may be added the following: / /

N.B.: There are substantial discrepancies among scholars concerning both the total number of SBI graphs and the number that may be securely identified with the forms of characters still in use today. This accounts for the differences in the numbers of SBI graphs related to ovicaprids, bovines and horses cited at various places in this paper. A reasonable compromise estimate of the total number of SBI graphs would be approximately 3000 and, of these, there is a fair degree of consensus concerning the identification of about 1000 forms. The total number of small seal graphs listed in the Shuo wen jie zi [Explanations of Simple and Compound Graphs], an important dictionary completed in the year AD 100, is 9352.

*

†

hua@n

ma$

siô

ju#

yearling

oath, curse

team of four horses

two-year-old horse

jia$

luo$

zhuiî

sa#o

yoke a horse to a chariot

white horse with black mane

dappled horse

vexed, agitated

xiîng

jia#o

bia#o

roan, sorrel; red horse

horse of six chi*† in height

flock of horses

qiê gray

* The phonophore ( ) of the modern form of this graph indicates cognateness with a group of Sinitic words signifying ‘circle, around, ring’. The meaning of ‘yearling’ may be accounted for by the fact that the animal was hobbled, a practice which is still followed for young horses in parts of the Eurasian steppes. † Here is actually being used as a phonophore, not a signific. *† This graph later comes to mean ‘untamed horse; vigorous, strong; proud, arrogant’. 1 chi = 23.1 cm; 6 chi = 138.6 cm = 55.4 inches = 4.62 feet.

IV. An inventory of identifiable SBI and BI forms of graphs containing the (‘horse’) signific

Sources: Hanyu da zidian, Jiagu wenzi dian, Shima 1971, Gao 1974, Schuessler 1987.

a. Modern equivalents of identifiable SBI forms

From the SBI graphs, we may deduce that the Chinese of the twelfth century BC and the first half of the eleventh century BC knew well little more about the horse than its gross physical appearance, that it could be made to run very fast, and perhaps that it could be bridled. From the BI graphs, it would appear that

* ma&

bo@

horse

pied

xiê horse with long hair on its legs

jiî

bridle

177

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was driving [a chariot]’). The BI form for yu$ employed here is which consists of a horse on the left and a hand holding something on the right. The modern form of this graph is . The word yu$ (‘drive, direct, manage’), however, is more commonly written with an entirely different graph, viz., . The earliest SBI form for the latter ( ) shows a kneeling man with what has been interpreted as a whip or reins. Shortly after this stage, but still on the SBIs, the component was added to indicate that the word in question had to do with movement or that it happened on the road, thus . There is much confusion over the interpretation of the early stages of this graph, since it is also used as the name of a sacrifice or welcoming ceremony. Even more confusing is the fact that the alternate graph for yu$, viz. , also appears on the SBIs. Regardless of the confused state of affairs surrounding and during the Shang period, by the early Zhou they were being used interchangeably. The graph consists of a horse plus a hand (holding a whip). In the BIs, the whip is shown, but in the SBIs only the hand appears. Whether written as or , the basic meaning of yu$ is considered to be ‘to drive; driver; charioteer’ and the derived meaning of the word is considered to be ‘direct; manage; manager; work as an official’. It is rather remarkable that a word of such seemingly humble beginnings ultimately came to signify all things imperial. Thus / (yu$ yu&) means ‘(of a monarch) to rule over a land or realm’. In a very real sense, then, we may think of the Chinese emperor as a grand charioteer who is holding the reins of state and controlling the course which it follows.

the Chinese of the tenth and succeeding centuries came to know more about the characteristics of the horse, its temperament, how to yoke and harness it, and how to rear it. V. Two sets of graphs vital for the history and significance of the horse in China a. Horseriding in the Late Shang period? Wang et al. (1997, 478b) list the following three SBI graphs: He compares them to these two BI forms: Cf.

(Gao 1974, 2120c)

And he equates both the BI forms and the SBI forms to the SS form , which is, of course, the precursor (qiê, ‘ride [a horse, etc.]’; of the modern sinograph jiô, ‘cavalry, rider’). There can be little doubt that the SS forms derive from the BI forms and that the SBI forms depict a person riding an animal. The differences in shape and construction between the SBI forms and the BI forms are, however, so great that it is impossible to feel confident that they are in any way related. Furthermore, in the context of the actual inscriptions in which the SBI forms occur (see Matsumaru & Takashima 1993, #4708), they would appear to be the name of a person (perhaps belonging to a foreign group of people who were capable of horseriding). In any event, we cannot — on the basis of the three enigmatic SBI forms cited by Wang et al. — claim that horseriding was a part of late Shang period culture. The other sinograph often used to describe horseriding is (kua$, ‘sit astride’), but it is to be found neither in the SBIs nor in the BIs, appearing only at a later stage in the development of the script. Judging from the evolution of the graphs for horseriding in the Chinese script, there is no solid evidence that the people of the late Shang or early Zhou were very familiar with this practice and there is certainly no evidence that they had made it a part of their own culture. That was not to happen until the latter part of the Warring States period, around the end of the fourth century BC.

VI. Old Sinitic reconstructions and selected IndoEuropean comparisons N.B.: IE terms are provided for comparative purposes only. The author expressly disavows any claim of cognateness between Sinitic and IE but does not rule out the possibility of borrowing during the time period discussed in this paper.

Key for below: K = Karlgren 1972; L = Li Fang-kuei (in Schuessler 1987); S = Schuessler 1987; B = Baxter 1992; C = Chou 1973; T = Tung T’ung-ho (in Chou 1973); P = Pulleyblank 1991. Pulleyblank’s (1991) reconstructions are Early Middle Sinitic (a generalized standard dating to around AD 600). All of the Old Sinitic (c. 600 BC or earlier) reconstructions should be considered as having asterisks in front of them. Pok = Pokorny 1959; IE = Indo-European.

b. Metaphors for control in the early Zhou period Schuessler (1987, 788b) quotes the following short sentence from an early Zhou BI dating to the first half of the tenth century BC: (wa¤ng yu$, ‘The king 178

The Horse in Late Prehistoric China

K ma* ma&, ‘horse’ L mragx S m´ra/ B mra/ C mrwaƒ P maˆ/mE˘'

Old Irish Welsh Gaulish Old Norse Old English Old High German

marc march marco(s) marr mearh marah

biô *

‘horse’ IE root *ma@rkos Germanic words for ‘mare’ derive from this same root. These are clearly words of the western IE world and belong to Celtic and Germanic. No other IE languages have native words for ‘horse’ that derive from *markos.

* SBI meaning is uncertain; later comes to signify ‘stout, sturdy horse’. It has been suggested that this word can be compared with the German word Pferd (‘horse’). Despite a vague similarity, however, it is virtually impossible that they could have anything to do with each other, since Pferd probably derives from Latin paravere#dus (
Cf. languages of the Chinese frontier and Tibet, e.g. Gyami ma@ and Sokpa ma@ri. Mongolic *mor"/_ n (final -n is unstable) Tungusic *murin Koreanic *morV (where V is an indefinite vowel) Burmic *mrang-h Japanic *(u-)ma(-n) Proto-Kam-Sui *ma4-r-

liê, ‘black

horse’

Janhunen (1998), from whom the Asian data (except for ProtoKam-Sui) are drawn, notes that Proto-Mongolic is located at a very shallow chronological level (eleventh–thirteenth century AD) and so could not be the source of Sinitic *mraq, as is sometimes alleged. Janhunen further observes that

qiê, ‘gray

horse’

In Central Asia, the terms used to denote the horse are basically different in each genetic group of languages: Indo-European (equus etc.), Ugric (*lox), Yeniseic (*kuqs) and Turkic (*at). By contrast, the major languages and language families of East Asia share what appear to be reflexes of a single primary name for the horse: Mongolic (mor"n), Tungusic (mur"n), Korean (mar), Japanese (uma) and Chinese (ma). This situation suggests that the horse was introduced to East Asia from a single source, possibly by a single wave of cultural impact. These as well as other equine and equestrian terms give concrete indications as to how, when, and by what routes the innovations of horse breeding and horse riding arrived in and diffused over East Asia.

ju#, ‘colt;

two-yearold horse’

speckled’ S p´riawk B pra/ewk T pçk C .prawk P paˆwk/

Proto-Germanic *blak-, ‘black’ Pok 124 *bhleg-, ‘burn’

K g’i9´g L gj´g S gj´ B g(r)jˆ T t’i9´g C gi´ƒ P gˆ/gi

Old High German gra#o, ‘gray’ Old Icelandic gra#r Proto-Germanic *ZrQwyaz IE g^hre#-wo PIE g^herPok 441

K ki9u L kjug S kju B k(r)jo T ki9ug C kjew P ku´(

English ‘colt’ Danish kuld, ‘offspring, brood’ Proto-Germanic *kultaz IE *gl• -d-os, ‘fetus’ *gel-/gl• -, ‘to swell’ Pok 358 See also Pok 448 *gheul

horses); gallop; drive out/ away; make horses run; race; chase, pursue; course; a courser (swift horse)’

Southeast Asian and Tai Shan Ahon All have words for horse that sound like Kamti ma (Hunter 1868, 133). Laotian Thai

K po&k L prakw

K lieg L lig, ljig S ri, rji T lieg C lieƒ P li´(/li

qu#, ‘drive (animals, especially

Kam-Sui is a small group of languages within the Tai-Kadai family and is located in south China. The Proto-Kam-Sui form quoted here is taken from Thurgood (1988, 213).

bo@, ‘pied;

K b’i9e(t L bjit S (G)bjit T b’i9et C bjiet

K k’i9u L khjug(h) S khju(h) B kh(r)jo T k’i9ug C k’jew P kHu´(

English ‘course’ PIE kers-, ‘run’ Pok 583

K pi9og bia#o, ‘flock T pi9og of horses’

Middle Dutch speckel, ‘speckle’ Middle High German spreckel, ‘a spot or speck’ IE *sp(h)reg-, ‘break forth (into spots on skin)’ Pok 997

Old English flocc, ‘group of persons’ Middle Low Germanic vlocke, ‘crowd; flock of sheep’ C pji´w Old Icelandic flokkr, ‘crowd, troop’ P pjiaw/pjiw These Germanic words cannot be traced back to other IE groups.

K ka jia$, ‘yoke a L krarh horse to a S k´rajh chariot’ B krajs T ka C kra P kaˆH/kE˘H

Also cf. Pok 996 *(s)p(h)ereg-, ‘jerk, scatter’ which leads to words like ‘sprinkle’ and ‘freckles’.

poe˘wk

179

Old English geoht, ‘a pair of draft animals’ Old English gycer, ‘yoke’ Old Norse eykr, ‘draft animal’ IE yeug-, ‘join’, Pok 508 We may note that it is unlikely for a verb to be borrowed, even with such a specialized meaning, unless it were a case of intense language contact.

Chapter 12

qiê, ‘ride

astride’

K g’ia L gjar S gjaj T g’i9a C gia P gi´(/gi

K gla^k L glak horse with S grak black B C-rak mane’ T gla^k C lak P lak luo$, ‘white

cattle, cow’ B ngWjˆ T ngi9w´(g C ngjw´ƒ P Nuw

PIE *ghe#, ‘go’ Pok 418 (?)

ji·, ‘two-

Pok 400 *glag, ‘milk(y)’ The Chinese graph for milk products (lao) is written with the same phonophore as that for ‘white horse...’ and its phonological reconstruction is the same, i.e. K glak, etc.

pronged spear or lance; halberd’

ge#, zhuiî,

‘dappled horse (gray and white)’

‘daggeraxe’

K tÊi9w´r L tj´d S tlju´j T tÊi9w´d C tjiw´r P t˛wi

(Celtic, Italic, Germanic, Greek, Indo-Iranian, Anatolian, and Tocharian, but apparently not in Balto-Slavic)

K ki9a(k L kjiak S k´rjak B k(r)jaj/ T ki9a(k C kiak P kiajk

Old High German kra#cho, ‘hooked tool’ IE *gre#g-/gro#gPok 385

K kwa^ L kwar S kuaj T kwa C kwa P kwa

PIE *kÈel(hx )-, ‘(spear)point’ This is a widespread and old word in IE. Mallory & Adams 537a Pok 552–3

VII. A transcribed word for bronze in Old Sinitic K so^g sa#o, ‘vexed, L s´gw agitated’ S s´w B su T so^g C s´w P saw

qia@otia@o, ‘bronze’

(late ninth–early eighth century BC)

Cf. Greek calkovı (‘bronze’). This is not an IE word but is rather a borrowing from some unknown source. It has been compared to the following Balto-Slavic words for ‘iron’: Lithuanian gelez&is, Lettish dzelzs, Old Prussian gelso, Church Slavonic z&ele(so. If the Greek and the Balto-Slavic words were borrowed from the same non-IE source, they did so independently, not from each other. Be that as it may, if the source of the Greek word (and perhaps of the Balto-Slavic words) could be identified, it would probably be relevant to the origins of qia@otia@o and consequently of enormous importance for the history of bronze metallurgy in East Asia.

K si9e(ng xiîng, ‘roan, T si9en sorrel’ C sjieng P siajN

jia#o,

‘vigorous, strong; untamed horse’

jiî, ‘bridle,

harness, halter; restrain’

ya@ng,

‘sheep, goat’

niu@,

‘bovine,

K g’iog-d’io^g L gjagw-di´gw (?) S gjaw-gli´w (?) T g’i9çg-d’iog C giaw-deaw

K ki9og L khjiagw S khjiaw B kh(r)jaw T ki9ç(g C kiaw P kiaw

VIII. Words for ‘wheel’ in Sino-Tibetan and Slavic

K kjie9 T ki9a C kia P ki´/ki

K zi9ang L raN S ljaN B (l)jang T gi9ang C ƒriang P jˆaN

Sanskrit u@ran-, ‘ram, sheep’ Avestan var´n-, ‘lamb’, Pok 1170 *u9eren- ‘lamb’ Cognates are also to be found in Greek, Armenian, Persian, Lithuanian, Sogdian, Ossetic, and Roshani. This is obviously a word of the centre and east of the IE world. The Tocharian B word yriîye (‘male sheep’) may be a borrowing from Indo-Iranian, although some would see it as deriving directly from the IE root, with an otherwise unattested e-grade.

K ngi9u(g L Njw´g S Nwj´

Pok 482 *gWou-, ‘ox, bull, cow’ This word is well attested in both the eastern and western IE stocks.

Sino-Tibetan *kolo, ‘wheel’

For documentation, see Bauer 1994.

Proto-Slavic *kolo, ‘wheel’

Sources: Chern’ikh 1993, vol. I, 411b–412a; Fasmer 1986, vol. 2, 289–90; Ts’igenenko 1989, 184; Trubachev 1983, 141–5; Shanskii et al. 1971, 204–5; Rudnyc’kyj 1972–82, vol. 2, 711

Church Slavonic kolo Old Ukrainian ko@la Modern Ukrainian koleso@ Belorussian ko@la Russian ko@lo, koleso@ Bulgarian kolo, ko@lelo Macedonian ko@lo Serbo-Croatian ko_lo Slovenian kolo Czech and Slovakian kolo Polish Upper Sorbian ko…o Lower Sorbian kolo

The word for ‘wheel’ in Slavic languages is very consistent, very stable, and very old. Furthermore, 180

The Horse in Late Prehistoric China

kolo (‘wheel’) does not occur in this particular form

logical record for China. Caprine bones are reported to have been found at Banpo (near Xi’an in Shaanxi province) by c. 4000 BC, but they are probably from wild animals. The bones are few and show no signs of domestication. It seems more probable that the goat remains found at Miaodigou II levels (c. 2500 BC, extreme northwestern Henan Province) were domesticates ultimately deriving from the Near East (Anderson 1988, 14). The relatively late domestication of the horse in comparison with ovicaprids, cattle and other animals, both in China and elsewhere in Eurasia, is completely understandable, since it is manifestly not an easy animal to subdue. Once brought under control, however, it bestows obvious advantages upon whoever has mastered it: speed, estimable carrying capacity, ability to traverse difficult terrain and ford streams, considerable height above the ground, and precise reaction to firmly delivered commands (unlike donkeys, camels, sheep, goats, and cats; more like the dog, humankind’s other ‘best friend’ in this sense). We can discern in the archaeological record for northern and northwestern border areas of China three waves of cultural influx linked with faunal domesticates from western Eurasia: 1. cattle and ovicaprid herders (third millennium BC, with the cattle coming in larger numbers before the goats and then sheep); 2. chariot and horse wielders (second half of second millennium BC); 3. a. horseriding nomads (first half of first millennium BC); b.horseriding warriors (second half of first millennium BC). These three waves are detectable both in the archaeological record and in the history of languages. While archaeological investigation concerning the transmission of herded domesticates across Eurasia has already made impressive achievements, linguistic research on the subject is still in its infancy. Coordinating the data from these two fields is a challenge to archaeologists as well as to linguists. What is needed is a kind of ‘archaeolinguistics’ that takes into account the findings of both fields. The present paper constitutes a modest, tentative attempt to initiate such studies. The archaeological record also needs to be scrutinized in light of mythology and history. This is not the place to engage in a full discussion of such topics, but we may mention them briefly in closing. The advent of cattle and sheep in the heartland of China coincides with the rise of Longshan culture and is

in any other IE group. The closest we get to it might be Latin colus (‘spinning wheel’). The area where Slavic languages were historically spoken was precisely the primary centre of diffusion for wheeled vehicles, as David Anthony and others have shown (although we cannot be sure that Slavic speakers had already reached this area at the time of the early diffusion of the chariot). Furthermore, the expansion of wheeled vehicles to Central Asia and the Far East (around the middle of the second millennium BC) occurred at about the same time when Slavic separated, together with Baltic, from Germanic. (Its separation from Baltic came later. Note that Old Prussian [a West Baltic language] has kelan.) We must observe, however, that some authorities would reconstruct Proto-Slavic root with an s-stem, as reflected in the Modern Ukrainian and alternate Modern Russian words for ‘wheel’. Furthermore, early borrowings from Slavic into Finnic show that the vowel quality of the short vowel would most likely still have been a before the seventh century AD, hence *kalas. To this day, words sounding like gu(lu$ are still preferred for ‘wheel’ in colloquial Sinitic languages (see Hanyu fangyan cihui 1995, 226; Putonghua jichu fangyan jiben cihui 1996, 3305). Conclusion For comparative purposes, we may note the following approximate dates for the domestication of various animals discussed in this paper: pig — 9400 BP in Anatolia, 9000 BP in south China, 8000 BP in north China; dog — by 12,000 BP in Iraq, Palestine, and Europe, by 7000 BP in north China; cattle — 8800 BP in southeastern Anatolia, mid-fifth millennium BP in north China; goat — 10,000 BP in southwest Asia, late fifth millennium in north China. While the horse was undoubtedly more prestigious among élites and more powerful with the military, in terms of sheer economic influence on those populations which practised animal husbandry, ovicaprids had a much larger impact. Consequently, the diffusion of domesticated sheep and goats across Eurasia is of tremendous importance and merits close investigation. The earliest domestication of these animals occurred by around the tenth millennium BP (Legge 1996; Hole 1996, 266). The region where Iraq, Turkey and Iran intersect is the most likely locale for the domestication of caprines (Hole 1996, 264; 1989). It would take more than 5000 years before domesticated caprines are securely etched in the archaeo181

Chapter 12

All the way to the collapse of the imperial system at the beginning of the twentieth century, sizeable numbers of cattle and sheep were sacrificed in important yearly ceremonies at the capital in which the emperor was the chief officiant. These were sumptuous, solemn affairs carried out at the Temple of Heaven in Peking. The emperor went there every year at the winter solstice and spring equinox to pray for good harvest and give his report to heaven. On the day before the ceremony, he left the Forbidden City (the Imperial Palace) and spent the night in ritual seclusion in the Hall of Abstinence purifying himself while elaborate preparation of the sacrificial animals was being made (Zito 1997). Analysis of the dynamics of Shang civilization reveal that there may be even more profound steppic connections. Palaeographers are in general agreement that the earliest known form of the graph (c. 1200 BC) used to write the word we@n depicts a man with a tattoo on his chest. This may seem shocking in light of the fact that, throughout most of later Chinese history, tattooing became a kind of stigma associated with barbarians and prisoners. But it is actually not at all surprising that the Chinese of the Bronze Age would have considered tattooing a mark of beauty and goodness, for in many early cultures it had strongly positive connotations. For example, among the Thracians, the Scythians (a people of the steppe who were active within the ambit of China), and other Eurasian peoples, as well as the Maori in more recent times, elaborate tattooing was restricted to chieftains and other kinds of leading personages. Indeed, the fundamental meaning of we@n is preserved in an old Chinese expression that is still current, viz. we@nshe#n (‘tattoo the body’). Furthermore, we@n — by itself and as the primary morpheme in combination with other morphemes — eventually comes to mean pattern, culture, civilization, learning, urbane, civil (as opposed to military), graph/script, (fine) writing, literature, and so forth. It may be no accident that the mummies of Eastern Central Asia are often replete with tattoos, some of which are in the shapes of Es, Ss, and other script-like designs. The topic of the origins and evolution of the concept of we@n in Chinese civilization merits intensive investigation elsewhere. For the moment, we may observe that, ironically, this most quintessential characteristic of Chinese culture displays, during its earliest stages of development, intimate affinities with the same peoples who brought cattle, sheep, goats, and — above all — horses to East Asia. For political, psychological, and strategic reasons, the Chinese needed the horse. And so, against

also roughly contemporaneous with the first (but still not archeologically attested) dynasty, the Xia, which is referred to in myth and in history which were first written down approximately two millennia after the events and personages they purport to describe. The Shang period (after around 1384 BC), on the other hand, roughly coincides with the appearance of bronze, chariots, writing, and the domesticated horse in the Chinese archaeological record. We may note that, except for bronze, all of these phenomena are highly tentative and restricted in their application, and even bronze during the Shang is reserved chiefly for monumental and ceremonial purposes. The Zhou Dynasty may be said to represent the full appropriation and widespread application of all these cultural traits. The role of the horse in the transition from sedentary herding societies to nomadic pastoralism is vital. It is, however, extremely difficult to make this transition, for the wild horse is not easy to tame. The transition to pastoral nomadism practised by horseback riders was not completed till around the beginning of the first millennium BC. By the early part of the eighth century BC, horseriding agropastoral and nomadic societies begin to appear. As they further develop, they become the mounted warriors known to the Greeks and Romans as the Cimmerians, Scythians, Huns, and their descendants. These were the types of people who dominated the Eurasian steppes throughout the first millennium BC, all the way from the Black Sea to China. It bears reiteration that the horse did not enter China from the Tarim Basin. Rather, it came across the steppes to the north, its natural habitat. The Chinese acquired the horse from northwestern and northern peoples travelling along routes that passed through the Gansu Corridor, the Ordos, and even farther to the east. The same is true of the other herded domesticates (cattle, sheep, and goats) which preceded the horse. Once they arrived in China from points to the north and northwest, the herded domesticates were integrated in Chinese ritual, symbolism and political economy. The sacrifice of herded animals, especially cattle, was a central feature of Shang ritual. There are records of one sacrifice in which 1000 cattle were slaughtered, another in which 500 were slaughtered, another of 400, three involving 300, and nine in which a hundred were killed (Chang 1980, 143). It is puzzling that a presumably sedentary society would put such great emphasis upon the sacrificial utilization of a herded animal that entered China from the steppe. 182

The Horse in Late Prehistoric China

their own inclinations, they gradually adopted the horse from their enemies toward the end of the second millennium BC, actually began to ride the horse from the late fourth century BC, and started to crave the horse from the second century BC — but they never felt comfortable with, and especially on, the horse. Riding astride was perceived by the Chinese of the late fourth century BC as physically unnatural and culturally alien, yet they forced themselves (or, rather, their fighting men) to do it. It was because of this strained attachment to the horse that even the most impressive Chinese horse paintings always have a touch of the ‘other’ about them. In medieval times, that ‘other’ is often all too blatantly present in the guise of a Sogdian, Turkic, or other Central Asian groom. The horse has thus remained simultaneously familiar and unfamiliar, fascinating and repulsive, to the Chinese. After more than three millennia, the horse (as well as its herded steppic confreres — sheep, goat, and cattle) is still a creature of the terrifying, unsettled vastness that lay to the north and northwest. ‘From early times the possession of horses and horsemanship frequently had aristocratic implications’ (Goodrich 1984, 279). This was as true of East Asia as it was of West Asia and Europe. Clearly, the horse — an animal whose origins and initial domestication are to be found among highly mobile peoples — is closely linked to rulership, even (or, we might say, particularly) among sedentary peoples. In this Zen koan-like conundrum lies a fundamental truth about the dynamics of of the steppe and the sown, the nomadic and the urban, the ‘barbarian’ and the cultured. Whoever solves this koan will bring enlightenment not only to him/herself, but to all who study the history of civilization.

3.

4.

5. 6.

7.

Notes 1.

2.

8. 9.

Watson (1993) Records of the Grand Historian, vol. 2, p. 240, with minor modifications. For a brief but useful survey of the Chinese quest for horses beginning in the late second century BC and with appropriate secondary sources indicated, see Levine (1999, 6–8). The whole notion of the tianma (‘heavenly horse’), so much coveted by the Chinese, may derive from the same peoples who reared the horses themselves. The deva#sv @ a (‘heavenly horse’) was well known to the ancient Aryans, especially as Indra’s mount. Among the more ingenious ways that were devised to ensure a steady supply of horses was the establishment of what was called the Tea and Horse Office (cha@ma( siî ) during the Song through Qing (Manchu) dynasties. This government bureau set up trading posts in frontier areas whereby tea — much coveted

183

by the nomads — was exchanged for horses (Hucker 1985, 105b). A plateau that lies south of the big bend of the Yellow River in Inner Mongolia and Shaanxi Province. Together with the Gansu Corridor leading directly westward, the Ordos was one of the most vital gateways to Central Asia and beyond. Both were repeatedly contested for as far in the past as we can discern the lineaments of history. And both were the primary conduits for equine ingress to the Chinese heartland. The first three footnotes of Sterckx (1996) offer an essential selection of bibliographical references to studies on the horse in the context of Shang and Zhou burials, the use of horse figurines in late Warring States and early imperial graves, the emergence of the ‘dragon horse’ (lo@ngma&) and the ‘heavenly horse’ (tia#nma&) as symbols of imperial power and the means for achieving immortality in the Han period, the horse in military history, the introduction of the horse-drawn chariot, the history of horse domestication in China, and horses as tributary goods between rulers, as gifts, paraded before chariots and carriages in ceremonial processions, and in the hunt. See also Creel 1965 and Erkes 1942 for general information concerning the many important roles of the horse in ancient China. For the later historical sources not cited here see Loewe 1993 and Brooks 1994. Owing to the formidable (and frequently insuperable) dating problems of petroglyphs, we shall avoid them entirely, despite the fact that they often picture horses and chariots. In any event, most of the petroglyphs in modern China that depict horses, carts, wagons, and chariots are to be found in Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia, precisely the areas of the nomadic and pastoral peoples from whom the Chinese obtained them, so they are not of much use in helping us come to terms with their introduction to China per se. The five periods of the SBIs, to which we will have occasion to refer again in discussing the linguistic data, are as follows: I 1200–1181; II 1180–1151; III 1150– 1131/21; IV 1130/20–1101/1091; V 1100/1090–1051/ 41 (all dates BC). This is the forty-first day of the sixty-day cycle. This inscription is Xiaotun Yinxu wenzi yi bian no. 5408 and is also Xiaotun Yinxu wenzi ding bian no. 114 (see Chang 1970, 216). Shaughnessy (1988, 235–7) offers a valuable collection of SBI inscriptions containing the word ma( (‘horse’). It is signficant that most of the expressions containing ma( either referred to northern and northwestern peoples or with officials who dealt with them on a regular basis. For example, the duo#ma& (‘many horses’) and the ma&f a#ng (‘horse-place/land’) had a highly ambivalent status with regard to the Shang polity. Their allegiance, although assiduously sought, was not to be counted upon. Although they were not directly a part of the Shang polity, they sometimes existed in close association with it. The duo#ma&, in particular, were key military officials mentioned on the SBIs. They are noted both for the promi-

Chapter 12

10.

11.

12.

13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24.

25. 26. 27.

28.

nence of their position and their obviously close linkage to horses (Chen 1956, 508–9). There were also the shu$ m a& (‘frontier guard horse[man]’) and the ma& xia&oche@n (‘minor vassal of the horse’) who seem to have been more reliably incorporated into the Shang polity, particularly the latter (Liu et al. 1989, 55). As for the siîma& (‘in charge of horses’), who during the Zhou Dynasty develops into the Marshal or Minister of War, this very important position will be discussed at length in a separate paper. ‘Chinese’ at this time signifies the Shang polity and its adherents. After the fall of the Shang in the middle of the eleventh century BC, the signification of ‘Chinese’ naturally shifts to the Zhou and its adherents. The power base of the Zhou was located near the confluence of the Wei and Yellow Rivers, far to the west of the Shang, whose capital was at Yin (near Anyang in modern Henan Province). Shaughnessy (1988, 216) renders this name as ‘Prince Yang’ and provides persuasive evidence from other SBIs that he was badly hurt in this accident. All of the other inscriptions in which he is named feature rituals designed to cure his injuries. Jiaguwen heji no. 10405. In general, the present translation follows the interpretations of Li (1989, 230–35). Creel (1970, 270–71) also calls our attention to chariot accidents. Located in the area between modern Bin District and Xunyi District of Shaanxi Province. His name literally means ‘many friends’. The twentieth of the sixty-day cycle. A general name for northwestern nomads, but here referring to the Xianyun. East of modern Xunyi District in Shaanxi Province. The twenty-first day of the sixty-day cycle. West of modern Bin District in Shaanxi Province. The graph for the numeral in the tens position is missing. North of modern Jingchuan District at the eastern end of Gansu Province. The exact location of this place is not clear. Yang Tumulus; exact location unknown. Presumably, they left behind the decapitated heads (which would have been too heavy and would have putrefied on the long trip back to the Zhou capital anyway), bringing only the left ears as trophies and as proof of the number of enemies killed. The record of this custom here is important for comparative research. The thirty-fourth day of the sixty-day cycle. Father Xiang, the name of a person. The rulers of ancient China seldom spoke directly to their subjects, preferring to communicate through their close, personal attendants. The text says simply ‘a hundred ju#n of qia@otia@o’, the word ‘bronze’ having been added to the translation to make it intelligible. For more information on the extremely important bisyllabic expression qia@otia@o, which has the appearance of the transcription of some nonSinitic term, see section VII of the Linguistic Data. As

29.

30.

31.

32.

33.

for the amount of bronze bestowed, archaeologically recovered weights indicate that one ju#n was approximately 7590 grams or 7.59 kilograms = 16.77 pounds (see p. 16 of the appendix volume of Hanyu da cidian [Unabridged Dictionary of Sinitic]). Since Duke Wu bestowed a hundred ju#n of qia@otia@o, that means Duo You received 1677.39 pounds of bronze, a princely amount. The weight of the Duo You Tripod itself is apparently 81.4 pounds, which makes one wonder what Duo You did with the rest of his bronze, or whether the qia@otia@o was actually ore that needed to be smelted. My thanks are due to Lothar von Falkenhausen who, together with Li Fang, figured out how much the Dou You tripod weighs. Another complete translation of this inscription by Edward Shaughnessy is available in Mair (1994, 4–5). The annotations of Liu et al. (1989, 127–33) have also proven helpful in the preparation of this translation. See Shaughnessy 1983–85 for a study of the inscription and the historical context in which it was cast. Shaughnessy (1991, 79n20) lists additional studies. The sizeable numbers of chariots is also evident in other bronze inscriptions from the Western Zhou period. The most extravagant gifts mentioned in the BIs of the Western Zhou period (1045–771 BC) are fine horses, horse gear, chariots, and chariot fittings (Shaughnessy 1991, 81–2, 141–2, 278). Along with the horses and chariots were given wine for use in sacrifices, a head scarf, knee covers, and wooden-soled shoes (Liu et al. 1989, 77–85; Shaughnessy 1991).

Acknowledgements The author wishes to register his gratitude to the following individuals for assistance of various forms in the preparation of this paper: Douglas Q. Adams, David W. Anthony, Elizabeth J.W. Barber, E. Bruce Brooks, Emma Bunker, Carol Conti-Entin, William Darden, Miriam Robbins Dexter, Edward Drott, Eric Hamp, Ronald Kim, Kezia Knauer, Lillian M. Li, Julianna Lipschutz, J.P. Mallory, Gilbert Mattos, Susan Naquin, Donald Ringe, Edward Shaughnessy, Axel Schuessler, Paul Smith, and Jidong Yang. He alone, however, is solely responsible for all of the information presented and interpretations expressed herein. References Anderson, E.N., 1988. The Food of China. New Haven (CT) & London: Yale University Press. Anthony, D.W. & N.B. Vinogradov, 1995. Birth of the chariot. Archaeology 48.2 (March/April), 36–41. Bagley, R., 1999. Shang archaeology, in Loewe & Shaughnessy (eds.), 124–231.

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Barber, E.W., 1999. The Mummies of Ürümchi. New York (NY) & London: W.W. Norton. Barbieri-Low, A.J., 2000. ‘Wheeled vehicles in the Chinese Bronze Age (c. 2000–741 BC). Sino-Platonic Papers 99 (February), v, 1–98, plus 10 plates. Barnes, G.L., 1993. China, Korea and Japan: the Rise of Civilization in East Asia. London: Thames and Hudson. Barnhart, R.K., 1988. The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology. Bronx (NY): H.W. Wilson. Bauer, R.S., 1994. Sino-Tibetan *kolo ‘wheel’. Sino-Platonic Papers 47 (August), 1–11. Baxter, W.H., 1992. A Handbook of Old Chinese Phonology. (Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs 64.) Berlin & New York (NY): Mouton de Gruyter. Brooks, E.B., 1994. The present state and future prospects of Pre-Hàn text studies. Sino-Platonic Papers 46 (July), 1–74. Bunker, E.C., with T.S. Kawami, K.M. Linduff & E. Wu, 1997. Ancient Bronzes of the Eastern Eurasian Steppes from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections. New York (NY): Abrams. Chang, K., 1977. Ancient China, in Food in Chinese Culture: Anthropological and Historical Perspectives, ed. K. Chang. New Haven (CT) & London: Yale University Press, 25–52. Chang, K., 1980. Shang Civilization. New Haven (CT) & London: Yale University Press. Chang, K., 1986. The Archaeology of Ancient China. 4th edition, rev. and enlgd. New Haven (CT) & London: Yale University Press. Chen, M., 1956. Yinxu buci zongxu [A Comprehensive Account of Divination Texts from the Wastes of Yin]. (Kaoguxue zhuankan jia zhong [Special Publications in Archaeology, Series A], 2.) Peking: Kexue chubanshe. Chen, Z. & X. Li (eds.), 1996. Putonghua jichu fangyan jiben cihui ji [A Collection of the Basic Vocabulary of Mandarin and the Fundamental Topolects]. 5 vols. Beijing: Yuwen. Chêng, T., 1960. Archaeology in China, vol. II: Shang China. Cambridge: W. Heffer and Sons. Chernikh, P.Y., 1993. Istoriko-Etimologicheskii Slovar Sovremennogo Russkogo Yaz’ika. 2 vols. Moscow: Russkii Yazik. Chou, F. (ed.), 1973. A Pronouncing Dictionary of Chinese Characters in Archaic and Ancient Chinese, Mandarin, and Cantonese. Hong Kong: Chinese University of Hong Kong. Creel, H.G., 1965. The role of the horse in Chinese history. American Historical Review 70, 647–72. Creel, H.G., 1970. The Origins of Statecraft in China, vol. 1: The Western Chou Empire. Chicago (IL) & London: University of Chicago Press. Di Cosmo, N., 1999. The northern frontier in pre-Imperial China, in Loewe & Shaughnessy (eds.), 885–966. Ding, S., 1966. Qiwen shoulei ji shouxing zi shi [Explanations of graphs for types of animals and shapes of animals in oracle inscriptions]. Zhongguo wenzi [Scripts of China] 21, 1–28.

Erkes, E., 1942. Das Pferd im alten China. T’oung Pao 36, 26–63. Fasmer, M., 1986. Etimologicheskii Slovar Russkovo Yazika. 4 vols. Moscow: Progress. [Translated from the German Russisches etymologisches Wörterbuch (Heidelberg, 1950–58) of Max Vasmer by O.N. Trubachev.] Fitzgerald-Huber, L.G., 1995. Qijia and Erlitou: the question of contacts with distant cultures. Early China 20, 17–67. Gao, S., 1974. Zhengzhong xing yin yi zonghe da zidian [Zhengzhong Comprehensive Dictionary of the Shapes, Sounds, and Meanings of Sinographs]. Taipei: Zhengzhong shuju. Goodrich, C., 1984. Riding astride and the saddle in ancient China. Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 44.2, 279–305. Hanyu da cidian [Unabridged Dictionary of Sinitic], 1987–95. 13 vols. Shanghai: Hanyu Da Cidian Chubanshe. Hanyu da zidian [Unabridged Character Dictionary of Sinitic], 1986–90. 8 vols. Wuhan: Hubei Cishu Chubanshe and Sichuan Cishu Chubanshe. Hanyu fangyan cihui [The Vocabulary of Sinitic Topolects], 1995. 2nd edition. Compiled by the Linguistics Institute of the Peking University Department of Chinese Language and Literature. Beijing: Yuwen. Harris, D.R. (ed.), 1996. The Origins and Spread of Agriculture and Pastoralism in Eurasia. Reprinted in 1999. London: University College London Press. Ho, P., 1975. The Cradle of the East: an Inquiry into the Indigenous Origins of Techniques and Ideas of Neolithic and Early Historic China, 5000–1000 BC. Hong Kong: The Chinese University of Hong Kong; Chicago (IL): The University of Chicago Press. Hole, F., 1989. A two-part, two-stage model of domestication, in The Walking Larder: Patterns of Domestication, Pastoralism, and Predation, ed. J. Clutton-Brock. London: Unwin Hyman, 97–104. Hole, F., 1996. The context of caprine domestication in the Zagros region, in Harris (ed.), 263–81. Hsü, C. & K.M. Linduff, 1988. Western Chou Civilization. New Haven (CT) & London: Yale University Press. Hsü, C. & A.H.C. Ward, 1984. Ancient Chinese Society: an Epigraphic and Archaeological Interpretation. South San Francisco: Yee Wen. Hucker, C.O., 1985. A Dictionary of Official Titles in Imperial China. Stanford (CA): Stanford University Press. Hunter, W.W., 1868. A Comparative Dictionary of the Languages of India and High Asia. Reprinted in 1978. New Delhi: Cosmo. Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, comp., 1991. Radiocarbon Dates in Chinese Archaeology (1965–1991). Peking: Cultural Relics Publishing House. Janhunen, J., 1998. The horse in East Asia: reviewing the linguistic evidence, in Mair (ed.) 1998a, vol. 1, 415– 30. Jettmar, K., 1967. Art of the Steppes: the Eurasian Animal Style. Tr. Ann E. Keep. (Art of the World Series.) New York (NY): Crown. [First published in 1964,

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Baden-Baden: Holle - in German.] Jiagu wenzi dian, see Xu, Z., 1988. Karlgren, B., 1972. Grammata Serica Recensa. Stockholm: Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities. [Reprinted from Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities 29 (1957).] Keightley, D.N., 1978. Sources of Shang History: the OracleBone Inscriptions of Bronze Age China. Berkeley (CA), Los Angeles (CA) & London: University of California Press. Keightley, D.N. (ed.), 1983. The Origins of Chinese Civilization. Berkeley (CA), Los Angeles (CA) & London: University of California Press. Legge, T., 1996. The beginning of caprine domestication in Southeast Asia, in Harris (ed.), 238–62. Levine, M., 1999. The origins of horse husbandry on the Eurasian steppe, in Levine et al. 1999, 5–58. Levine, M., Y. Rassamakin, A. Kislenko & N. Tatarintseva, 1999. Late Prehistoric Exploitation of the Eurasian Steppe. (McDonald Institute Monographs.) Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge. Li, P. (ed.), 1989. Jiaguwen xuanzhu [Selected and Annotated Oracle Shell and Bone Inscriptions]. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe. Li, S., 1999. A discussion of Sino-Western cultural contact and exchange in the second millennium BC based on recent archaeological discoveries. Sino-Platonic Papers 97 (December), i–iv, 1–29. Li, Y. (ed.), 1998. Helong wenhua: lianjie gudai Zhongguo yu shijie de zoulang [Cultures of Gansu: the Corridor Linking Ancient China with the World]. Hong Kong: Commercial. Liu, X., K. Chen, C. Chen & K. Dong (eds.), 1989. Shang Zhou guwenzi duben [Reader of Ancient Writing from the Shang and Zhou]. Beijing: Yuwen chubanshe. Loewe, M. (ed.), 1993. Early Chinese Texts: a Bibliographical Guide. (Early China Special Monograph Series 2.) Berkeley (CA): The Society for the Study of Early China and the Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California at Berkeley. Loewe, M. & E.L. Shaughnessy (eds.), 1999. The Cambridge History of Ancient China: From the Origins of Civilization to 221 BC. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lü, E., see Wang, M. & E. Lü, 1999. Mair, V.H., 1990. Old Sinitic *Myag, Old Persian Magus&, and English ‘Magician’. Early China 15, 27–47. Mair, V.H. (ed.), 1994. The Columbia Anthology of Traditional Chinese Literature. New York (NY): Columbia University Press. Mair, V.H., 1996. Language and script: biology, archaeology, and (pre)history. International Review of Chinese Linguistics 1.1, 31–41, 47–50. Mair, V.H. (ed.), 1998a. The Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Peoples of Eastern Central Asia. 2 vols. Washington (DC): The Institute for the Study of Man; Philadelphia (PA): The University of Pennsylvania Museum Publications. Mair, V.H., 1998b. Canine conundrums: Eurasian dog an-

cestor myths in historical and ethnic perspective. Sino-Platonic Papers 87 (October), 1–74. Mallory, J.P. & D.Q. Adams (ed.), 1997. Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture. London & Chicago (IL): Fitzroy Dearborn. Mallory, J.P. & V.H. Mair, 2000. The Tarim Mummies: Ancient China and the Mystery of the Earliest Peoples from the West. London: Thames and Hudson. Matsumaru, M. & K. Takashima, 1993. Kokotsu moji jishaku so#ran [A Conspectus of Explanations of Shell and Bone Graphs]. Tokyo: Tokyo University Research Institute for Oriental Culture. Mizukami, S., 1995. Kokotsu kinbun jiten [A Dictionary of Shell-Bone and Bronze Inscriptional Forms]. Tokyo: Yuzankaku. Olson, J.S., 1998. An Ethnohistorical Dictionary of China. Westport (CT): Greenwood. Piggott, S., 1977/8. Chinese chariotry: an outsider’s view, in Colloquia on Art and Archaeology in Asia, vol. 7, ed. P. Denwood. London: School of Oriental and African Studies, Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, 32–51. Pokorny, J., 1959. Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch. Bern: Francke. Pulleyblank, E.G., 1983. The Chinese and their neighbors in prehistoric and early historic times, in Keightley (ed.), 411–66. Pulleyblank, E.G., 1991. Lexicon of Reconstructed Pronunciation in Early Middle Chinese, Late Middle Chinese, and Early Mandarin. Vancouver: UBC Press. Putonghua jichu fangyan jiben cihui ji, see Chen & Li, 1996. Qinghai Sheng Wenwu Guanli Weiyuanhui, Zhongguo Kexueyuan Kaogu Yanjiusuo Qinghai Dui (CPAM, Chinghai Province and The Chinghai Archaeological Team, IOA, Academic Sinica), 1963. Qinghai Dulan Xian Nuomuhong Dalitaliha Yizhi Diaocha yu Shijue [Reconnaissance and trial diggings at Tali-ta-li-ha, No-mu-hung, Tulan County, Chinghai]. Kaogu Xuebao [The Chinese Journal of Archaeology] 1(31 in the series), 17–44, plus 8 plates. Renfrew, C., 1999. Introduction, in Levine et al. 1999, 1–4. Rolle, R., 1989. The World of the Scythians. Tr. by F.G. Wells from Die Welt der Skythen (C.J. Bucher, 1980). Berkeley & Los Angeles (CA): University of California Press. Rudnyc’kyj, J.B., 1972–82. An Etymological Dictionary of the Ukrainian Language. 2 vols. Winnipeg: Ukrainian Free Academy of Sciences. Schuessler, A., 1987. A Dictionary of Early Zhou Chinese. Honolulu (HI): University of Hawaii Press. Shanskii, H.M., V.V. Ivanov & T.V. Shanskaya, 1971. Kratkii Etimologicheskii Slovar Russkogo Yazika. Moscow: Prosveschenie. Shaughnessy, E.L., 1983–85. The date of the ‘Duo You ding’ and its significance. Early China 9, 55–69. Shaughnessy, E.L., 1988. Historical perspectives on the introduction of the chariot into China. Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 48.1 (June), 189–237. Shaughnessy, E.L., 1989. Western cultural innovations in China, 1200 BC. Sino-Platonic Papers 11 (July 1989), 1–8.

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Shaughnessy, E.L., 1991. Sources of Western Zhou History: Inscribed Bronze Vessels. Berkeley (CA), Los Angeles (CA) & Oxford: University of California Press. Shima, K., 1971. Inkyo bokuji sorui [Concordance to Divination Inscriptions from the Wastes of Yin]. Tokyo: Kyu#ko shoin. Sima, Q., see Watson, B., 1993. Smith, P.J., 1991. Taxing Heaven’s Storehouse: Horses, Bureaucrats, and the Destruction of the Sichuan Tea Industry, 1074–1224. (Harvard-Yenching Institute Monograph 32.) Cambridge (MA): Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University. So, J.F. & E.C. Bunker, 1995. Traders and Raiders on China’s Northern Frontier. Seattle (WA) & London: Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, in association with the University of Washington Press. Sterckx, R., 1996. An ancient Chinese horse ritual. Early China 21, 47–79. Sun, J., 1996. Zhongguo sheng huo: Zhongguo gu wenwu yu dong-xi wenhua jiaoliu zhong de ruogan wenti [The Sacred Fire of China: Ancient Chinese Artefacts and Several Questions about East–West Cultural Exchange]. Shenyang: Liaoning. Sun, S., 1960. ‘Xiongnu Xichagou wenhua’ gumuqun de faxian [The discovery of the ‘Xiongnu Xichagou culture’ cemetery]. Wenwu [Cultural Relics] 8–9, 25–33. Thurgood, G., 1988. Notes on the reconstruction of ProtoKam-Sui, in Comparative Kadai: Linguistic Studies beyond Tai, eds. J.A. Edmondson & D.B. Solnit. Dallas (TX): Summer Institute of Linguistics, The University of Texas at Arlington, 179–218. Trubachev, O.N., 1983. Etimologicheskii Slovar Slavyanskikh Yazikov: Praslavyanskii Leksicheskii Fond, vol. 10. Moscow: Nauka, Academy of Sciences, USSR, Institute

of Russian Language. Tsiganenko, G.P., 1989. Etimologicheskii Slovar Russkovo Yazika. Kiev: Radyanska Shkola (1970). Waldron, A., 1990. The Great Wall of China: From History to Myth. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wang, H. et al. comp. and annot., 1997. Gu zhuan shi yuan [Explanations of the Origins of the Ancient and Seal Forms of Characters]. Shenyang: Liaoning meishu chubanshe. Wang, M. & E. Lü (eds.), 1999. Xinjiang Chawuhu: Daxing shizu mudi fajue baogao [Charwighul, Xinjiang: Excavation Report of a Large Cemetery of Clan Burials]. Beijing: Dongfang. Watson, B. tr., 1993. Records of the Grand Historian: the Han Dynasty. 2 vols., rev. ed. Hong Kong & New York (NY): Renditions and Columbia University Press. [Originally published in 1961.] Watson, W., 1961. China Before the Han Dynasty. (Ancient People and Places 23.) New York (NY): Frederick A. Praeger. Xu, Z. (ed.), 1988. Jiagu wenzi dian [A Dictionary of Oracle Shell and Bone Graphs]. Chengdu: Sichuan cishu chubanshe. Yang, H., 1992. Weapons in Ancient China. New York (NY) & Beijing: Science. Yang, J., 1998. Siba: Bronze Age culture of the Gansu corridor. Sino-Platonic Papers 86 (October), 1–18. Yang, Z., 1950. Anyang Yinxu zhi buru dongwu qun buyi [Supplementary notes on groups of mammals at the wastes of Yin in Anyang]. Zhongguo kaogu xuebao [Chinese Journal of Archaeology] 4, 145–53. Zito, A., 1997. Of Body and Brush: Grand Sacrifice as Text/ Performance in Eighteenth-Century China. Chicago (IL) & London: University of Chicago Press.

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Chapter 13 Horseback Riding: Man’s Access to Speed? Ute Luise Dietz The domestication of the horse can be viewed largely

use the horse’s speed and to be master of it in any given situation. Speed bestows a special role on the horse among domestic animals: it is neither subordinate to man due to weakness (like the dog or sheep), nor is it merely driven or lead violently to a place of milking, butchering or sacrifice.

in terms of its power and strength. This does not mean that another animal — weaker than bovids — would be available for work, but rather that humans should be able to take advantage of the horse’s speed. Without doubt, the introduction of rapid transportation of goods and people1 had enormous consequences for social, political and economic structures (see for example Hüttel 1994, 206; Anthony 1994, 191f.; Häusler 1994; Vosteen 1999, 103f.; Häusler 1996, 75ff.); access to the speed of the horse is presumed to have caused a form of ‘mobile revolution’ similar to that brought about by the invention of motor-drawn vehicles nearly six thousand years later (Hanc&ar 1955, 548). Here we consider the question of early horseback riding from a hippological perspective, with special attention given to behavioural traits of the horse. A high price has to be paid for exploiting the speed of the horse, for one becomes dependent on the animal’s obedience. As soon as one leaves the ground in order to mount a horse or to get into a carriage, one is no longer able to force the animal to obey by employing physical means. Using the speed and strength of the horse is possible only while forfeiting absolute power over the animal. The only chance of forcing a horse by physical means is to hold it fast by tying it up or fettering it. A horse ridden or used for draught is directed by means of submission rather than by mechanical and therefore measurable means. Without any doubt, bridles and other instruments invented to direct the horse, such as the whip, spiked stick (kentron) or spurs, have some impact on the horse, although the result is not created mechanically, as in the case of parts of a motorcar, but rather through influence on the behaviour of the horse, i.e. on inborn and learned elements of its personality. During the last four millennia, many devices have been invented with this in mind, although in principle it is still impossible to

History of research During early discussions concerning early use of the horse, it seemed almost certain that the animal was used as a draught animal before it was ridden (Hanc&ar 1955, 547). This is based on both written sources and pictorial evidence. Thus use of equids as draught animals was viewed as developing from the use of cattle in this way, verified, for example, by the nose-rings used in Sumerian times — a device used especially for ruminantia (Hanc&ar 1955, 433f.). The yoke, used for thousands of years even on chariots, also fits cattle better. As their withers are the highest part of the body, cattle are able to use their weight to push heavy vehicles; the problem with horses meanwhile involves keeping the yoke in the right place, thereby avoiding strangulation when they are pulling with their long necks. This problem could be solved only partly with the invention of the yokesaddle (Littauer 1968). In recent years, many scholars have sought to prove domestication of the horse and its use as a beast of burden during the Eneolithic, discussion now focusing on the ridden horse (see Anthony & Brown, Chapter 5, this volume). During the Bronze Age, both elaborate trade and wheeled transport (by four-wheeled carts and spoke-wheeled chariots) are indicated (Vosteen 1999, 76f.). Conditions during Eneolithic times are considered to be more ‘primitive’. These projections of primitiveness also seem to be reflected in the reconstruction of ‘simple’ bridles (Lichardus 1980; Anthony & Brown 1991) and the use of the horse solely as a mount. Another argu189

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This is in contrast to the adaptation of horseback riding by the American Indians (Anthony 1994): even if we exclude the possibility that the Indians had learned how the new species could be used, the animals they were dealing with had been bred over many generations for riding. Another problem with regard to riding can be seen in the difficulties which the un-schooled horse faces with regard to the weight of the rider. The muscles of the belly and back are, initially, quite weak and have to be built up. The disturbed balance of the horse caused by the weight of the rider proves to be even more troublesome; the degree of disturbance depends on the relation of the rider’s weight to that of the horse. The animal will try to re-gain its balance by increasing speed, sometimes even bolting. Horseback riding is possible only when the rider, more or less aware of the horse’s problems, helps the horse to balance the strange, frightening burden on its back. Of course, breaking in a horse was and is often undertaken quickly and violently, possibly involving devices which cause pain might. But this is not the rule. In his tenth book about the horseman Xenophon stressed the fact that a good horse has to be schooled carefully. Therefore one should not conclude that early horse keepers or even specialized hunters familiar with horse behaviour only had to realize the advantages of using the horse as a beast of burden in order to be able to make use of it at once (Clutton-Brock 1992, 22f.). Today horsemen, like their historic ancestors, act consciously with specific expectations as to the results of their efforts, based on a long tradition of horsemanship. Moreover, the horses involved are domestic (perhaps living wild), their behaviour, especially concerning tolerance of humans and their demands, being affected by man and only, to a very limited extent, comparable with that of wild horses. Even where it was possible to exploit wild horses3 for work (Levine 1999a, 36ff.), this was done by internalizing all mechanisms for subduing and schooling horses. Concerning draught, carriage and harness technology was already understood, based on experience of hitching cattle. When, for the first time, the horse felt the weight of, and was inescapably followed by the carriage, the danger of bolting was minimized by the heaviness involved and the resultant awkwardness of the disc-wheeled carriage that held it back, helping to make it tired and calm down. Moreover, early draught animals were always used in pairs,4 the horse being accompanied by another animal, thereby feeling more secure and becoming less excited.

ment is, that horse herding is possible only on horseback (for example Bökönyi 1993, 26), and therefore it is not necessary to discuss the question of horseback riding (Hüttel 1994, 202). Even in situations where horse domestication can not be proved, the idea of using tamed horses for special purposes is presented as quite plausible (Levine 1999b, 44). In discussions about early horse riding, it is usually seen as some inborn function of the horse which had only to be detected by man in order to be exploited — not as a skill which needed to be developed by the horse. So the question arises: what does riding on horseback really mean for the animal, and how is it possible to keep it under control, even at dangerous and critical moments? Prerequisites for horseback riding One fundamental prerequisite for using equids as beasts of burden is the hierarchical structure of their societies. Dominance, and thus submission, belongs to the behaviour of those animals, and therefore humans can be incorporated into the hierarchical system of each individual. Only the willingness of the horse to co-operate owing to its innate social behaviour makes it possible to direct the horse not only by leading it: this is the basis for making its advantages, above all speed, available for humankind.2 As a rule, the horse’s reaction to negative stimuli consists of avoidance thereof, reactions which might even include panicked flight. Horses also usually try to overcome unpleasant situations (such as aggressive action of a higher-ranked animal or the presence of humans) by escaping rather than provoking a conflict. Therefore, dealing with horses requires confidence; a loss of confidence will make the horse shy, and handling will become even more difficult if not dangerous (Lebelt 1993, 89ff.). The process of being mounted involves extraordinary stress for the horse’s confidence in humans because the rider then sits in a position which is typical of an attacking predator. This situation — in which the horse is the prey — is perceived of as extremely negative. Without careful preparation, the animal will display a violent defensive reaction (bucking, rearing, bolting), a reaction which might even now be seen in broken or schooled horses. One can quite safely suppose that the ability to withstand a load in the middle of the back was just one criterion of selection in domestic horses — once the horse was being used as a beast of burden. There is little reason to suppose that this ability is a feature of only recently tamed horses. 190

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It is not possible to discuss here the influence of the horse’s physical type on its use for riding or draught. However it should be taken into consideration that the Przewalski horse has a very specific physique. These animals have a very short, thick neck and a heavy head; the muscles of the lower neck are therefore very strong and enable it to fight manual aids quite easily. In addition, the rear quarters are relatively weak. Therefore riding on the back of a Przewalski horse would lay much more weight on its front quarters than it does in domestic horses (see Volf 1996, 79, fig. 53). Balance could easily be disturbed, and falling into (narrow) turns would therefore become quite difficult. On the other hand, these peculiarities in shape would be less of a nuisance when pulling a cart; the straps of the yoke would be less likely to cause strangulation and, with the weight of the body near the base of the pole, it would be relatively easy to overcome inertia. Summing up, it is evident that the development of riding is not a simple and obvious consequence of horse taming or even domestication. It rather demanded, of the potential rider, a clear picture of his intention and awareness of the psychological limits of the horse as well as, to the same degree, the physical difficulties which had to be overcome. This projection equates the invention of riding with the intentional development of an idea. Even if there were episodes of such intensive development, the gap between taming horses and actually mounting them is too great to have been crossed in just a few generations of early horse husbandry.

horseback riding comprises artefacts especially developed for the purpose, such as saddles, stirrups and spurs. Artefacts which are unequivocally associated with saddles are not recorded before the first millennium BC (the Pazyryk saddles). Stirrups and spurs date to the same time or later (Clutton-Brock 1992, 73ff.). The appearance of a horse or bridle as a burial gift might be viewed as an indication of horseback riding; but as discussion of the ‘Cimmerian’ chariot graves shows (Erlich 1994, 32f.; Dietz 1998, 184), the number of horses and bridles in a grave is not an unambiguous criterion for differentiation between riders and drivers. This argument, however, is not relevant when discussing early horseback riding, for horses as burial gifts appear only in the third millennium BC (Benecke 1994, 40). Further proof of horseback riding might be seen in the development of specific implements for the control of the animal, but it should be recognized that it is very difficult to distinguish archaeologically between equipment for riding and driving. Bridles were invented in order to direct fast-moving animals. There are certain artefacts reconstructed as bridle elements (Dietz 1992) dating at least to the fourth millennium BC, i.e. in the period of horse domestication. Some understanding of the function of bridles is necessary if we are to consider their use in ancient times, but it should not be forgotten that their impact is only one of the driver’s or rider’s aids. The effects of weight, leg aids, voice and whips are as important as the reins etc., but are perceived less distinctly, perhaps because of the importance of both hands and tools in the perception of humans.

Archaeological evidence for horseback riding There is little reliable archaeological evidence for horseback riding, and what does exist is, as a rule, later than the period discussed as the beginning of horse husbandry (see also Levine 1999b, 9f.). The argument for the necessity for horseback riding as a prerequisite for herding horses is not very helpful here. As has been shown above, the development of horseback riding required a certain cohabitation of humans and horses. It must therefore have been possible to keep horses intensively without mounting them. Most reliable are depictions of people sitting on horseback and written accounts of ‘riding’, although these should only be cautiously accepted as proof that horseback riding was practised regularly. In addition, these do not relate to the period before the third millennium BC (Levine 1999b, 9) and are therefore too recent to be relevant to the question discussed here. Another very important form of evidence for

Function of bridles Bridles are placed on the head because of the concentration of sensory organs and nerves in this area of the horse’s anatomy; this has the greatest effect on the horse. Moreover, its neck is relatively unstable because of its length, which makes it possible — to a certain degree — to pull the head around by force. Apart from bridles with a bit, many kinds of bitless bridles are known. They all affect the sensitive parts of the head. First of all, the bridge of the nose should be mentioned, where most bridles, from the simple halter to hackamores with metal nosepieces and very long cheeks, make contact with the head. Most bridles stimulate several parts of the head, in addition to the nose, curb and poll, although few bridles have their main impact on the curb-groove. 191

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As a result of light impact on the nose, the reaction is likely to be a reflex; the horse will avoid any knock or soft pressure on the nose and will pull back its head. Doing this while moving, the horse will slow down (Potratz 1966, 87). The horse loses its sensitivity and reacts with protraction if impact is too hard and takes too long a time. It is also possible, to some extent, to draw back the head by force, and for this kind of impact hackamores with long cheeks that work as levers to reinforce the tension of the reins (Dietz 1998, 8) are employed. The simplest form of bitless bridle involves reins attached on both sides of the halter. With this construction it is easily possible to indicate the demanded change of direction: by pulling a rein there is an impact on the opposite cheek which is avoided by turning the head. This impact might be enforced by using studs on the noseband (Littauer 1969, 291), cavessons (Littauer 1969, 293, fig. 4) or by levers (for example, the hackamore). Thus, with bitless bridles instructions can be transmitted in a simple way and are easily understood by the horse. On the other hand the effect of bridles with bits is much more complicated. The impact of bits is through pressure on the corner of the lips, on the tongue, and on the toothless part between the molars and incisors (the diastema). These parts of the mouth are very sensitive, therefore very delicate communication should be used as much as possible with or instead of fierce, violent impact. The reaction to the bit’s impact is not a reflex; the horse has to learn the meaning of the signals transmitted with that device. In theory the horse will try to avoid the pressure of the bit on the jaws by pulling the head back and therefore slowing down. The unschooled horse will feel the bit as something irksome or even troublesome and try to get rid of it (Podhajsky 1968, 76); in any case it will probably raise its head. This reaction was depicted in ancient times (for example Clutton-Brock 1992, 114, fig. 8.8). It will be reinforced by the fact that in situations perceived of as negative, horses will always try to look round and get the head away from the endangered area; a horse will therefore try to keep its head as high as possible. But, contrary to this desire, pulling the head back as demanded by the rider causes a reduction in the field of vision. Under no circumstances will the horse understand the rein-aids if they are reinforced, and it is evident that the horse can not understand the aids by themselves. When the bit is used for a turn, the need to learn signals from the bit becomes evident. There is a difference between modern riding based on Euro-

pean traditions where there is always light contact between the rider’s hand and the horse’s mouth (the ‘Anlehnung’), and other ways of riding (for example in the Western style) where the reins are loose. In order to be led in a turn in the Anlehnung, the horse first has to understand the stronger impact (when the reins are shortened) for turning its head and then the lesser impact (when the rein is yielded) as an order to walk in that direction (Grundausbildung 1986, 65ff.).5 This is the same demand as the pressure caused by pulling the loose rein in order to turn the head and to walk in that direction. The situation is more complicated with a non-jointed mouthpiece, for example a curb bit which, by pulling one rein too heavily, creates an impact on the opposite upper jaw. When reins are kept very tense while moving at speed, often seen in ancient depictions (for example Crouwel 1992, pls. 29:1 & 31:3), it is difficult to reinforce the impact of the bit; perhaps turning aids worked in the manner of the Anlehnung, when direction is indicated by lessening the impact of the bit. In no case is a horse able to understand a demand transmitted by the bit alone owing to fear of the bit as a cause of pain. As mentioned above horses react to negative stimuli by trying to avoid them; in the case of the bit causing pain they will try to run away, perhaps pulling and bolting. The more the bit aches the faster the horse will try to extricate itself from the situation. Only when the bit is understood as an instrument of communication can the impact be reinforced and thus work by threatening the horse with pain. The thinner the bars of the bit, the more impact they have on a single point and the sharper their impact in relation to the tension of the reins. Torsion of the bars and bars provided with studs (both of which are observed on prehistoric bits) were intended to make the bit stronger (for example Werner 1988, pls. 25:192, 26:194 [snaffle bits with studs]; pl. 32:236– pl. 33:244 [snaffle bits with twisted bars]; pl. 36:267– pl. 56:338 [curb bits with studs]). The studs and the edges of the twisted bars are intended to cause pain at the corner of the lips, the jaw and the tongue in order for the impact to be reinforced and simultaneously prevent the horse from holding or pushing away the bit with the tongue. Resistance to the bit can, however, often be observed; the horse opens its mouth (the reaction, very often depicted in ancient times [for example Crouwel 1992, pls. 14, 15:2, 16:2 & 29:1], is today corrected by a nose-band), tosses its head and tries to evade the impact of the bit by bending the neck until the reins 192

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are sagging (the horse is then behind the bit: for example Crouwel 1992, pl. 11:1) or by raising the head, perhaps until the nose line is horizontal. Bit pressure on the diastema is thereby prevented (the horse is above the bit: see for example Crouwel 1992, pl. 15:2). The latter reaction can often be seen shortly before bolting and coincides with the horse’s efforts to broaden its optical range. Bridles impacting on the horse’s poll should prevent this; the horse tries to avoid pressure on the poll by bowing its head. Other ‘antidotes’ include the diversion of the reins through a loop (draw-reins, martingales) or general limitation of the head’s mobility by using side-reins, tie-downs etc. Bridles with cheeks, for example curbbits or hackamores, as a rule also impact on the poll because the bit is not the end of the lever but rotates and therefore reinforces the tension of the rein. Moreover a curb strap or the curb chain should prevent the horse from drawing back the head excessively. The horse thereby evades the impact of the bit by being behind the bit or ‘overbent’ (for example Crouwel 1992, pls. 5:3 & 16). The posture caused by this attitude shows extreme tension of the back and is often released by bucking. The terrets on ancient chariots might therefore have helped not only to keep the reins in order but also to guarantee that the impact of the bit occurred on the sensitive parts of the mouth (see for example Littauer & Crouwel 1979, fig. 44, where reins run at an angle). The function of the bit is therefore not simple and requires preparation and schooling of the horse. The need to prepare the horse before mounting for the first time has already been shown (Brown & Anthony 1998, 340). In view of the large number of methods which have been used in history (see for example the Kikkuli text [Raulwing 1999] or the training methods recorded among the Scythians [Rolle 1996, 772]), including modern ‘horse-whisperers’, the difficulties of reconstructing methods of schooling horses in prehistoric times are obvious; nor is it possible to reconstruct in detail the manner of riding that was practised. The need for a certain development of human skills in handling horses also becomes evident. It is obvious that the skills and techniques necessary for this had to be developed over time and required a lot of experience in the handling of horses.

Figure 13.1. Modern snaffle bit made of a copper alloy with traces of horse teeth. (Littauer 1969, 289ff.). No Eneolithic artefacts have thus far been found which can be reconstructed as convincing mouthpieces. The question of tooth deformation interpreted as traces of bit wear has been discussed intensively (see Anthony & Brown, Chapter 5, this volume). Biting on the bit (maybe even chewing) noted by Anthony & Brown (1991) as the reason for bit wear is not only a reaction onto the impact of the bit but may also occur as a general reaction to the bridle. Even if these deformations were caused by artefacts put in the horses’ mouth,6 there is no evidence for their use as implements of direction or even riding. Conversely, there should also be artefacts showing bit wear caused by horse teeth (Fig. 13.1); as far as I know, the impact of horse teeth on artefacts has not yet been investigated. There are no unequivocal indications for bits until the later third millennium BC, when there are traces of bronze or copper bits on donkeys’ teeth, and the first artefact which can be reliably interpreted as a horse bit is a bronze mouthpiece with wheel-shaped cheek-pieces from Haror in Egypt, dating from the seventeenth century BC (Littauer & Crouwel 2001, 333). There are several types of artefact, however, that are postulated to be the cheekpieces of bridles. These have been discussed in detail (Dietz 1992); they are the double-pointed antler tools of the Ostorf type, the antler and bone plates of the Sabatinovka type, the tines of antler of the Dereivka type, and the copper wire loops of the Maikop type (Figs. 13.2–13.5). Most artefacts of this kind show similar features: a rod-like element with a central opening or loop. The only possibility for reconstructing them is a relatively simple bridle with the mouthpiece passing through the central opening or attached to the loop. The cheek straps of the headstall have to be

The archaeological evidence for bridles As a rule prehistoric bridles are assumed to have had bits, although the probability of bitless bridles preceding those with bits has already been shown 193

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example the Late Hallstatt curved cheek-pieces,7 but these were stabilized by the cheek straps fixed in openings or eyes, sometimes placed even at the ends (Dehn 1980). In addition, both ends of Ostorf-type artefacts are pointed; as they cannot be stabilized enough, the longer specimens in particular would move when the horse is moving quickly and might irritate the animal or even hurt its eyes (the replica used by Lichardus (1980) was the same length as the shorter examples of Ostorf type). Because of the very large opening (about 3 cm in length) the mouthpiece barely helps stabilize the cheek-pieces, even if the mouthpiece were wound around the side parts of the opening (Lichardus 1980). On initial inspection the Füzesabony-type Bronze Age bone cheek-pieces look similar (Hüttel 1982, no. 35, pl. A:35), but they have small tubes at the ends where straps, probably of the headstall, could be attached. The small socket in the middle of Ostorf artefacts is on the spongiosa side; therefore the polished side of the artefact could not be used as the exposed side, and the function of this socket on a bridle is not clear. With the exception of the mouthpiece, bridle parts found in burial complexes usually occur in pairs. Ostorf artefacts have been found in graves, but normally only as single items. There is one grave containing two, but these differ slightly and do not seem to match. Given that most of the Ostorf artefacts have been found in hunter-fisher contexts use in hunting-fishing is more likely. They compare well to items unearthed from Middle Neolithic hunting and fishing complexes and should be understood as tools belonging to the range of activities associated with this special economy (see for example Werning 1983, 50). The other Eneolithic artefacts described as ‘cheek-pieces’ are distributed over the North Pontic area (the Sabatinovka and the Dereivka type) and the Northern Caucasus (the Maikop type). Assuming the plate-like artefacts of Sabatinovka type (Fig. 13.3) to have been cheek-pieces, the bridle must be reconstructed in the same way as the Ostorf type, with similar problems. The construction might be less labile, because the laterally-attached central opening is smaller than in the Ostorf type. On the other hand, the opening is too small for the mouthpiece, and in some cases there is no opening at all. In addition, the position at the edge of the artefact might easily cause the opening to break. The third type of artefact, Maikop bronze loops (Munchaev 1973) (Fig. 13.4), can only be reconstructed with the ‘simple’ bridle. The mouthpiece must be attached to the central loop, with the cheek straps on the prolongations. The presence of bulges

attached to both sides of the central opening; these straps stabilize the cheekpiece, but they cannot keep it in place without the bit; this is why a bitless bridle can hardly be reconstructed from these artefacts. The reins finally have to be attached to the cheek-piece or directly to the mouthpiece. The crucial feature is thus the symmetrical character of the ‘cheek-piece’ with the large opening in the middle of the bar and the long ends (Lichardus 1980, fig. 5.6). The bridle reconstructed with ‘cheekpieces’ is as simple as an early bridle (‘Urtrense’) could be expected to be. Without any doubt it is possible to reconstruct and use most of the artefacts listed as cheek-pieces on bridles as described above; but the reason is not that they can be firmly accepted as bridle elements, but that nearly any horse schooled on the bit can be directed with the ‘simple’ bridle (see for exFigure 13.2. Doubleample the experiments of pointed antler tool of the Lichardus 1980). Ostorf type from The four types of arTangermünde, Kr. tefact mentioned above Stendal, Germany. have some peculiarities which must be taken into consideration when reconstructing them as eneolithic ‘cheek-pieces’. A shared feature is that they have not been found in contexts unequivocally documented as that of horse breeders (Dietz 1992; Häusler 1994, 231ff.; Trifonov 1987; Rassamakin 1999). The double-pointed antler pieces of Ostorf type (Fig. 13.2), which occur in Central Europe and are up to 28.5 cm long would appear to be too long for cheek-pieces, especially when considering that they could only be stabilized by tying end loops of the cheek straps around or near the central opening. There are some very large later cheek-pieces, for 194

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Figure 13.3. Bone plate of the Sabatinovka type.

Figure 13.4. Copper wire loop of the Maikop type from Maikop. (After Munchaev 1973.)

Figure 13.5. Antler tine of the Dereivka type with two openings from Dereivka, r. Onufrievka, o. Kirovograd, Ukraine.

on the ends prevent the cheek straps from easily slipping off. The wooden lining proposed by Chernyakov & Shmaglii (1983, 11ff., figs. 1–3, 9 & 10) would not allow the stable attachment of the headstall, the reins and the bit which are reconstructed as being tied only around the central loop of the wire (Chernyakov & Shmaglii 1983, fig. 10). It is difficult to imagine how the nose- and curb-straps on this headstall (Chernyakov & Shmaglii 1983, fig. 9) might have been attached to the ‘psalia’. Artefacts of neither the Sabatinovka not Maikop types have been found in pairs in funeral contexts, and in no instance were they found in contexts reliably connected with horses or other equids (Häusler 1994, 235f.). There are several interpretations for the Sabatinovka type that would doubtless fit better (Rassamakin 1999), for example as parts of clothing or tools for braiding. This could also be assumed for the Maikop type — even if there is a very interesting alternative interpretation as a cultic symbol (Trifonov 1987, 20ff.). The problem is different with regard to the antler tines of the Dereivka type, for there is at least one example with more than a single central opening.8 This artefact, a fragment from Dereivka broken at the second opening (Fig. 13.5), has been reconstructed as a Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age cheek-piece with two or three openings protruding in the same direction (Telegin 1986, 82f., fig. 51:3). Apart from the fact that the construction of Late Bronze Age bridles (Fig. 13.7) with specific connection of mouth-

Figure 13.6. Antler tine of the Dereivka type with cutting marks on the end from Dereivka.

and cheek-pieces was probably developed for metal bits (Dietz 1998), examination of the Dereivka artefact shows that the openings are not oriented inexactly the same way (Fig. 13.5). In addition, working marks might be seen on the end. It seems more probable that one of the antler tools distributed very widely in Eneolithic contexts of the North Pontic region (for example Rassamakin 1999, 146, figs. 3.54 & 8.13) had broken in two and was perforated once again. The other perforated tines from Dereivka (Telegin 1986, 16, figs. 12:6; 25, 18:11 & 84, 51:1 & 51.2) should not be reconstructed in the same way. Some of them show clearly visible cut marks on the proximal ends (Fig. 13.6) and were therefore intended to be of asymmetrical shape. Reconstruction as cheekpieces is therefore unlikely, for the (very small) opening could only retain the mouthpiece and the reins. They could also not serve as rod-shaped cheek-pieces, preventing the mouthpiece from being drawn through the mouth and supporting the lateral reinaids. There would also be no possibility of securely attaching both cheek straps necessary to construct the ‘simple’ bridle. A more reliable possibility for determining the function of this artefact might be seen in a careful visual examination of the working traces on the tip, suggesting that the artefacts might have served as tools. There are also some alleged bridle elements from Botai. The ‘cheek-piece’ published by Zaibert (1993, 177, fig. 54:6) is reconstructed as part of a very 195

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a

b Figure 13.7. Reconstruction of a Late Bronze Age headstall with its specific simple structure: 1) head piece; 2) browband; 3) throat lash; 4) cheek-piece (strap); 5) noseband; 6) cheek-piece (psalia); 7) rein.

Figure 13.8. : Bitless bridles with rigid noseband: a) hackamore; b) bosal. (After Grundausbildung 1986.)

complicated and unstable bridle. Reconstruction of the antler piece (of which there appears to be no matching counterpart) as part of a composite cheekpiece suggests a very complicated bridle. Apart from the very weak and unstable cheek-piece there is the same problem of the asymmetrical structure of the artefact. Unfortunately there is no description, nor is there a published photograph. Therefore the way in which the straps were attached is difficult to reconstruct. It is not clear if this is the same kind of artefact as the primitive cheek-piece from Savin of which Masson told Bökönyi (Bökönyi 1993, 36) and which should have marks on the inner side caused by polishing by horse hair. There is no depiction of the artefact; but if the inner side of it really was polished by movement on hair (apart from the difficulty involved in defining the species) it could hardly have worked as the cheek-piece with a bit for the region around the horse’s mouth is hairless. Summing up, alleged cheek-pieces from the Eneolithic cannot unequivocally be reconstructed as bridle elements. In addition, the ‘simple’ bridle can only barely be inserted into the typological development of bridles. The primitiveness of Eneolithic bridles as a starting-point of very complex developments appears to be convincing. But in Europe and Central Asia the variation in ‘cheek-pieces’ claimed for the Bronze Age (Hüttel 1982), points to a variety of

headstalls and bridles. Plate-, disc- and rod-shaped artefacts have very different arrangements of openings, eyes, sockets and cones; this probably reflects many ‘experimental forms’ of bridle, until a certain standardization in bridles may be assumed in the Late Bronze Age — with the appearance of the Mörigentype cheek-pieces (Hüttel 1982, 117ff. no. 135–64). Only this bridle will be of the ‘simple’ variety, with the two parts of the cheek straps attached to the outer openings of the cheek-pieces and the mouthpiece fixed in the central loop (Fig. 13.7). This kind of bridle represents a type of harness that was so successful that, in the Late Bronze Age, it was distributed throughout Eurasia and since then only a few have changed (Dietz 1998, 18, fig. 5). Should the simplicity of this construction really be regarded as marking the beginning of the development of many very complex experimental forms? Would this ‘simple’ construction not be better seen as the result of many efforts at optimization? Bitless bridles In view of the great variety in form and frequency of openings observable on Bronze Age cheek-pieces (Hüttel 1982) we may suppose that at least several of them were elements of bitless bridles. On these bridles, the nose-band probably played the leading part; the reins were attached to the cheek-pieces. The nose196

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band, as a rule, used on pre-Scythian and Scythian bridles might be regarded as reminiscent of those bitless bridles (Fig. 13.7). It has already been shown (Littauer 1969, 293ff.) that development probably proceeded from the dropped noseband to the bit. Unfortunately the cheek-pieces as a rule are published as drawings rather than photographs. The very important marks left by the straps of the headstall, the reins and possibly the mouthpiece can therefore be investigated from publications only with difficulty. Bitless bridles should not therefore be assumed to be constructed of straps (leather, rope); rigid constructions should also be taken into consideration like the modern bosal. In this bridle the rigid noseband is constructed around a core of raw hide or bent wood. The reins are attached to the part under the chin; the rigid noseband therefore works as a kind of lever (Fig. 13.8). Perhaps the dentated rims of the plate-formed cheek-pieces of Komarovka and CÙelkar type (Hüttel 1982, no. 1–11) were part of such bridles, as much as the disc-shaped cheek-pieces with studs (Hüttel 1982, no. 12–22). The spikes would help to reinforce the lateral aids, while the dentated parts might have enforced the impact on the bridge of the nose. Equine aggressive behaviour should also be taken into consideration when considering the function of bridles, both with and without bits, As is known, wild equids are noticeably more aggressive than domestic horses. Intraspecific aggression in Przewalski’s horses often leads to severe injuries (Houpt 1994, 159ff.). Aggressive behaviour against humans is reported (Volf 1996, 79). When handling tamed or recently-domesticated horses, a critical distance must have often been passed. In order to minimize the dangers of biting, any contact with the horse’s mouth should be avoided and if possible the mouth tied up. Devices of this kind are seen on the equids depicted on the ‘Standard of Ur’, on shell layers from Mari (Littauer & Crouwel 1979, figs. 3 & 12) and can also be reconstructed in Western Zhou harness (Wang & Huang 1984, 23, fig. 18). When tying up the mouth of a horse, the bit can not be employed: when bitting the horse, the mouth has to be released. Involving a very sensitive part of the horse renders the situation more difficult. In my opinion, when the horse was first bridled for work, use of the halter, tied to varying degrees, was much more probable than the use of bits.

reflexes; the horse has to learn the significance of the impact. The use of the bit assumes that the rider is aware of the way in which it functions while the signals transmitted by it have to be learned by the horse. The use of the bit therefore suggests lots of prerequisites that are not to be expected in occasional access to horses. Instead it is based on an elaborate technique involved in breaking and schooling of horses. Its use requires knowledge of its function and of the horse’s schooling. The aids transmitted by a bitless bridle, however, are more easily understood by the horse than those of the bit; it therefore seems reasonable to assume that bitless bridles, probably evolved from the simple halter for leading or tethering for grazing, had been used first for directing the horse from horseback or from a vehicle. Conclusion Without any doubt, horseback riding requires less equipment than does driving: only one animal is necessary (not a team), no equipment (except the bridle) and neither vehicle nor road. On the other hand horseback riding, especially wild horses, requires specific knowledge of equine behaviour and the development of certain techniques designed to overcome the difficulties caused by the physical and psychological problems faced by the horse and to be able to direct it and to be master of it in any situation. Moving slowly, the horse working as a beast of burden or hitched to a heavy vehicle was easy to lead. Knowledge and equipment used for driving or guidance developed from the tradition of hitching cattle. There is little evidence for horseback riding prior to the first millennium BC, and none unequivocally acceptable for the period discussed for the beginning of horse-keeping. Nevertheless, there are a few artefacts which might have acted as cheek-pieces; the development of bridles implies the use a fast-moving horse and therefore access to speed. Reconstructing certain artefacts as bridles remains unconvincing. The question of early use of horse power can therefore not be answered by reconstructing bridles. The only reliable solution is palaeopathological research on horses (Levine 1999b, 45ff.). The stress caused by both riding and driving, and the degenerative changes caused simply by husbandry (e.g. laminitis, visible in the degenerative changes of the distal phalanx etc.) or the damage caused by the likes of cribbing and weaving, provide more reliable evidence for the domestication of the horse and the way it was used in prehistory.

Summing up, the bit can be regarded as a very elaborate instrument for communication which can also be used to threaten and, to a certain degree, cause pain. Its effect in directing the horse is not based on 197

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Anthony, D. & D. Brown, 1991. The origins of horseback riding. Antiquity 65, 22–38. Benecke, N., 1994. Tierdomestikationen in Europa in vorund frühgeschichtlicher Zeit: Neue Daten zu einem alten Thema. Berichte der Römisch-Germanischen Kommission 74, 1993, 5–47. Bökönyi, S., 1993. Pferdedomestikation, Haustierhaltung und Ernährung. (Archaeolingua Series Minor 3.) Budapest: Archaeolingua Alapítvány. Bökönyi, S., 1994. Domestiziertes Pferd in den asiatischen Steppen, in Hänsel & Zimmer (eds.), 115–22. Bouman, I. & J. Bouman, 1994. The history of Przewalski’s horse, in Boyd & Houpt (eds.), 195–228. Boyd, L. & K.A. Houpt (eds.), 1994. Przewalski’s Horse: the History and Biology of an Endangered Species. Albany (NY): State University of New York Press. Brown, D. & D. Anthony, 1998. Bit wear, horseback riding an the Botai site in Kazakstan. Journal of Archaeological Science 25, 331–47. Chernyakov, I.T. & M.M. Shmaglii, 1983. Derevyani psalii yamnoi kultury. Arkheologiya (Kiev) 42, 10–16. Clutton-Brock, J., 1992. Horse Power: a History of the Horse and the Donkey in Human Societies. London: Natural History Museum Publications. Crouwel, J.H., 1992. Chariots and other Wheeled Vehicles in Iron Age Greece. (Allard Pierson series 9.) Amsterdam: Allard Pierson. Dehn, W., 1980. Einige Bemerkungen zu hallstattzeitlichen Trensen Sloweniens. Situla 20/21 (Zbornik posvec&en Stanetu Gabrovcu ob s&estdesetletnici), 325–32. Dietz, U.L., 1992. Zur Frage vorbronzezeitlicher Trensenbelege in Europa. Germania 70, 17–36. Dietz, U.L., 1998. Spätbronze- und früheisenzeitliche Trensen im Nordschwarzmeergebiet und im Nordkaukasus. (Prähistorische Bronzefunde XVI, 5.) Stuttgart: Steiner. Eckolt, M., 1986. Die Schiffbarkeit kleiner Flüsse in alter Zeit. Notwendigkeit, Vorraussetzung und Entwicklung einer Rechenmethode. Archäologisches Korrespondenzblatt 16, 203–6. Erlich, V.R., 1994. U Istokov Ranneskifskogo Kompleksa. Moscow: Naukova dumka. Groves, C.P., 1994. Morphology, habitat, and taxonomy, in Boyd & Houpt (eds.), 39–60. Grundausbildung, 1986. Grundausbildung für Reiter und Pferd 1, ed. Deutsche Reiterliche Vereinigung e. V. Warendorf: FN-Verlag der Deutschen Reiterlichen Vereinigung. Hanc&ar, F., 1955. Das Pferd in prähistorischer und früher historischer Zeit. Vienna/Münich: Herold. Hänsel, B. & S. Zimmer 1994. Die Indogermanen und das Pferd: Akten des Internationalen interdisziplinären Kolloquiums Freie Universität Berlin, 1.–3. Juli 1992. Bernfried Schlerath zum 70. Geburtstag gewidmet. (Archaeolingua 4.) Budapest: Archaeolingua Alapítvány. Häusler, A., 1994. Archäeologische Zeugnisse für Pferd und Wagen in Ost- und Mitteleuropa, in Hänsel & Zimmer (eds.), 217–57. Häusler, A., 1996. Invasionen aus den nordpontischen Steppen nach Mitteleuropa im Neolithikum und in

Acknowledgements I am very much indebted to Dietrich Dirksen, and especially to Jeannette Werning, both Frankfurt a.M., for comments, discussion and proofreading. Notes 1. 2.

3.

4.

5. 6.

7. 8.

The importance of transport by boas even on small rivers must not be forgotten: Eckolt 1986; Vosteen 1999, 48f. The possibility of social behaviour caused by living in complex societies with submittance and obedience can also be observed with the other beasts of burden, like bovids, camelids, elephants, reindeer or dogs. Unfortunately, it is probably not always clear whether animals are really wild or feral; cf. the problem of the Tarpan (Groves 1994, 55–7). The few surviving examples of Przewalski horse are the descendants of only twelve animals, nearly all of which were captured at the beginning of the twentieth century as foals and nursed by domestic horses (Bouman & Bouman 1994). The species became extinct in the wild at least by the 1960s and could only survive in captivity, and has therefore been influenced by human interference (for example, the exchange of related individuals to prevent inbreeding or the removal of individuals that are supposed not to be ‘pure’ etc.). Even genetic impact of domestic horses is ascertained in a part of these horses (one of the domestic foster-mothers was used for breeding with the Przewalski horses) and cannot be excluded for former times although it is said not to be very probable (Ryder 1994). The ‘Chariot of the Sun’ from Trundholm where only one horse is depicted in front of the vehicle shows the peculiarity that neither the pole nor the traces are part of the carriage. Moreover, also the horse is put on the frame, on the same level as the sun disc. The sculpture has to be seen as a part of cultic devices; it was probably never intended to be an illustration of reality in transport. Strictly speaking, it is permission to walk in that direction; the impulse is given by the leg aids. The problem could perhaps be compared with the discussion of the marks on Late Bronze Age deer teeth alleged to have been caused by cords used for bridling the animals (Pucher 1986); they are probably caused by natural reasons, i. e. chemical and mechanical-abrasive influences in the oral cavity (Müller 1980, 150f.). I am very much indebted to M.A. Littauer for pointing this out. I am very much indebted to D.Y. Telegin for the possibility to re-examine several pieces from Dereivka.

References Anthony, D., 1994. The earliest horseback riders and IndoEuropean origins: new evidence from the steppes, in Hänsel & Zimmer (eds.), 185–95.

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der Bronzezeit: Realität oder Phantasieprodukt? Archäologische Informationen 19, 75–88. Houpt, K.A., 1994. Veterinary care, in Boyd & Houpt (eds.), 143–72. Hüttel, H.-G., 1982. Bronzezeitliche Trensen in Mittel- und Osteuropa. (Prähistorische Bronzefunde XVI, 2.) München: C.H. Beck’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung. Hüttel, H.-G., 1994. Zur archäeologischen Evidenz der Pferdenutzung in der Kupfer- und Bronzezeit, in Hänsel & Zimmer (eds.), 197–215. Lebelt, D., 1993. Problemverhalten beim Pferd. Stuttgart: Ferdinand Enke Verlag. Levine, M., 1999a. Botai and the origins of horse domestication. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 18, 29–78. Levine, M., 1999b. The origins of horse husbandry on the Eurasian steppe, in Levine et al. 1999, 5–58. Levine, M., Y. Rassamakin, A. Kislenko & N. Tatarintseva, 1999. Late Prehistoric Exploitation of the Eurasian Steppe. (McDonald Institute Monographs.) Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research. Lichardus, J., 1980. Zur Funktion der Geweihspitzen des Types Ostorf. Überlegungen zu einer vorbronzezeitlichen Pferdeschirrung. Germania 58, 1–24. Littauer, M.A., 1968. The function of the yoke saddle in ancient harnessing. Antiquity 42, 27–31. Littauer, M.A., 1969. Bits and pieces. Antiquity 43, 289–300. Littauer, M. & J. Crouwel, 1979. Wheeled Vehicles and Ridden Animals in the Ancient Near East. (Handbuch der Orientalistik 7. Abteilung, 1. Band, 2. Abschnitt, B – Vorderasien, Lieferung 1. Leiden: E.J. Brill. Littauer, M. & J. Crouwel, 2001. The earliest evidence for metal bridle bits. Oxford Journal of Archaeology 20(4), 329–38. Müller, H.-H., 1980. Keilförmige Defekte an fossilen und subfossilen Tierzähnen und ihre Bedeutung für die archäologische Forschung, in Festschrift für Hans K. Stampfli: Beiträge zu Archäozoologie, Archäologie, Anthropologie, Gieologie und Paläontologie, eds. J. Schibler, J. Sedlmeier & H. Spycher. Basel: Helbing & Lichtenhahn, 147–52. Munchaev, R.M. 1973. Bronzovye psalii maikopskoi kultury i problema vozniknoveniya konevodstva na Kavkaze, in Kavkaz i Vostochnaya Evropa v Drevnosti. Moscow: Naukova dumka, 71–7. Podhajsky, A., 1968. Kleine Reitlehre. Münich: Nymphenburger Verlagshandlung. Potratz, J.A.H., 1966. Die Pferdetrensen des Alten Orient. (Analecta Orientalia. Commentationes scientificae de rebus orientis antiqui 41.) Rome: Pontificium institutum biblicum.

Pucher, E., 1986. Untersuchungen an Skeletten aus der urnenfelderzeitlichen Wehranlage von Stillfried an der March (Niederösterreich). Forschungen in Stillfried 7, 23–116. Rassamakin, Y., 1999. The Eneolithic of the Black Sea steppe: dynamics of cultural and economic development 4500–2300 BC, in Levine et al. 1999, 59–182. Raulwing, P., 1999. Neuere Forschungen zum Kikkuli-Text. Eine kleine Bestandsaufnahme trainingsinhaltlicher Interpretationen zu CTH 284 vier Jahrzehnte nach A. Kammenhubers Hippologia Hethitica, in Studia Celtica et Indogermanica: Festschrift für Wolfgang Meid zum 70. Geburtstag, eds. P. Anreiter & E. Jerem. (Archaeolingua 10.) Budapest: Archaeolingua Alapítány. Rolle, R., 1996. Rote Pferde — goldene Reiter: Betrachtungen zu den Pferden der Skythen, in Festschrift für Richard Pittioni zum siebzigsten Geburtstag I. Urgeschichte, eds. H. Mitscha-Märheim, H. Friesinger & H. Kerchler. (Archaeologia Austriaca Beiheft 13.) Vienna: Franz Deuticke; Horn: Ferdinand Berger und Söhne OHG, 756–76. Ryder, O.A., 1994. Genetic studies of Przewalski’s horses and their impact on conservation, in Boyd & Houpt (eds.), 75–92. Telegin, D.Y., 1986. Dereivka: a Settlement and Cemetery of Copper Age Horse Keepers on the Middle Dnieper. (British Archaeological Reports International Series 287.) Oxford: BAR. Trifonov, V.A., 1987. Nekotorye voprosy peredneaziatskich svyazei maikopskoi kultury. Kratkie Soobshcheniya Instituta Arkheologii 192 (1987), 18–26. Volf, J., 1996. Das Urwildpferd. Heidelberg: Spektrum Akademischer Verlag. Vosteen, M., 1999. Urgeschichtliche Wagen in Mitteleuropa: Eine archäologische und religionswissenschaftliche Untersuchung neolithischer bis hallstattzeitlicher Befunde. (Freiburger Archäologische Studien 3.) Rahden/Westf.: Verlag Marie Leidorf GmbH. Wang, W. & X. Huang, 1984. Neuere Ausgrabungen in Liulihe bei Peking. Beiträge zur Allgemeinen und Vergleichenden Archäologie 6, 1–30. Werner, W.W., 1988. Eisenzeitliche Trensen an der unteren und mittleren Donau. (Prähistorische Bronzefunde XVI, 4.) Münich: C.H. Beck. Werning, J., 1983. Die Geweihartefakte der neolithischen Moorsiedlung Hüde I am Dümmer, Kreis Grafschaft Diepholz. Neue Ausgrabungen und Forschungen in Niedersachsen 16, 21–87. Zaibert, V.F., 1993. Eneolit Uralo-Irtyshskogo mezhdurechia. Petropavlovsk: Nauka, Respublika Kazakhstan.

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Chapter 14 Origins of Pastoralism in the Eurasian Steppes Elena E. Kuzmina T

he study of steppe culture dynamics is very important for a number of reasons: 1. The steppe corridor from the Danube to China has long served as a contact zone for the Old World. Three types of culture meet here: those of the woodland hunters and fishermen of the north, herdsmen of the steppes, and cultivators of the south. New technologies and ideas spread and populations migrated, which is why, in the works of the philosophers of history, the steppe is looked upon as a Bickford fuse or a driving belt of civilization (A. Toynbee, F. Brodel, K. Jaspers). 2. A special type of economy with herding predominant has formed in the steppes. It is called ‘pastoralism’ or ‘nomadism’ but the interpretation of these terms, together with the time and modes of formation of nomadic herding, are highly debatable. 3. Many scholars consider the steppe region to be the centre of horse domestication, the use of the horse leading to important innovations in warfare, economy and trade. However, the origins of horse domestication, as well as methods of the first use of the horse provoke heated discussions (Renfrew 1999). 4. Schröder’s aphorism ‘No horse - no Indo-Europeans’ is still valid because the name for the horse itself, and the related terminology, are common for all Indo-European languages. The role of the horse is reflected in mythology and rituals (Howey 1923; Koppers 1936; Dumézil 1954; Ivanov 1974; Kuzmina 1977), e.g. in Schleswig-Holstein where the horses’ names are Horsa and Hengest — the names of two brothers/kings who conquered Britain (Gimbutas 1958, 41–5; Ward 1968, 54; Ivanov 1974, 102–3. Chariots are associated with heavenly and solar gods: Greek Zeus, Apollo and Helios, Indo-Iranian Varuna, Mitra and Suryah; horses with god-thunderers: Hittite Pirva, Lithuanian Perkunas, Slavic Perun (god-

snakefighter whose image has been confused with St George the Victorious and lives even today on Russian coins). The cult of twin-brothers in the form of two horses was widepread: Greek Dioskures, IndoIranian Nasatyah, English Horsa and Hengist. Their depictions in the form of two horses still crown the roofs of houses in Lithuania, Russia and India. In different Indo-European traditions a white horse is a sacred attribute of a king who rides it at coronations. When a king dies, the horse is sacrificed during the funeral. The tradition of burying the noble warrior together with his horse or its skin with skull and legs (by pars pro toto principle) is widespread. Finally, semantically Indo-European involves the complicated rite of horse sacrifice — Indian Ashvamedha, Celtic Iipomiidvos, Roman Eguus October. The major significance of the horse in IndoEuropean culture forces us to consider this factor when solving the problem of separation of IndoEuropean peoples before the break-up of the community. The development of the productive economy in the Eurasian steppe The productive economy originated in the Near East. This is where the genetic ancestors of cereals and sheep were singled out and where the domestication of pig and cattle initially took place. The whole complex has spread from there to secondary places of origin: 1) Balkans and the Danube area; 2) Transcaucasus; and 3) South of Central Asia and Afghanistan. Analysis of archaeological and archaeozoological material allows us to single out several successive stages in the economic development of the steppes distinguished by a change in ecology, the achieved level of production and different orientation of cultural links. The difficulty involved in re203

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constructing these inter-related processes is caused by: 1) unconformity of palaeogeographic schemes resulting from different methods (Kuzmina 1997); 2) a lack of spore-pollen analysis for a series of regions and ages; 3) many archaeozoological analyses are not acceptable because they are based on a small number of bones and therefore any exception is not representative. This leads to the wrong conclusions concerning the character of the herd and hunting; 4) lack of dendrochronological dates; 5) the small number of series of calibrated radiocarbon dates and problems inherent in chronological schemes for different areas of the steppe and adjacent territories. There is no allowance for synchronization of cultural processes in the steppes and co-ordination of their dynamics with ecological and demographic factors.

Linearbandkeramik Culture and Boian, the people of which were familiar with all the significant species (cattle, sheep, goat and swine). Their emergence in the steppes may be a result of either migration or cultural adoption. Tsalkin traced all breeds of these species raised in the steppes as far as Siberia in the Bronze and Iron Ages to Neolithic Southern European ancestors. Shnirelman (1980, 88–90; 1989, 177) assumed the influence of the Caucasian centre of the emergence of sheep-breeding. It cannot yet be strictly upheld however, since active contacts between the steppe population and the Caucasus have been established only for a later period. He recognized the West as the main source for the adoption of a productive economy in the steppes. Danilenko is of a different opinion (1968, 178, 181, 193; 1974, 85, 116–18). He supposed that at the end of the fifth to the beginning of the fourth millennium BC ‘the process of the formation of Ancient Yamnayaya (Pit-Grave) culture, which has left behind the sites like the upper layer of Djebel and the Yamnaya part of the Zaman-Baba cemetery, is coming to its end’ in the Caspian–Azov area. Westward migration of Kelteminar and ancient Yamnaya cultures occurred as a result of climatic desiccation and the overpopulation of the Caspian area. These cultures brought ovicaprids plus its Indo-European name to Europe. They also brought cattle, domesticated as a result of the joint efforts of Indo-Europeans and Turk-Altaians, from the Trans-Don east to Europe. We need to give some attention to the concept of the Central Asian origin of sheep-breeding and the early formation of the Yamnaya culture in the east with the participation of a Central Asian component since it has influenced many researchers, including Merpert (1974, 143–4) and Morgunova (1984, 19; 1995, 73, 86–9, 93). The latter, however, assumes the late arrival of ‘the Pit-Grave culture in the Urals from the west’ (Morgunova & Kravtsov 1994, 110). Danilenko’s hypothesis has already been severely criticized (Tsalkin 1972; Formozov 1972, 23, 31, 34; Kuzmina 1981; Shnirelman 1989, 177). All of its premises are groundless. 1. The inclusion of the Northern Caspian in the area of the Kelteminar culture was discounted by Vinogradov (1981, 164). Formozov (1959, 155) has drawn the border between two zones of the Neolithic — European and Asian — along the Emba river, noting their specifics. It was confirmed from the results of the study of numerous (including stratified) sites in the Northern Cas-

Stage one: the origin of a productive economy in the steppes Earliest evidence for the origin of a productive economy in the steppes is dated to the Neolithic and, in the west, is related to sites of the Bug–Dnestr culture where swine and cattle bones, as well as grains of emmer, einkorn and barley, were found (Danilenko 1968; Markevich 1974; Yanushevich 1986; Korobkova 1987). Evidence for a productive economy is also seen in the steppe cultural province demarcated by Vasilev & Vybornov (1988, 46–56). This includes finds of cattle and pig bones and harvesting knives on the sites of the Sura–Dnepr culture in the Ukraine as well as swine and cattle bones at Matveyev Kurgan I, II (Krizhevskaya 1978, 50; 1992, 97–104), and Rakushechnyi Yar (Belanovskaya 1978, 53) in the Don river area. The economy was complex with evidence of simultaneous cultivation and herding of several domesticated species. Bones of sheep were found in the Northern Caspian area and the Lower Volga at the sites of Latoshinka (Derevyagin & Tretyakov 1974, 210), Varfolomievka in Late Neolithic layer (Yudin 1995, 8) and Djungar (Koltsov 1986). The spread of a productive economy in the steppes was generated by the progressive influence of the population of Carpathian–Danube zone, contacts with which can be seen in the Bug–Dnestr culture. The influence of the latter is, in turn, visible on the Lower Don (Shnirelman 1980, 90; 1989, 175–8). This confirms the conclusions of Tsalkin (1970, 257, 265) which contrast with the opinion of Pidoplichko and Kraynov who assumed local domestication of several species of animals in Eastern Europe. Tsalkin thought that the earliest domestic animals appeared in Southeastern Europe among the tribes of the 204

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pian that: ‘There are differences in all basic parameters between the Neolithic cultures of the Caspian and the Aral areas’, ‘unconformity in cultural development is traced’ and we should ‘speak not only of cultural differences of these regions, but also their belonging to different cultural areas’ and attribute the Caspian ones to the western Caspian–Black-Sea range (Ivanov & Vasilev 1995, 121). 2. There was no shrinkage of the Caspian. The Neolithic is a time of increased humidity in Central Asia — the ‘Lyavlyakan pluvial’ (Vinogradov & Mamedov 1975, 234–55). The ecology allowed only the existence of appropriative economy with the domination of fishing on numerous lakes (Vinogradov et al. 1986). 3. Materials from Djebel make us treat them very carefully. Of eight layers at the site only the third is confidently dated. Imported pottery of ShahTepe III–II and Kizyl-Arvat from the turn of the third to second millennia BC (Okladnikov 1956, 201–5) was found there, the local rough pottery from the upper I–III layers of the Bronze Age being analogous to earthenware from the preceding IV and V layers related to the Neolithic, which makes us doubt the distribution of the materials by layer. Bones of jeyran (Gazella gutturosa), sheep and goat were found in all layers. An ox found in layer III was considered to be wild by Tsalkin (1956, 220–21). Noting that it is ‘extremely difficult to determine whether sheep and goat bones belonged to domestic animals or not’, he proposed that the ovicaprids bones from layers III and IV possibly belong to domestic individuals. The stratigraphy of Djebel has provoked discussion for the ashy cultural layers were probably disturbed (Formozov 1972, 26). Accordingly, the debatable finding in Djebel should not form the basis of general historic reconstructions. Bones of domesticated sheep and goat are singled out by Tsalkin (1970) at the Dam-Dam Chashme Cave in the Trans-Caspian area (Markov 1966): 5 bones in the sixth layer, 1 bone in the fifth, 56 in the fourth, 189 in the third. The imported pottery of Shah-Tepe II type, which dates the layer to the third millennium BC, was found in overlapping layer 2. Shnirelman (1980, 74–5) only considers sheep from layers III and IV to be domestic. These layers had southern links, noted by Korobkova (1987, 13). Shnirelman’s conclusion denies a very early date for the origin of domestic sheep in the Trans-Caspian.

The supposition of Okladnikov and Danilenko, still supported by many authors, is based on noncritical perception of the work by Coon (1951) who considered the Southern Caspian to be the centre of sheep and goat domestication. Scarce materials from Belt Cave, however, provoked serious criticism by specialists (Narr 1979, 421–2; Shnirelman 1980, 71–3) since, based on genetic theory, all the domestic sheep derive from a Near Eastern ancestor. Reliable traces of early productive economic activity in Central Asia are found only in the farming Djeitun culture in southern Turkmenia. This culture was formed as a result of gradual penetration by population groups (from the west through Iran) that brought with them domestic sheep, goats and cattle plus two-row barley, soft and dwarf wheat, all of them originating from the Near East (Tsalkin 1970, 123–6, 148; Masson 1971, 79; Shnirelman 1980, 73; Korobkova 1987, 13). There are no traces of a productive economy at other sites of the Neolithic and Early Eneolithic in Central Asia, although more than 800 Kelteminar sites have been studied in the Aral area (Vinogradov 1981; Vinogradov et al. 1986). Fishing formed the basis of the economy here as a result of specific ecological conditions. The same is true for the sites of the Bukhara oasis (Gulyamov et al. 1966, 87–90). Only the discovery of camel bones and a spindle whorl in the Late Neolithic cemetery TumekKichidjik provide indirect evidence of a possible origin of herding (Vinogradov et al. 1986). The supposition about the herding character of the economy of mountain tribes of the Hissar culture of Tadjikistan has also been rejected (Ranov 1998, 113). 4. The earliest sites with a complex productive economy in the steppe zone of Central Asia are the cemetery and settlement site of Zaman-Baba (Kuzmina 1958; Gulyamov et al. 1966, 118–86). Imprints of wheat and barley grains, querns and sickle bushes were found here. In the osteological material hunting accounts for 15 per cent of the bones (deer, boar, jeyran), the other 85 per cent belonging to domestic cattle, sheep, goat and donkey. Graves also contain animal bones. This complex, however, cannot be the origin of the Yamnaya culture — at least for chronological reasons. Askarov (1981) and Sarianidi (1979) have dated it to the second half or even the end of the second millennium BC and connected the ZamanBaba culture to the Bactrian-Margiana Archaeological Complex. It is impossible, however, to 205

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agree with this conclusion. I have dated the settlement and the cemetery to the turn of the third to second millennia BC, based on the occurrence of imports from the south, correlating with Namazga V, Shah-Tepe II, Hissar III B, and Mundigak IV (Kuzmina 1958, 33; 1968, 306). This date was agreed by Masson (1966). It is all based on the traditional chronology of the Namazga culture: even if we accept the calibrated dates of the compared sites that are used by western scientists, the date of Zaman-Baba is later than the calibrated dates of the culture Yamnaya (Rassamakin 1999). 5. Danilenko’s linguistic discussions contradict modern linguistic data (Kuzmina 1981, 38). 6. Danilenko’s idea concerning an initial establishment of a purely herding nomadic economy in the steppe is not confirmed (1974, 25). On the contrary, the economy during early stages was complex throughout the Old World (Shnirelman 1980, 94; Rassamakin 1999, 73). Domesticated species of plants and animals emerged on the southern Russian steppes as a result of contacts with the more developed population of the Carpathian–Danube zone. According to the model of Renfrew (1969; 1993), the process continued with stage-by-stage exchange, settling and diffusion (Shnirelman 1980, 92; 1989, 179).

quence of cultures. She dates Mariupol sites to the Late Neolithic — or the beginning of Early Eneolithic — including a second layer at the Razdorskoe settlement and layers IV–V at Rakushechnyi Yar. She relates them to the Lower Don culture and synchronizes them with the Bug–Dnestr culture dated to the third quarter of the fifth millennium BC. She dates the second stage of the Azov–Dnepr culture to the Early Eneolithic, marking its relation to the population of Sredny Stog. The Sredny Stog culture in the Near-Pontic steppes and the Khvalynsk culture in the Volga area came after the sites of the Mariupol community. They also comprised a single community (Telegin 1973; Vasilev 1981; Vasilev & Sinyuk 1985; Agapov et al. 1990). Vasilev considers the Samara and Khvalynsk cultures to be genetically linked. Rassamakin (1994) disagrees. Currently, instead of the united culture of Sredny Stog (with its classic settlement of Dereivka), Ukrainian researchers single out four separate cultures that comprise a Sredny Stog area. These include Skelya, Stog, Kvityana and Dereivka (Rassamakin 1994, 32–45; 1999; Kotova 1994, 75–83). Their cultural-chronological position is determined on the strength of imports and links with the farming cultures of the west. The problem is still being investigated, with some success, by Movsha (1961; 1981; 1984; 1993). The Skelya culture is the earliest Eneolithic culture of the area between the Dnepr and Don. Close links with contemporary cultures (Gumelnitsa A2– B1, Varna, Cucuteni A and Tripolye B1) are seen, based on which, the Skelya culture is dated to 4500– 3600 BC (Movsha 1984). In Rassamakin’s opinion (1994, 42) only the early Skelya culture of the Sredny Stog area is contemporary with the Khvalynsk culture of the Volga area. The Kvityana culture is contemporary with the Tripolye C2 stage (3600–3000). Finally, the Dereivka culture occurs in the forest-steppe zone. Judging from finds of imported artefacts it is contemporary with Tripolye stages B2–C1 and Cernavoda in Romania, the date being 3700–3150 years BC. It is not the intention here to evaluate the discussion of Ukrainian archaeology. Instead just a few facts significant when reconstructing the economy are noted 1. The tribes of the Mariupol community raised cattle, pig and horse. Domestic animal bones comprise more than a half of the bone material, allowing us to describe herding as a significant branch of the economy.

Stage two: strengthening of productive economy in the steppes Intensive hunting led to a fall in the number of hoofed animals. Ivanov & Vasilev (1995, 200) state that wild game provided the basic food during the Neolithic in the Caspian area. Kulan was the main prey, the species representing 10 per cent of the total. On the one hand, large-scale killing of hoofed animals lead to an economic crisis, while on the other it spared part of the ecological niche for domesticated species. Intensification of the productive economy formed a way out of the crisis. A series of cultures formed in the zone from the Dnepr to the Urals during the second half to the end of the fifth millennium BC or 5000–4550 BC in calibrated dates (Rassamakin 1999). They comprised the Mariupol community or a cultural-chronological horizon: the Azov–Dnepr culture (Danilenko 1974) or the Nadporozhye-Azov variant of the Dnepr–Don culture (Telegin 1968; 1991), the Lower Don culture, the Samara culture and the Near-Caspian culture (Vasilev 1981; Vasilev & Matveeva 1986; Sinyuk 1980; 1986). Kotova (1994, 58) proposes a more accurate se206

Origins of Pastoralism in the Eurasian Steppes

2. Widening traditional cultural links between the Mariupol and Sredny Stog tribes and the farmers of the Danube and Dnepr areas have been demonstrated. The latter are member-groups of the Linearbandkeramik culture. They also generated impulses that promoted the formation of a productive economy in the steppes. 3. Links with the Caucasus are defined. The Maikop culture probably formed with a steppic component. 4. The newly-defined cultures of the Ukraine are divided into forest-steppe and steppe types. This allows us to determine different cultural types. As for the cultures in the Volga–Urals area, they are included in the Mariupol community and later in the Syezzheye community, but the influence of farming centres does not reach them directly. Further east (across the Emba) is the zone of the Kelteminar cultural community which includes the West-Aral area and Central-Asian land between rivers where there is no trace of a productive economy. The reconstruction of the economy of the Volga– Urals area population is impeded by the small number of sites and the mixture of cultural layers. The role of fishing in the economy of the Mariupol people cemetery of Syezzheye is shown by bone harpoons and hooks. Hunting is represented by stone arrows, duck figurines, decorations made from animal teeth and boar tusks. Figurines of oxen from the child burial point on the spread of herding. ‘Good relations’ with the horse are supported by the earliest (in the Eurasian steppes) burial of two horse skulls and other horse bones on sacrificial ground, associated with powdered ochre. There are also horse figurines made of boar tusks (Fig. 14.2:1; Vasilev 1981, 6, 7, table 7:1–7; Vasilev & Matveeva 1986, 36, 37, 41, figs. 37 & 39). Traces of cultivation are not found but the spread of flat-bottomed earthenware indicates a settled way of life. The most striking site characterizing the economy of the next — Khvalynsk — stage of Sredny Stog is a Khvalynsk cemetery by the Volga river. The role of appropriative economy is marked by one bird burial, decorations made from boar teeth, arrows, harpoons and hooks. 17 per cent of the graves have animal bones: cattle and small-cattle skulls and leg bones (sometimes burnt through) and sheep as-

tragali. In seven burials we see a horse first phalanx (Agapov et al. 1990, table 1). All of the bones occur either in the graves or beside them. There are also sacrificial complexes that include skeletons of cows and calves, but skulls and legs of cows and sheep, first phalanges of horses and animal teeth are most frequent (Agapov et al. 1990, table 2). Although we can not determine the relationship between the species in the herd, these data undoubtedly indicate the productive nature of the economy, with a combination of several domestic species and the formation of an ox, sheep and horse cult. Finds of so-called stone sceptres are essential for the cultural-chronological determination of the site. On the site of Vilovatovskaya in the Samara region there are 553 bones of 65 mammals singled out by Petrenko in mixed Neolithic and Eneolithic layers. Among the animals represented there are domestic cattle and ovicaprids, dog and horse (domestic, according to Petrenko). Bones of wild animals dominate: 80 per cent are elk and beaver. Others include aurochs, roe, saiga, bear, hare and otter. There also are bones of 14 fishes, 34 birds and fragments of 104 turtle shells (Morgunova 1995, 81–2). Material from the site of Ivanovka in the Orenburg region provides more detailed information (Table 14.1). In the Neolithic layer Petrenko identified 1385 bones of 42 mammals: 71.7 per cent of them are considered to be domestic; in terms of minimum number of individuals 22.7 per cent are cattle, 27.3 per cent are ovicaprids, 45.5 per cent are horse. (The equivalent bone frequencies are 19.4, 21.5 and 58.8 per cent.) Wild species are represented by bones of elk, beaver, bear, badger and hare. There also are four bird bones, two fish and ten fragments of turtle shells (Morgunova 1984, 18–19; 1986, 12–14; 1995, 82; Petrenko 1984, table 1). The Eneolithic layer at Ivanovka yields 6070 bones of 75 mammals: 45.7 per cent are domestic; cattle (16.5 per cent), ovicaprids (23.3 per cent), horse (55.5 per cent). Pig and dog also occur. Compared to during the Neolithic the absolute number of domestic animals increases from 22 to 80 with the appearance of swine. Fish bones (sturgeon, sheat-fish/catfish, pike, zander), stone sinkers and harpoons, hooks and

Table 14.1. Absolute and percentage faunal species composition at Ivanovka. Layer Neolithic Eneolithic

Cattle Bones Individ. 193/19.4 5/22.7 697/20.7 13/16.5

Ovicaprids Bones Individ. 214/21.5 6/27.3 418/12.7 15/23.3

207

Horse Bones Individ. 584/58.8 10/45.5 2442/66.35 43/55.5

Swine Bones Individ. 2/0.1

1/3.5

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‘kochedyks’ (sharpened sticks for net-braiding) are evidence of fishing. The role of hunting is reflected by the presence of stone arrows, darts, bone spears and wild animal bones. Dominant among the latter are elk and beaver. There also are bear, fox, wolf, boar, hare, badger and otter (Morgunova 1984, 18– 19; 1995, 82–3). Conclusions concerning the dynamics of the economy of the Volga–Urals area in the Neolithic and Eneolithic are very hard to reach owing to the absence of sterile layers. What is important, however, is that the same species are represented in the herd as in the contemporary cultures of the Don and Ukraine included in the Mariupol and later — in the Sredny Stog community. Thus, the economy was formed under western influence. Danilenko’s supposition about a special mode of development in this region and the early breeding of just one species — sheep (from the Caspian) — is not confirmed by the data. Permanent settlements, a large percentage of cows in the herd, the presence of swine and the role of fishing in the economy are evidence of a settled way of life. Studies of pollen by Levkovskaya and Spiridonova (Morgunova 1995, 90), however, found no traces of cultivation. The presence of cultivation could, however, be confirmed by the conclusions of Korobkova’s find of soil-processing implements at Ivanovka. Despite the opinion of Petrenko, who considers the horse to be domestic, the question remains open. There are traces of a productive economy further south — at the Orlovskaya culture site of Varfolomievka in the Saratov region. Judging by the Fomichyov data, there are domesticated ox, sheep and dog, as well as horse (its bones forming half the collection), aurochs, kulan, bear, corsac and birds (Yudin 1988, 164). Based on precise data from J. Kuzmina and Kasparov, the Neolithic economy at the site was appropriative with a combination of fishing and hunting. At the end of the Neolithic (stage 2A) fishing and hunting still dominated, but the discovery of sheep bones (one individual) hints at the beginning of a change towards a productive economy. During the early Eneolithic hunting dominates, but the composition of the wild fauna changes, three sheep being found in the layer. There is no proof of domestication of the horse, but the horse cult is undoubtedly forming: sacrificial complexes found on the site contain large numbers (up to 500!) of horse teeth with incisions (Fig. 14.1; Yudin 1995, 8, 9) along with three bone horse figurines (Fig. 14.2:5–7), ornamented hobble bones and a

stone sceptre decorated with the head of a horse. Cult depictions are associated with the Early Neolithic layer (Yudin 1988, 162–3, figs. 10 & 11; Kileinikov & Yudin 1993, 80–82, fig. 11). On the Neolithic sites of the Northern Caspian of the fifth to fourth millennia BC there are large numbers of kulan and saiga bones, indicating that the hunting of these played an important role. Also found there is an aurochs. There are 32 bones of two horses found at Tenteksor and 16 bones of two sheep — at Karakuduk I (J. Kuzmina 1995, 173–4, table 1). J. Kuzmina considers the sheep and large aurochs of the second half of the fourth millennium BC from Karakuduk to be domestic. The material obtained are not, however, sufficient to define the economy of the region. Despite the small amount of data, the regional specifics of the economy of the steppes, on the other hand, are already clear. There is evidence of farming and more developed swine-herding in the west. In the east there are only indirect traces of farming while pig-breeding is not that important. The role of the horse in the culture is, however, more vividly expressed. The earliest evidence for the horse-cult in the Old World takes the form of artistic representations and sacrificial complexes consisting of skulls, leg bones and teeth. Thus, the second stage in the development of the steppe economy is characterized by increased importance of domestic animals and a larger proportion of horse. The problem of domestication and the early use of the horse1 The problem of domestication The question of horse domestication is related to the time of development of a productive economy in the steppes as outlined above. In Gromova’s (1949) opinion, the domestication of the horse took place within a zone from the Dnepr to the Urals — the natural habitat of the tarpan, which, according to genetic theory, is looked upon by palaeozoologists as its possible ancestor (Freshkop 1965). This hypothesis was supported in the 1970s by well-known palaeozoologists (Bibikova 1969; 1967; Tsalkin 1970; Bökönyi 1969; 1978; Necrasov 1971) and has generally been accepted (Kuzmina 1977). Together with other domestic species, horse bones occur at Neolithic sites in the Ukraine, in the Don area on the sites of Rakushechnyi Yar and Matveyev Kurgan, in the Volga area, at Tenteksor and Latoshinka (Belanovskaya 1978, 53; Krizhevskaya 1978, 50; Derevyagin & Tretyakov 1974, 210; Ivanov 208

Origins of Pastoralism in the Eurasian Steppes

& Vasilev 1995, 143); it occurs constantly at later sites. The domestication of the horse was undertaken by a population that was already familiar with herding. This confirms the mono-centre hypothesis for the origin of domestic animals which states that in all areas of the Old World the local species were domesticated when the population borrowed skills involved in raising domestic animals from the Near East (Shnirelman 1989). The farmers of Southeastern Europe acquired the horse from the steppic tribes: horse bones were found on Linearbandkeramik culture settlements — Keresh, Boian, Gumelnitsa, Cucuteni, Tripolye. Here, however, their frequency in the osteological material is insignificant, which is evidence for only a small role for horse-breeding (Bibikova 1969; Tsalkin 1970, 183, 184, 196; Bökönyi 1969; Necrasov 1971). The questions of the time and centre of horse domestication, and earliest use of the animal, which seemed to have been answered in the 1960s, are once again open for discussion. They were raised at the colloquium ‘Indo-Germans and the Horse’ in Budapest in 1992. Mallory (1981) remarked that he was not aware of ritual horse burials from the Urals to the Caspian earlier than the Yamnaya age and Levine (1990; Levine & Rassamakin 1996), Rassamakin (1999) and Uerpmann (1990) have expressed doubts about the validity of horse domestication signs in Dereivka. The supposed ritual complex of Dereivka is, in the opinion of Häusler (1982; 1994; 1996), nothing but a dump. He also rejected the relationship between horse skulls and traces of domestication in the Sredny Stog layer and refused to consider sceptres to be horse depictions. At the same time the Pontic-Caspian steppes are recognized as the centre of horse domestication by archaeozoologists such as Bökönyi (1994), von den Driesch (1995), Meadow (pers. comm.), and Benecke (1993). The latter has studied bone remains of European horses, singling out several centres of spread and reaching the conclusion that all early domestic horses in Europe are descended from steppic Eastern European populations. The skull from Dereivka, however, has to be excluded from the discussion since its new radiocarbon dates are later (Anthony 1999). For some reason, opponents of horse domestication in the steppe argue about the horse from Dereivka which has become known around the world due to the work of Telegin and Mallory (Mallory & Telegin 1994). In reality the problem is much wider since horse bones were found on Late Neolithic and Eneolithic sites throughout a vast territory from the

Danube to the Urals and Kazakhstan. New data allow us to address this problem. There are three necessary conditions for domestication: 1) the presence of the wild ancestor; 2) herding skills; and 3) the need for food that stimulates the process of domestication. These three prerequisites are all that is needed in order to study the problem of horse domestication. All three were present in the steppes: the need for meat increased as a result of the slaughter of wild hoofed animals during the Neolithic. From the Neolithic the population was familiar with herding cattle and ovicaprids, and finally of course, there were the wild horses — the tarpan. The deciding vote in the discussion of whether the discovered horses are domestic or wild belongs to the archaezoologist. As is well known, horses do not show signs of domestication such as do cattle or ovicaprids. Ermolova (1978, 23) wrote that ‘the main distinguishing mark of being domesticated is the presence of objects related to the use of the horse as means of transportation’. Indirect signs of domestication singled out by researchers are debatable. Dyson (1953) considered the following facts to be proof of horse domestication: 1) a gradual increase in the number of bones of potentially domesticated species on sites; 2) an increase in the quantity of bones of young animals. Bökönyi (1969, 221–5), on the other hand, supposed that during the initial stage of domestication the aggressive adult males were killed and younger animals kept for domestication. Ermolova (1978, 23) believes that absence of bones of young animals was a sign of domestication of hoofed animals. This discussion continues (Shnirelman 1989, 189; Kalieva & Logvin 1997, 109, 180; Levine 1990, 739; 1999). Benecke (1994, 129) proposes the following criteria for recognizing domestication: 1) a larger number of bones on the site than is normal for the wild population in the ecological niche; 2) an increase in the quantity of bone material on the site; 3) increased variability in bone size. Unfortunately, none of these criteria is absolute: 1) the quantity of wild animals in the region may be determined by changes in palaeoecological conditions and geographic zones2; 2) the expected increase in the number of bones may result from intensive hunting of a given species owing to earlier over-hunting of other species. It may also be due to a population explosion; 3) variability in bone size can be a natural phenomenon or a result of direct selection, which is characteristic only of developed herding. Petrenko (1984) bases her conclusions about horse domestication in the Eneolithic of the Volga– 209

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Figure 14.1. Hobble bones of a horse with incision from Varfolomeyevskaya. 6

Urals region on the similarity of horse sizes from the Eneolithic to the Developed Bronze Age, but her inferences are considered suspect by some researchers. Anthony & Brown (1991) consider tooth-wear to be indicative of domestication, but this is seen only with the use of iron and bronze bits. Levine’s (1999) data on changes in the horse’s spine as a result of riding seem objective and important, and it is of interest that pathological changes can also be observed on the spines of riders (Alekseyeva). As von den Driesch reports, at the initial stage of domestication the leader-males were castrated to make them yield to domestication. Traces of castration are clearly reflected on the skulls of males. Whether osteological collections from the Southern-Russian steppes have been examined for this is not known. Another argument concerns the data on the formation of the horse cult (Kuzmina 1977; Renfrew 1998) because even Behrens (1964, 85) has determined that the animal becomes a cult one if it plays a special role in the economy. The earliest ritual burial of horse skulls and legs in the Old World has been discovered in the Volga area in the Syezzheye cemetery of the Samara culture (Vasilev & Matveeva 1979, 159, fig. 3; Vasilev 1981, 67, fig. 7:1, 4). At the Khvalynsk Eneolithic cemetery skulls and leg bones

7

Figure 14.2. Depiction of horse and ox in the area of Volga and the Urals: 1 & 2) Syezzheye cemetery (2 - ox); 3) Vilovatovskaya site; 4) Lipovy Ovrag cemetery; 5–9) Varfolomievka site (1, 2 - boar fangs, other - bone). of cattle and ovicaprids are found with the burials or in sacrificial complexes. There are also horse leg bones in seven burials and three sacrificial complexes (Vasilev 1981, 69; Agapov et al. 1990, 8, 59–60, table 7). At Varfolomievka there are sacrificial complexes which contain numerous horse teeth with incisions, stone sceptres with a head of a horse, four bone horse-figurines (Yudin 1988, 162, fig. 11; 1995, 8, 9; Kileinikov & Yudin 1993, 81, fig. 11:3–5) (Fig. 14.2) and ornamented hobble-bones of a horse that have analogies at Rakushechnyi Yar, Vilovatovskaya, Botai and Kozhai (Vasilev et al. 1980, fig. 20; Zaibert 1993, 177, fig. 21; Kalieva & Logvin 1997, fig. 12) (Fig. 14.1). Similarly, a bone horse-figurine was discovered in the burial at the Eneolithic cemetery of Lipovy Ovrag; another was found at Vilovatovskaya (Vasilev et al. 1980, 184, fig. 21:2; Vasilev 1981, tables 12 & 13). More evidence for the formation of the horse cult takes the form of the so-called sceptres with 210

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zoomorphous images (Fig. 14.3), including those of horse heads (Gimbutas 1970; Danilenko 1974; Danilenko & Shmagly 1972; Merpert 1974). In the Volga–Urals region the sceptres were found in kurganless Khvalynsk and Khlopkovy cemeteries, and in sub-kurgan burials in Arkhara (Merpert 1974, fig. 18:1; Vasilev 1981, 25, tables 20:18 & 30:4 & 0 4 cm 5; Agapov et al. 1990, 87, figs. 1 21:5 & 24:2; Morgunova 1995, fig. 72:2) (Fig. 14.3). Häusler (1994, 128–30) has expressed doubt about the appearance of the depicted animals. Indeed, one series of sceptres is rather schematic. On many 3 items (for example, from Suvorovo), however, the horse is represented realistically. The summary data and the classification of zoomorphous sceptres are proposed 2 4 by Dergachev & Sorokin (1986, 54–65). They showed that the development proceeded in the Figure 14.3. Stone zoomorphous sceptres: 1) Orenburg region; 2) Khvalynsk steppes from realistic speci- cemetery; 3) Arkhara, kurgan 27; 4) Kuibyshev (Samara) museum. mens to stylized ones and that mestication of the horse had already started by this their spread in farming cultures reflects steppic influtime. The problem, however, should not be considences in the Carpathian–Danubian region. In contrast, ered to be solved entirely. The centre of horse doGovedarica & Kaiser (1996) suppose that the sceptres mestication could also have been situated among the originated among farming cultures and are concenfarming cultures of Southeastern Europe. Bökönyi trated in the Balkan–Danubian and Volga–Urals re(1994) and Benecke (1993), however, propose that its gions. Rassamakin (1999, 137) considers this fact to be location was in the steppes of Eastern Europe where evidence of prestigious item exchange and the formathe population was already familiar with herding tion of the élite within steppic tribes. skills under the influence of farmers. As a working There is another group of power-symbols with hypothesis we can assume that the horse played a realistically-made horse heads in the Volga–Urals special role in the Volga–Urals region where the region: a sceptre-hammer from the Novoorsk dismost striking evidence for the formation of the cult, trict of the Oreburg region (Popov & Smirnov 1973, and the origin of rituals so characteristic of the cul203–7, figs.1 & 2; Bogdanov 1992; Morgunova 1995, ture of Indo-European peoples, were singled out. fig. 76:1), a stone warder from Varfolomeevskaya (Yudin 1988, 162–3, fig. 11), and a small stone iron The problem of horse domestication in Kazakhstan from the Khvalynsk cemetery of Ak-Zhunas (Dubyagin et al. 1982, 103, 105, fig. 1) with a bridle The question of the independent centre of horse dodepiction on a horse’s head (according to researchmestication in Northern Kazakhstan is extremely ers) (Fig. 14.4). problematic. Large numbers of horse bones (99 per Thus, the horse cult, relating to the emerging cent of the total fauna) were found here at the élite, formed in the Volga–Urals region in the Neolithic site of Botai. Initially it was thought to be Eneolithic. This gives reason to assume that the doan independent centre of horse domestication 211

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considered them to be domestic. But Ermolova, an outstanding specialist on domestication (Zaibert 1993, 197–8), found no signs of domestication in the part of the collection that she examined. Anthony & Brown (1991) consider the horses from Botai (as well as Dereivka) to be domestic, based on the analysis of horse teeth on which they see traces of bit wear. Levine (1990; 1999; 0 6 cm 1 Levine & Rassamakin 1996) disagrees and, as in the question of Dereivka horse-breeding, her opinion is based on ethnographic and zootechnical ideas concerning the age of the slaughtered animals. She stresses the difference between hunting methods at Dereivka and Botai. Until the problem has genuinely been solved by archaeozoologists, the most likely scenario is the cautious opinion of Zaibert (1993) that Botai could have been a place for seasonal hunting, but that knowledge of horse biology among the inhabitants of the settlement led to attempts to domesticate some of the horses and mount them in order to drive the herd into a trap. Such a method of hunting is still 2 popular among deer-hunters in Siberia. The rider does not Figure 14.4. Depiction of horse in the area of Volga and the Urals: 1) stone need any cheek-pieces. Nuwarder, Varfolomievka site; 2) warder-hammer, Orenburg region. merous pits packed with ani(Zdanovich & Zaibert 1989). A series of facts implies mal bones indicate that the horse at Botai was used the contrary: 1) fishing forms the basis of the as the main source of food. economy; 2) there are none of the traces of complex The same is probably true for the sites of the productive economy which are so characteristic of Early Eneolithic Tersek culture in the Turgai depresOld World cultures at times of domestication of losion in Kazakhstan. The authors dated the sites to cal species; 3) pits with bones indicating mass anithe nineteenth to eighteenth centuries BC (Kalieva & mal slaughter are numerous; and 4) the topography Logvin 1997, 136) and to the third millennium BC by of the site, located on a high cape and divided from uncalibrated dates (Kalieva 1990, 14, 15). The earlier the pine forest by a narrow glen, made it a perfect dates are more probable. Logvin (1986) and Kalieva place for seasonal horse hunting. (1990; 1998) have defined seasonal winter and sumThe question of the Botai horses has provoked mer sites with large quantities of bone material. discussion. Makarova & Nurumov (1989), AkhinHorse, large oxen, saiga and kulan are reprezhanov et al. (1992, 160–65) and J. Kuzmina (1995) sented by large numbers of individuals; the quantity 212

Origins of Pastoralism in the Eurasian Steppes

Table 14.2. Species composition of hoofed animals of Tersek culture. (From Kalieva & Logvin 1997, 100–101.) Settlements Kozhai I Kumekshu I Kaindy III

Horse 46,974/3475 8777/1026 197/39

Ox 1483/186 12,042/1379 1073/149

Kulan 6706/715 414/105 360/60

of elk, roe deer, boar, wolf, fox, corsac, marmot, hare, beaver, birds (goose, swan, crane and hen-harrier) and fish (pike, ide and crucian) is insignificant (Kalieva & Logvin 1997, 100, 101). Gayduchenko (Kalieva 1998) persistently defends the idea of local domestication of the horse and ox which is opposed by palaeozoologist Kosintsev. There is no basis for proposing local domestication of oxen: in terms of the main indicator of domestication — the large size of bones — the Tersek oxen/aurochs differ from domestic ones. Only the presence of hornless individuals (which Tsalkin has considered to be a sign of domestication) hints at efforts to domesticate oxen. The size of horse bones is highly variable, a fact which, in the opinion of Gayduchenko (Table 14.2), reflects the result of selection in breeding of specialized breeds. It is not possible to agree with this conclusion for the initial stage of domestication. Similarly, participation of the wild Przewalski’s horse in the genesis of Kazakhstan horses can not be assumed since the Khaveson’s hypothesis was not recognized by contemporary palaeozoology (Freshkop 1965). The topography of sites suitable for trap hunting, the seasonal character of ‘nomad camps’, the presence of storage pits for meat of slaughtered animals and the absence of other signs of a productive economy do not suggest that the Tersek oxen and horses were domestic. It is confirmed by tooth analyses indicating the mass slaughter of horses in spring and autumn, while in the domestic economy horses are slaughtered at the beginning of winter (Levine 1999). The question remains open for future zoological research. This is why it is impossible to agree with the conclusion about nomadic herding of the population of Tersek (Kalieva & Logvin 1997, 113–23) and we should return to the hypothesis of Formozov (1950) concerning a seasonal hunting economy.

Saiga 15,627/1363 820/184 2761/336

Elk 3/1 4/4

Roe 9/2 1/1

Boar 57/30

by Gimbutas (1970), concerns the emergence of early warrior-riders and is a turning point for the history of Eurasia. These military riders supposedly invaded the Danubian and Carpathian areas and crushed farming settlements with fire and sword. This hypothesis has been developed further by many researchers. Lichardus (1984, 199), basing his argument on the similarity in the burial rite of the Sredny Stog culture and Varna cemetery (which contained rich burials with gold, indicating social differentiation), relates their origin to the invasion of nomadic horseriders from the Black Sea area. Anthony (1986) writes that riding appeared in 4000 BC and warrior-riders, whom he considers to be Indo-Europeans, were roaming on horseback driving their herds, making forays and spreading Indo-European language. How valid is the hypothesis concerning the formation of nomadism and horseback riding in the steppes of the fourth millennium BC? Undoubtedly, Eneolithic herdsmen had to control the herd and thus they might ride a horse (a belt or rope halter is quite sufficient for that). But the rider who shoots or fights with a spear needs a confident seat that requires, in turn, bridles and cheekpieces. Bone artefacts with one or two holes found at Dereivka were interpreted by Telegin as the earliest known cheek-pieces. This became the basis for the hypothesis of the early spread of riding in the steppes of Eurasia which was accepted by many scientists. In reality this hypothesis is based on a misunderstanding. In 1970 Kozhin published an article in which he proposed that horn objects with holes, found at Siberian Afanasevo culture sites, which resemble Scythian cheek-pieces to some extent, also served for horseback riding. This proposition was rejected by Gryaznov (see 1999, 57, figs. 32, 34 & 35), and Kozhin changed his mind. Danilenko & Shmagly (1972) and Telegin (1973), however, have interpreted similar objects from Dereivka as cheek-pieces and declared the steppic horse-breeders to be nomadic riders who undertook distant military raids. Gimbutas (1977), who studied in Heidelberg (Germany) under outstanding pan-Germanic ideologists (as Häusler (1996) has discovered) gave this issue a political character: in her interpretation savage warrior-riders, invading from the east, barbarously

The early use of the horse The question of the first use of horses in the southern Russian steppes remains debatable. Danilenko (1968; 1974) expressed the opinion that herding developed here independently from cultivation and was initially nomadic. Danilenko & Shmagly’s (1972) hypothesis proposed by them in 1970 and supported 213

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destroyed the farming culture of Europe and brought Indo-European language there. This hypothesis has already been opposed (Kuzmina 1981; 1983; 1994a,b; 1996–97; 1999). Now the interpretation of ‘cheek-pieces’ and domestication are under serious criticism (Levine 1990; 1999; Rassamakin 1994; 1999; Trifonov & Izbitser 1997). Judging from ethnographic and archaeological data, the analyzed artefacts have a wide range of formal analogies, from braiding tools (Chernysh 1969) and horn mattocks of the Tripolye culture (Rassamakin 1999) to pastoral staves (Gryaznov 1999) and implements for undoing knots in China. Dietz (1992) has undertaken a study of similar objects in Europe which are widespread within different cultures. She determined that they were multi-functional and appear in cultures of different economic type — including those without horses. Such objects are especially numerous on pile settlements in Switzerland where they served for net-braiding. Thus, there are no serious arguments to support horseback riding in the steppes. As for horse teeth evidence for the use of cheekpieces (Anthony & Brown 1991), that horse, as already stated, does not belong to the Eneolithic (Anthony 1999). So how was the horse used in the early stages of domestication? To answer this question the conclusion of Sherratt (1983) and Bökönyi (1994) concerning two stages in the history of herding is of decisive importance. During the initial stage of domestication people who have just switched from hunting to a productive economy use recently-domesticated animals just as they used their wild ancestors — only for their skin and meat, like ‘live preserves’. Only during the second stage of domestication do people learn to use milk and fur along with their potential for traction. Horse bones on Eneolithic sites on the PonticCaspian steppes are split which means that the horse was used as a meat animal. There is evidence of neither nomadic herding nor distant migration, and we can agree with Renfrew (1999, 10) when he says: ‘the notion of “kurgan culture” mounted warriors around 3500 or 3000 BC as responsible for carrying Indo-European speech from the steppe lands westward into Central Europe should be definitively abandoned’.

community. Sites from different regions have been studied well enough and have been described many times so that there is no need to characterize them. For the purpose of this discussion we need only stress that a productive economy is firmly established and the role of hunting and fishing negligible. The most important innovation of the period was the emergence of wheeled transport. The problem of its spread across the steppes has been analyzed in a series of works (Childe 1954; Piggott 1969; 1983; Kuzmina 1974; 1980a,b; 1983; Häusler 1982; Kozhin 1985; Azzaroli 1985; Novozhenov 1994; Izbitser 1993; 1998; Gay 2000). Wheeled transport is of primary significance since it allowed the herdsmen to move with their herds. It was then that, as a result of using carts, reasons existed for: 1) the establishment of pastoralism as a dominant form of economy; 2) the origin of mobile forms of herding assimilating of new ecological niches, and 3) distant migrations. Wheeled transport, originating in the Near East, spread into secondary zones of civilization: to the Balkan–Danubian region and the Tripolye area where it is represented by clay models of open four-wheeled carts with a pair of oxen; the Caucasus where fourand two-wheeled carts were found in burials and their models are known; and southern Central Asia where there are models of four- and two-wheeled carts with a pair of oxen or camels. The emergence of wheeled transport on the steppes is related to the third millennium BC and is documented by finds of wheels, carts, clay models and pairs of draught oxen in graves of the Novosvobodnaya and Novotitarovka cultures of the Kuban area and the Yamnaya community from the Danube to the Urals. There are more than 200 burials known in the steppe that contain two-axis carts with four solid wheels pulled by a pair of oxen (Izbitser 1993; 1998). Their reconstruction is difficult but they are probably analogous to those from the Tripolye and Danubian areas. Some of the carts have remains of a covered body (Gay 2000, 175–91). In contrast to the opinion of Izbitser there are also two-wheeled carts. They are found in Yamnaya and Catacomb burials of Storozhevaya Mogila, Pervokonstantinovka (kurgan 1, burial 8), Marievka (kurgan 11, burial 27), Lola and others. Some of the graves contain pairs of wheels; others have clay models as, for example, in the Three Brothers kurgan (Tri Brata) (Novozhenov 1994, 133, 140). Two-wheeled carts, with solid or crossbar wheels, are also found on petroglyphs (Novozhenov 1994, 89, 97, fig. 51). The types of one- and two-axis covered carts are borrowed from Caucasus. This is confirmed not

Wheeled transport and the establishment of pastoralism in the Eurasian steppes The next (third) stage in the economic history of the Eurasian steppes is the Yamnaya culture or cultural 214

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only on the basis of typological similarity, but also the analysis of wood — beech — that was the material for one carriage in Kalmykia (Erdniev 1975, 16 & 17). The supposition about the penetration of carts from Central Asia is improbable since carts there are distinguished by their high sides and are driven by camels. Depictions of camel carts in the petroglyphs of Kazakhstan are found later — only during the Andronovo period (Kadyrbayev et al. 1977, 167, fig. 22, 38, 100; Kuzmina 1983). A depiction in ochre on the stone ceiling of the burial at the Novonikolayevka cemetery, assigned by Rassamakin (1999, 147, fig. 3:56) to the Lower Mikhailovka culture, has a special interest concerning means of transportation on the steppe. If I interpret this depiction correctly, then it is the earliest steppic evidence for the origin of carriages with lightened wheels — crossbar wheels. Similar wheels are known from depictions in Anatolia, on the stamp from the III B layer in Hissar (Iran) and on the twowheeled carriage on the silver bowl from Louvre (Littauer & Crouwel 1979, fig. 21; 1977; Amiet 1989, 161, fig. 6). Such designs of a lightened wheel could probably represent a change to a spoked-wheel proper. This innovation was very significant since it made it possible to use a horse as a transport animal. Unlike oxen and donkeys, it is not suitable for driving a heavy cart with yoke and beam (Barmintsev 1958). The origin of a light carriage was one reason for inventing a horse-driven chariot during the following period. *

*

Figure 14.5. Moulds from Lyavlyakan, casts. The end of the Lyavlyakan pluvial and the drying out of the lakes forced Kelteminar fishermen to turn to a productive economy as well (Vinogradov 1968, 19–40; Vinogradov & Mamedov 1975, 234–55). Sickle bushes, querns, copper drops, Iranian type axe-moulds (Fig. 14.5) and turquoise bead workshops are found at Kaptarnikum and Lyavlyakan sites (Gulyamov et al. 1966, 89–90; Vinogradov & Mamedov 1975, 228; Vinogradov & Kuzmina 1970). Farmers from southern Central Asia were the originators of these cultural links. Proximity to them during many centuries did not lead to economic and cultural changes of the Kelteminar culture. Only the crisis that broke out stimulated change in the economy. The most striking sites of the Eneolithic in Central Asia are settlements and a cemetery at ZamanBaba (Kuzmina 1958; Gulyamov et al. 1966). Their cultural genesis has provoked discussion among specialists. Sarianidi (1979), Askarov (1981) and Pyankova (1998, 161) consider its originators to be migrants from the south, bearers of BMAC. I do not agree with this point of view. The type of semi-subterranean house dwelling, the rite of burial in pit-graves and catacombs and the technique of making handmade pottery with sharp or rounded bottoms are culturally determining. These features are all characteristic of steppic cultures. This is why I assume the migration of the Yamnaya and Catacomb population from the northwest and raise the question of possible Indo-European connections of the bearers of this culture. Alyokshin (1987) connects the spread of the Catacomb tradition in southern Central Asia

*

The use of wheeled transport by Yamnaya tribes opened up possibilities for assimilating new areas. The need to do so was caused by climatic conditions. In the second half of the third millennium BC (according to traditional chronology) herding spread across the Asian steppes and is documented by the following: cow bones at Karaungur, cow and sheep bones at Saksaulskaya II, Tersek-Karagay and Svetly Djarkul, horse bones at Zatobolskaya, Zelyonaya Balka 4 and Karaganda 15, horse and sheep bones at Penki II, sheep bones at Agispe, Malye Barsuki, Ust’Narym and bones of all three species at Iman-Burluk I and II (Formozov 1950; Klapchuk 1970; Chalaya 1973; Istoriya Kazakhskoy SSR 1977; Makarova & Nurumov 1989; Akhinzhov et al. 1992). Judging by the species composition and the breeds of domestic animals present, herding spread over the Asian steppes under the influence of the population of the Eastern European steppes. 215

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Figure 14.6. Pottery and metal artefacts of the cemetery and settlement Zaman-Baba.

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in the Namazga VI period with the migration of the Zaman-Baba population. I suggest the participation of the Zaman-Baba component in the formation of the Bishkent culture in Tajikistan. The influence of southern cultivators in Zaman-Baba is undoubted. It is indicated by the type of kiln, the presence of imported pottery of Namazga V age, types of metal mirrors, pins, beads and female statuettes (Kuzmina 1958; Masson 1966) (Fig. 14.6). Thus, the ZamanBaba reflects the meeting of northern steppic and southern farming traditions — the process that was characteristic of this region for many centuries to come.

Azzaroli 1985). Only then does horseback-riding appear in the steppes, documented by forms of cheekpieces (Kuzmina 1994b). In relation to this it is interesting to note that in Greek the term for chariotrider in the Homeric Age was also used for a horseback rider. There is no common word for a horseback rider in Indo-Iranian languages; only chariots were described in Vedic literature (Coomarasvamy 1942). The word ‘rider’ appears in Persian only during the Zoroastrian Age. The most significant innovation of the Sintashta culture, except the rapid development of metalprocessing, was the spread of light one-axis chariots with spoked wheels, pulled by a pair of horses and controlled by shield cheek-pieces with tenons (Fig. 14.11). Chariots are found in the cemeteries of Sintashta, Kamennyi Ambar, Krivoe Ozero, Solntse II in the Urals; Ulyubay, Berlik II and Satan in Kazakhstan (Gening 1979; Gening et al. 1992; Zdanovich 1988, 76, 88, figs. 29:2, 6; 31:9–12; Tkachyov 1991; Kuzmina 1994a,b; Novozhenov 1994; Anthony & Vinogradov 1995; Vinogradov 1995; Kostyukov et al. 1995; Epimakhov 1996). The chariot had a rectangular body of approximately 1 × 0.6 m, wheels with a diameter of 0.9 m, eight to twelve spokes and leather tires, the hub jutting out to 0.2–0.4 m; the distance between the wheels was 1.2–1.4 m. There is a small amount of available evidence for the reconstruction of the chariot, which is why the proposed reconstructions (Gening et al. 1992, figs. 80, 94 & 108; Anthony & Vinogradov 1995, fig. 38) are not convincing and were justifiably criticized by Littauer & Crouwel (1996, 9345), but their scepticism about the significance of these findings is invalid and based on the mistaken statement of Izbitser (1998) about the absence of two-wheeled carts in the European steppes. Reasons for inventing the chariot developed in the Pontic-Caspian region during the Eneolithic: there were two-wheeled carts and, perhaps, crossbar wheels. The horse was also known there, unlike in the Near East where it was rarely used. This supports the opinion of native researchers, and both Anthony (1995) and Lichardus & Vladar (1996) who suggest the independent invention of chariots in the steppes which was not rejected by Piggott (1983) and Moorey (1986). Another point of view was expressed by Littauer & Crouwel (1996) and Trifonov (1996) who insist on the Near Eastern origin of the chariot. In my opinion, it is not convincing enough. In Sintashta cemeteries, pairs of chariot-driving horses are usually buried in the grave or in a compartment within a grave, on the ceiling or on the

The age of chariots3 The beginning of the Bronze Age in the steppes is marked by sites of the Sintashta and geneticallyrelated Petrovka types in the Urals and Western and Northern Kazakhstan, cogenetic sites of Potapovka type in the Volga area and Pokrovka-Abashevo type on the Don (Smirnov & Kuzmina 1977; Kuzmina 1994b; Gening 1979; Gening et al. 1992; Zdanovich 1995; 1997; Vinogradov 1995; Vasilev 1995; Vasilev et al. 1994; Vinnikov & Sinyuk 1989; Matveev & Pryakhin 1995; Pryakhin et al. 1989; 1990; 1998). This culture is most clearly reflected in the Sintashta-type sites in the Urals (Figs. 14.1, 14.8 & 14.9). There is not enough data, however, to reconstruct the economy. The character of fortified settlements indicates a settled way of life but there is no valid evidence of cultivation. The basis of the economy is metallurgy: traces of metal-processing are found in almost all dwellings. Cattle and ovicaprids were raised with a few pigs. Horse-raising played a significant role. Semi-slim-legged horses, with a height at the withers of 136–44 cm, dominated in the herd (Kosintsev 1995, 6). The horse was used for meat and for transportation. The proposition that the horse was used for riding and as a pack animal (Chernykh & Kuzminykh 1989; Zdanovich 1997) is not confirmed. Depictions of horseback riders on Eurasian petroglyphs are dated to later periods. There are depictions of naked people in the Near East beginning in the third millennium BC, but they are sitting on the croup of the animal, therefore the equid is likely to be a donkey rather than horse (Moorey 1970). Starting in the fourteenth century BC there are depictions of naked shepherd-riders in Egypt, while horseback riding in Greece and the Near East emerges in written sources and visual arts only between 1200 and 900 BC (Anderson 1961; Hanfmann 1961; Wiesner 1968; 217

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Figure 14.10. Cheek-pieces: 1 & 2) cemetery Selezni-2 (Pryakhin et al. 1998, figs. 8:3 & 11:5); 3 & 4) Mycenae (1–3 bone; 4 - bronze imitation of bone cheek-piece with inserted tenons).

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analysis of cheek-pieces, providing improved reconstruction of the bridle. The most complete publication of cheekpieces is that of Penner (1998). Ignoring particular disagreements, we can consider it an established fact that the original ones are disc-shaped unornamented cheek pieces with tenons of types I A and B of the Sintashta and Abashevo Aral sites from the Urals. Probably Sea they were fixed to the belt on the nose of a horse. The subsequent development of the bridle is related to the origin of the cheek belt connected Caspian with cheek-pieces of the secSea ond type with supplementary Black Sea holes. The following innovation — a third type of cheekpiece with inserted tenons was usually decorated with Mycenaean ornamentation. This typology conforms to the conclusion of Pryakhin & Besedin (1998) who single out two regions — the east (Urals and Kazakhstan where Mediterranean Sea primarily solid unornamented dak del cheek-pieces are present) and the west (Don and Donets Figure 14.11. Map of the distribution of disc-shaped cheek-pieces with tenons. where there are ornamented cheek-pieces with inserted tenons). On the Volga ground under the mound. They are laid on their side both types are present (the same phenomenon is with their backs or muzzles against each other. This traced in the geographic distribution of types of horse rite is also defined from Potapovka-type sites in the sacrifice, which points to the Urals origin of cultural Volga area but often there are only skulls and legs of genesis). horses buried. In the Don area there are also only skulls Researchers consider Eastern Europe to be the and legs. Thus, in the ‘cleanest’ version, the rite is represented in the Urals where there also are chariots. centre of the invention of cheek-pieces; later they In many graves throughout the area, on the spread to the Balkans and Greece (Smirnov & KuzDnepr and in the Crimea, there are shield cheekmina 1977; Lichardus 1991; Penner 1998). Western pieces with tenons. These were mapped and classianalogies raise the question of the chronology of fied on the basis of typological-technological Sintashta sites, the answer to which is needed in evolutionary method (Kuzmina 1980; 1994a). Novoorder to understand the historical fate of Eurasia. In the shaft grave in Mycenae cheek-pieces simizhenov (1994) supplemented the classification conlar to those from the steppe were found: some from siderably using a functional method. the steppes and the Danube area are decorated with The number of cheek-pieces rapidly increased Mycenaean ornament (Fig. 14.10). The date of the and 150 examples are now known. The number of Mycenaean shaft graves is 1570–1550 BC and forms a classifications also increased but these will not be considered here. A significant contribution was made terminus post antiquem for the earliest type of cheekby Usachuk (1999) who had performed traceological pieces from the Urals. For this reason Smirnov and I 222

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0

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Figure 14.12. Complex of Zardcha-Khalifa burial. (1977) proposed a date of the seventeenth/sixteenth centuries BC for the examples from the Urals. A later tendency to make Mycenae older appeared in European archaeology which forced us to change the date of our sites to the eighteenth to seventeenth centuries BC (Kuzmina 1994). Based on dendrochronological data Central European Bronze Age sites were made older (Becker et al. 1989; Kroemer & Becker 1993; Randsborg 1992; Kuniholm 1993; Manning 1995).

A series of new radiocarbon dates has been introduced for the Krivoe Ozero, Potapovka and Utyevka IV cemeteries. It places them at the turn of third/second millennia BC (Vinogradov 1995; Anthony & Vinogradov 1995; Kuznetsov 1996; Trifonov 1996). Dates from Arkaim, however, are discrepant (Zdanovich 1997). The introduction of calibrated dates might have eliminated the question of chronological priority of chariot depictions with equids in Kültepe and other sites of Anatolia (Moorey 223

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4 3 Figure 14.13. Horse depictions from Zardcha-Khalifa and their analogies (2 & 4 - Semipalatinsk region; 3 Mynshurkur). which have analogies at sites of the Bactria of Djakutan period, 1700–1500 years BC, by traditional chronology (Askarov & Abdullaev 1983, 39) or 2034– 1684 BC in calibrated dates. In terms of the chronology of Iran — Tepe Hissar III B, Shah-Tepe II A, Tureng-Tepe III C the dates of which are 2100–1700 years BC determine the age of burial. Together with southern artefacts there is a bronze pin with a horse-shaped head which slightly resembles the horses on the Seima knife and the golden ring from Mynshunkur (Fig. 14.13). Bone shield cheek-pieces with solid tenons and a muff around the main hole also occur (Fig. 14.14). This version of the first type is known only in Sintashta and Bolshekaraganski (Gening et al. 1992, figs. 57:8 & 126:2). The version with holes on a slat is represented at Potapovka (Vasilev et al. 1994, figs. 28:15 &

1969; 1986) and allowed us to recognize steppe chariots as the oldest in the world. This conclusion is supported by the early radiocarbon date from the Sa(rata-Monteoru layer where a cheek-piece analogous to the steppic ones was found (Saharia 1990, 43). The problem of the introduction of calibrated dates, however, is still debatable because they are older than dendrochronological ones and contradict Mycenaean ones (Kuzmina 1999). The discovery of an élite burial in ZardchaKhalifa near Samarkand is of great importance in solving this problem (Bobomulloev 1993; 1997; Bostongukhar [Bobomulloev] 1998). The objects found in the grave include the following: unique bronze bits with two washers, pottery characteristic of BMAC, a mirror with a projecting handle, a silver vessel, toilet bottle and golden earring (Fig. 14.12) 224

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42:3). This allows us to determine the zone in Central Asia where horses and chariots originated, considering the burial near Samarkand to be a reflection of southward migration from the Volga–Urals area. The second site that confirms this migration is the settlement of Tugay near Samarkand (Avanesova 1996). A subterranean-house and metallurgical complex containing hearths and kilns have been discovered here. There also are metal artefacts, in2 1 cluding steppic celts, stone axes, arrows, cattle and ovicaprids bones and, finally, 29 typically Petrovka vessels with an admixture of talc characteristic of the Urals. In the closed complex of the dwelling there is also highquality pottery, brought from the neighbouring farming settlement of Sarazm (Fig. 14.15). Avanesova (1996, 120) has dated the complex to the seventeenth to sixteenth centuries BC and Lyonnet (1996, 67–8, 120) — to half a millen4 5 nium earlier (based on cali3 brated dates). The significance of these sites is as follows: they allow Figure 14.14. Cheek-pieces from Zardcha-Khalifa and their analogies (3 & 5 us to synchronize cultures in Potapovka; 4 – Sintashta). the two regions; they reflect the first wave of migration of metallurgists, chariotseries of radiocarbon analyses of sites from the Eneoriders and horse-breeders which confirms the hylithic and Bronze Age. pothesis of the early steppe origin of the Indo-Iranians The study of palaeogeography and the process from where they bring horses, chariots and their cult of connecting its data to specific stages of archaeofixed in Indo-Iranian mythology. logical cultures is also significant. It is impossible to Western scientists accept the long chronology explain the dynamics of economic development and of the sites, comparable with a complex of Zardchato determine the reasons for the change in cultural Khalifa dating them from the end of the third milstages and migrations. lennium BC to 1800–1700 BC (Francfort 1989; Hiebert 1993; Götzelt 1996), which agrees with the calibrated Acknowledgements dates of the Chariot Age layer but contradicts Mycenaean ones. The work reported here was undertaken with the This is why the primary goal for studying the support of the Russian Fund of Fundamental Recultures of the Eurasian steppes is to undertake a search, grant N 99-06-80419. 225

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Kazakhstane. Alma-Ata. Becker, B., R. Krause & B. Kromer, 1989. Zur absoluten chronologie der frühen Bronzezeit. Germania 67(2), 421–42. Behrens, H., 1964. Die neolithich-fruehmetallzeitlishen Tierskelett funde der Alten Welt. Halle. Belanovskaya, T.D., 1978. Khronologicheskie ramki neoliticheskogo poseleniya Rakushechnii Yar na Nizhnem Donu i metody ikh opredeleniya. Kratkie Soobscheniya Instituta Arkheologii 153, 52–6. Benecke, N., 1993. Tierdomestikationen in Europa in vor- und frühgeschichichtlicher Zeit: Neue daten zu einem alten Thema. (Bericht der Romich-Germanischen Komission 74.) Benecke, N., 1994. Zur Domestikation des Pferdes in Mittelund Osteurope. Einige neue archäologische Befunde, in Die Indogermanen und das Pferd: Akten des internationalen interdisziplinären Kolloquiums, Freie Universität Berlin, 1.–3. Juli 1992: Bernfried Schlerath zum 70. Geburtstag gewidmet, eds. B. Hänsel & S. Zimmer. Budapest: Archaeolingua Alapitvany, 123–44. Bibikova, V.I., 1967 [1970]. K isucheniyu drevneishikh domashnikh loshadei Vostochnoi Evropy. Byulleten Moskovskogo Obschestva Ispytatelei Prirody, Otdelenie Biologii (Moscow) 72, 106–8. Bibikova, V.I., 1969. Do istorii domestikatsii konya na pivdennomu skhodi Evropi. Arkheologiya 12, 118– 26. Bobomulloev, S., 1993. Raskopki pogrebalnogo sooruzheniya is Zardchakhalify. Isvestia Akademii Nauk Tadzhikistana 3, 56–62. Bobomulloev, S., 1997. Ein Bronzezeitliches grab aus Zardca Chalifa bei Pentzikent (Zeravsan-Tal). Archäeologische Mitteilungen aus Iran und Turan 29, 121–34. Bogdanov, S.V., 1992. Tokskii zhezl, in Drevnyaya Istoriya Naseleniya Volgo-Uralskikh Stepei: Mezhvuzovskii Sbornik Nauchnykh Statei, ed. A.T. Sinyuk. Orenburg: Orenburgskii gos. pedagog. in-t im. V.P Chkalova, 195–205. Bökönyi, S., 1969. Archaeological problems and methods of recognizing animal domestication, in The Domestication and Exploitation of Plants and Animals, eds. P.J. Ucko & G.W. Dimbleby. London: Duckworth, 219–29. Bökönyi, S., 1978. The earliest waves of domestic horses in East Europe. Journal of Indo-European Studies 6(1–2), 17–76. Bökönyi, S., 1994. The role of the horse in the exploitation of the steppes, in Genito (ed.), 17–30. Bostongukhar, S., 1998. Verkhovaya Zaravshana vo II Tysyacheletii do n. e. Dushanbe. Chalaya, L.A., 1971. Neolit Severo-vostochnogo i Tsentralnogo Kazakhstana. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Moscow. Chalaya, L.A., 1973. Pozdneneoliticheskii inventar i khoziyaystvo stoyanki Iman-Burluk, in Arkheologicheskie Issledovaniya v Kazakhstane. Alma-Ata: Nauka, 188–203.

Notes 1.

2.

3.

This section was written with the invaluable help of V.I. Tsalkin, V.I. Bibikova, S. Bökönyi, R. Meadow, A. von den Driesch and N. Benecke. This has been studied particularly well in the Northern Caspian where the composition of wild faunas has repeatedly changed. Talks with N.N. Cherednichenko, V.B. Kovalevskaya, V.S. Bochkaryov, R. Moorey and M. Littauer have been extremely useful for writing this section.

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Chapter 15 The Horse and the Wheel: the Dialectics of Change in the Circum-Pontic Region and Adjacent Areas, 4500–1500 BC1 Andrew Sherratt D

uring the period from the fifth to the second millennia BC, a set of distinctive societies developed in the area to the north of the Black Sea, initiating patterns of culture — with an emphasis on horses and wheeled vehicles — which came to characterize much of the Eurasian steppes. This involved one or more waves of eastward expansion. It is the contention of this paper that these developments can best be seen as a response to opportunities which arose from contacts with adjacent areas to the south, and in particular to long-distance trade routes stimulated by the first urban communities of western Asia. These interactions ultimately transformed both sides of the exchange. From this perspective, the prehistory of the steppe belt was one of continuing involvement with surrounding regions; and such linkages grew more diverse as urban societies proliferated (in the Indus valley and later in China) and multiplied the opportunities for contacts with steppe populations — not least through oasis communities which offered stepping-stones on the trade-routes which supplied them. By the first millennium BC, with the emergence of specialized forms of steppe nomadism based on ridden horses, the focus of innovation amongst steppe societies had shifted towards the eastern end of the steppe belt; and movements of population increasingly travelled from east to west, which was the dominant pattern in the ancient world and the middle ages. These movements impinged both on the older civilizations of the Near East, and on the developing polities of eastern and Central Europe. Such a role in more recent times has often coloured the way in which earlier episodes of steppeland history have been conceptualized, with a consequent danger of presenting the societies of the Eneolithic and Bronze Ages in the anachronistic image of the Iron Age and historical periods. This is

especially tempting in describing the beginnings of horse domestication, since the role of the horse and mounted warfare were particularly prominent in the history of this region in later times, and moreover the invention of riding provides a convenient mechanism for the westward spread of Indo-European languages. Many archaeologists have consequently tended to look to the lands beyond the Volga for the beginnings of horse domestication, and to scan the eastern horizon for the arrival of horse-riding populations in the area around the Black Sea (e.g. Gimbutas 1980). But both the military importance of riding (as emphasized by Anthony 1986), and the significance of the eastern steppes as a centre of linguistic dispersal (as described by Nichols 1997), are likely to be features of the later history of the steppes, in the larger scale of interaction characteristic of the Iron Age and onwards (Sherratt 1999). During the Eneolithic and Bronze Age, the centre of gravity of steppe populations lay in the western part of this zone, and these earlier developments may have been very different in character from the patterns familiar from historical times (for which see, for example, Basilov 1989). The task of the prehistoric archaeologist, as David Clarke constantly emphasized, is often one of imagining ‘extinct societies’ of kinds for which no exact parallels exist, either in the historical record or in ethnographic accounts of these areas more recently. The earlier phases in the formation of steppe societies form a chapter in their own right. In reaction to such later historical stereotypes, it has sometimes been tempting to apply a gradualist model of development, in which early societies were simply prototypical of later forms. Yet this, too, carries its own expectations and assumptions: in this case, a search for an evolutionary model in which horse-domestication arose as a natural consequence 233

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Steppe regions themselves, however, are also areas of production (and distinctive cultural units) in their own right, and not merely corridors linking other regions: they thus play their own part in the pattern of regional differentiation as well as linking others. Thus the Assyrian steppes became areas of specialized wool-production within the developing economies of greater Mesopotamian region from the third millennium onwards, and the Pontic steppes took on a comparable role as centres of horse-rearing which supplied nearby regions from at least the first millennium BC — and, as I shall argue, to some extent from earlier millennia, too. Moreover the steppe regions (unlike alluvial river-basins such as lowland Mesopotamia) may also have their own resources of inorganic materials: in the case of the Pontic steppes, flint in the Eneolithic and copper in the Bronze Age. The relatively rare and valuable inorganic resources (whether extracted in the steppes or transported across them) were important from early times, before specialized regimes of livestockproduction came to produce a surplus for export; high-value, low-bulk goods were capable of travelling over impressively long distances. (The ‘Silk Route’ is the classic example; and since this was known to the Chinese as the ‘Horse Route’, it serves to remind us that horses themselves, as a commodity capable of moving themselves, may belong to the category of mobile, high-value goods rather than that of bulkier commodities such as woollen cloth.)2 Not only inorganic goods, but also organic ones, could also be sufficiently valuable in small amounts to move over long distances. Drugs, in particular, fall into this category, and the Eurasian steppe plant Cannabis sativa is an obvious example of a local resource capable of producing a tradable product from early periods. (Although its traffic is hardly reflected in documentary sources, it was traded in commercial quantities in recent times: lumps of its resin may be seen as offerings in Georgian churches.) Other tradeable steppe and forest-steppe items would have included wild-animal products such furs and horns (the latter essential components in composite bows, for which ibex horns are known to have been traded in the Bronze Age east Mediterranean: Wachsman 1987). The flows of these various commodities have at different times provided the motive for economic interactions with surrounding communities; and, as a result of these contacts, technologies and expertise have been transferred by, and through, steppe populations. The Silk Route again furnishes numerous examples (Denwood 1978); but they are not lack-

of earlier forms of exploitation, by a process of intensification in areas where horses formed a high proportion of indigenous wild ungulates — an inevitable consequence of generations of familiarity with horses as a potential meat resource among populations living within the natural habitat of these animals. While this ecological model remains to be fully assessed (Levine 1999), it is time to explore an alternative conceptualization of the problem. Rather than viewing the successive changes which took place from 4500 to 1500 BC as the inevitable emergence of forms of society uniquely generated by the distinctive environment of the steppes, it is possible to envisage a sequence of responses to a changing structural setting within the developing complex of western Old World societies, within which unique local properties were manifested at each stage. This involved the adoption — and transformation — of practices which originated elsewhere. The archaeological record of the western steppe region presents a range of often spectacular phenomena — of which sites of Arkaim type described elsewhere in this volume present an outstanding example — which resist any simple evolutionary interpretation, and demand attention in their own right as the products of specific historical circumstances. The task of constructing such a historical account of this period is thus one of preserving the distinctiveness of the developmental trajectory of steppe societies, while integrating them in the context of their own times, in which each period can be seen as a unique response to opportunities provided by the existence of neighbouring communities with different lifeways and propensities for change. This interactionist interpretation is the principal claim to distinctiveness in the account which I propose. The steppes as crossroads In the network of interactions between human communities, every region — indeed, every site — is a crossroads: but some areas are more crucial than others. The Eurasian steppes, like the Assyrian steppes, are a relatively treeless extent of rather uniform topography, which provide a broad corridor of movement between adjacent regions, within which exotic rivers form both concentrations of higher population density and more specific lines of communication (cf. Sherratt 1996 for river-routes in general). This potential for contact and movement is realized, however, only to the extent that adjacent regions have an incentive to engage in interaction. The role of such steppe corridors thus changes through time, as surrounding regions develop and differentiate. 234

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out the importance of external contacts in creating the conditions for cultural innovation. The steppes were never isolated: indeed, one of the chief consequences of their open, unobstructed landscape has been to facilitate interaction with surrounding regions, as these regions have developed the incentive to acquire steppe products. In attempting a chronological sketch of how these sets of external relationships developed during the period in question, I shall briefly discuss two sets of culturally important technologies which have critically influenced the prehistoric development of the Eurasian steppe-lands: metallurgy and the use of animals for transport.

ing for earlier periods. One early example is the transmission of arsenical-alloy metallurgy and twopiece mould techniques of casting, as E.N. Chernykh has long pointed out (summarized in Chernykh 1992); the use of wheeled vehicles is another example from the same period (summarized in Piggott 1983).3 These elements spread both west, to forested Europe, and eastwards along the steppe corridor. The steppes themselves contributed their own innovations, both in horse-rearing and training, and in bentwood technologies such as the composite bow and light chariot (Shishlina 1997; Piggott 1971). The dissemination of practices such as the cultivation and use of cannabis may also be plausibly inferred, for instance in the late fourth millennium (Sherratt 1997a, chap. 16), and also in the more mundane use of cereals such as the temperate millets (Panicum and Setaria). Often steppe areas retained an expertise (for instance in horse-training, as is evident from the Kikkuli text: Kammenhuber 1961), even when they had no monopoly on production; so the line between the dissemination of a technique or commodity, and the continuing traffic in it, is a blurred one: both formed part of the incentive for continuing contacts. Finally, it is worth noting that these aspects of ‘trade’ and ‘technology’ are not separate from other aspects of life, but were intimately associated with ideological and cultural aspects. It is not necessary to appeal to early medieval times (when the Khazar khanate controlled the Don–Volga portage, and adopted Judaism as its official religion: Werbart 1996) to recognize that technological production, trading activity, and the exchange or elaboration of religious practices were parts of the same process. It was such flows of materials, techniques (and sometimes personnel) which account for the concentrations of cultural activity involving the elaboration of personal equipment or constructions, which form such an impressive feature of the archaeological record. These include sites such as the Catacomb-period ‘temple’ of Molochansk (Pustovalov 1994, 128–33), the defended settlements of Arkaim type (Zdanovich, this volume), or the labour-intensive and sometimes richly-equipped burial monuments which form such a prominent part of the archaeology of this area. The concentration of such monumental efforts offers important clues to routes of contact and nodal points within them. Thus whilst avoiding the anachronism of projecting backwards to prehistoric times the specific features (and especially the scale) of later manifestations of steppe life such as militaristic polities, it is important not to impoverish our picture by editing

Evolution or interaction? The context of steppe innovations Metallurgy and its cultural contexts The occurrence of metal objects in the Pontic steppe area is a significant index of its external relationships, and therefore a pointer to those areas with which it has been engaged in a significant degree of long-distance exchange. It may therefore be taken as an indicator of the orientation of these relationships and a surrogate for exchanges of other materials, and whose transmission was accompanied by other forms of influence. The earliest copper objects form part of the complex of long-distance exchanges which first drew the steppe area into articulation with neighbouring regions in the later fifth millennium BC. These networks were anchored in the copper-producing areas of Balkan and Carpathian Europe, and the circulation of other prestige materials from local sources (flint, especially in the form of long dagger-blades and bifacially worked projectile points of the kind familiar further west from Tiszapolgár and Bodrogkeresztúr contexts; also beads of ornamental stones) can be seen in large part as a response to the availability of metal from these sources, mediated by the Tripolye culture and to some degree with Gumelnitsa. The quantities of copper in circulation at this time in southeast Europe are impressively evidenced from the quantities of single finds of massive shafthole axes (many originally from graves), and from associated cemetery finds at Varna and the Tiszapolgár cemetery. This material was obtained from mined ores, and the objects produced by relatively simple casting methods in one-piece moulds. The bulk of this metal was unalloyed, or contained relatively low levels of arsenic and/or antimony. Although the Varna cemetery forms part of a distinctive coastal complex (Price 1993), and has external analogies in 235

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small goldwork from the islands of the north Aegean, there is little evidence for the development of coastal and associated riverine networks around the northern shore of the Black Sea at this time: instead, the traffic seems to have been principally overland, especially via the middle Dnestr–Dnepr interfluve, and to have reached eastwards as far as Khvalynsk sites on the Volga. These networks seem also to have penetrated into the northern Caucasus, as indicated by the distribution of stone ‘sceptres’. Thus the initial orientation of long-distance exchange networks in the Pontic steppe region, during the Early Eneolithic, was to the west. Balkan/Carpathian sources supplied copper from its booming production, even though large artefacts such as shafthole tools rarely penetrated beyond the Tripolye area, and reached the lands beyond in the form of ‘trinket-sized’ objects such as ornaments. Towards the middle of the fourth millennium (the Middle Eneolithic of the steppes), this pattern began to change: the Caucasus became a more important exchange partner, as copper-production boomed and large objects such as shafthole axes were produced by Near Eastern methods in two-piece moulds. Alloying with arsenic became usual. As well as single-blade shafthole axes, this industry began to produce poker-butt spearheads and tanged daggers with single or multiple medial ridges, as well as a variety of ornamental forms, including lost-wax castings. In addition, from the Maikop burial, the two famous silver sheet-metal vessels are known, with representations of animal friezes in a provincial variant of the style associated with Uruk artistic conventions. While these last may have been imported from the Kura-Araks area on the south side of the Great Caucasus range, the copper metallurgy is evidence of a sudden surge in local production, using advanced techniques of Near Eastern origin. This rapid growth in the sophistication and output of Caucasian metallurgy in the Late Eneolithic period was reflected in an extension of its influence in the north Pontic area, whose cultures became divided in their orientation between a western, Tripolye-focused network including the Lower Mikhailovka culture on the Lower Dnepr, and a Caucasus-focussed network which included the lower Don and the middle Dnepr (which was linked to the Maikop region via the River Molochna, the Sea of Azov and the Kuban River). The two networks were in contact with each other, as is shown by the presence of Tripolye pottery in both areas. The degree of Caucasian influence can be gauged by the occurrence of a two-piece mould for a shafthole axe from

Samarsky Kurgan 1, Grave 6 on the middle Dnepr (Rassamakin 1999, fig. 3.22.14), implying local manufacture using this advanced method of casting, though probably on the basis of imported copper. By the later part of the fourth millennium (Final Eneolithic), the Tripolye culture had disintegrated into a series of local groups, formed partly by integration with indigenous populations in adjacent areas. (At this time the cultures of the Balkan/ Carpathian region had been transformed under Anatolian influence into the Boleráz/Baden/ Cernavoda III complex, using dark burnished pottery in metallic shapes, and using wheeled vehicles as demonstrated by cart-models). The southernmost group of the extended late-Tripolye complex, the Usatovo group, shows indications of maritime contacts with the west Anatolian/north Aegean area, in the occurrence of riveted daggers with arsenic-enriched surfaces (obtained by controlled inverse segregation) at Usatovo and Nerusaj (Vajsov 1993). At the same time the relationship of the east-Pontic (middle Dnepr/Don) area with the Caucasus (now Novosvobodnaya culture) were strengthened, with burials of Zhivotilovo-Volchanskoe type forming an axis from the upper Dnestr, through the middle Dnepr and Molochna, to the Kuban region. These links explain certain similarities in pottery types between Novosvobodnaya and eastern TRB groups in Poland.4 These complexities, confusing in detail, are symptomatic of the rapid reorientations and manoeuvrings made necessary by the radical changes in exchange linkages in the areas around the Black Sea. They may well have involved migrations of small groups of people, but more in a scramble for advantageous positions in the developing pattern of exchange networks than for demographic or environmental reasons, or from any inherently militaristic tendencies (though these may have involved adjustments in their modes of subsistence, in order to occupy these new areas). Modes of subsistence, and locational decisions, are not independent of wider structural considerations. The outcome of this reorganization was a growing uniformity of burialtype, developing from earlier regional practices, which manifested itself in the Pit-Grave complex, occupying an area from the Danube mouth5 (and extending beyond it in small enclaves in Bulgaria, Romania and eastern Hungary) to the Kuban region (where it takes the form of the Novotitarovka group), and extending eastwards to include local Eneolithic groups on the Volga and beyond. This is clearly an entity of a new type, comparable to the Corded236

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Ware and Bell Beaker complexes, which may be seen as related phenomena of inter-regional integration. One of the characteristic features of this group, finding ideologically charged expression in the more elaborate kurgan burials in many areas, is the occurrence of four solid wooden wheels placed around the primary interment, and symbolic of an ox-drawn wagon. These are considered in a separate section. During the course of the third millennium, the pottery-types of the Pit-Grave complex underwent typological development,6 and the pottery censer (kurilnitsa) became a common accompaniment in graves (especially in the north-Caucasian area). It is tempting to relate this to a ritualized practice of cannabis smoking, parallel to the role which the consumption of alcoholic beverages played in southern and Central Europe, and reflected in the characteristic jug-and-cup complex in burials (e.g. at Alsónémedi, Hungary, with paired-cattle burial). I suggested some years ago that this use of Cannabis sativa (hemp) might account for the popularity of cord-impressed decoration, and speculated that this could have been a factor in its transfer to the Globular Amphora and Corded Ware cultures, now in drinkable form from their characteristic beakers. The use of cannabis smoking in ritual contexts, well known in Scythian times, would thus go back to the formation of a steppe complex in the Early Bronze Age. Its potential as a tradable substance has been remarked above.7 In certain areas the burial-chamber under the kurgan was extended by the addition of a side-chamber, to produce the characteristic Catacomb-Grave type. These are sometimes accompanied by complete wagons or carts. This catacomb chamber was by no means universal,8 however, and this more elaborate type of burial must be taken as a sign of increasing élite differentiation within those areas in advantageous positions on exchange-routes. The impression is strengthened by the occurrence of an elaborate ‘temple’ or ceremonial mound, at Molochansk on the crucial link-route of the Molochna river,9 and the metallurgical wealth of this area (Pustovalov 1994; Klochko 1994). This was probably now supported by exploitation of the copper ores of the Donetsk region, and is reflected in the frequent occurrence there of casting equipment in élite burials — the so-called ‘smith’s graves’ (Bochkarev & Leskov 1980).10 The types of copper objects produced in the CatacombGrave area are of the same broad range of types as those in the northern Caucasus (now North Caucasian culture, parallel to Bedeni-Martkopi in Georgia), and the external connections of this region may be presumed to have been primarily with this area.

Certain typological similarities between the shafthole battle-axes of the Donetsk region and the stone examples in the Troy treasure (including an example in lazurite) and at Alaca Hüyük, however, hint at wider contacts. It is now known that Troy at this period was not just a fortified citadel, but also had an extensive lower town (excavations by M. Korfmann), so that there was already a major urban settlement at the entrance to the Dardanelles; and this was probably in contact by a maritime route to the central southern shore of the Black Sea (Ikiztepe), so that western Black Sea and Aegean maritime routes formed part of a single network. I have suggested (1993) that these routes extended up to the Danube mouth, and explain the early occurrence (2500 BC) of tin-bronze in the cemeteries of the Maros group in southern Hungary — reflecting the circulation of tin in the Near East, at a time when it was unknown in the northern Caucasus and the steppes. By the beginning of the second millennium BC the development of metallurgy in the southern Urals was a major factor fuelling the economic expansion of surrounding areas, both in the adjacent woodlands and in the steppe zone. The artefact types were mostly in the Caucasian tradition, and included shafthole axes and spearheads with a split (forged and wrapped-round) socket.11 The new Ural sources diminished the importance of the Caucasus as a source of metal for steppe populations (Chernykh 1992, 275), and led to the growth of extensive exchange networks on the steppes themselves, especially as eastward expansion brought these groups into contact with new, diverse sources (including tin for alloying) as far away as the Altai and Central Asia. This expansion had a further effect, as groups in the forest zone to the north of the steppes created notable innovations in lost-wax casting for knives with representational scenes (in the tradition of local woodcarving) and also transformed the splitsocketed spearhead into a solid-cast form, even creating socketed axes by the same suspended-core technique (Chernykh & Kuzminykh 1987). This Seima-Turbino tradition (among northern-forest groups who would otherwise be characterized as Sub-neolithic!) is a remarkable phenomenon, indicative of the deep cultural significance of these metal artifacts;12 and these metallurgical contacts (as Childe perceived in 1953, although within a compressed chronology) can be traced from the Baltic to the borders of China — and had an important impact both on east- and west-Eurasian metallurgical development. (The spread of the spearhead with a cast socket in Reinecke A2 thus parallels the beginning of hol237

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These were the species of livestock which were first added to the practice of cereal and legume horticulture in the Neolithic of the Levantine corridor and adjacent areas, in the seventh and eighth millennia BC; and these were the species which spread in association with cultivation, as farming expanded from the Near East in subsequent millennia.14 Some four millennia then elapsed, before a new round of domestication took place. The species involved in this second episode were equids and camelids: animals which may on occasion be eaten, but which are more valuable to human populations as providers of transport, either for humans themselves or their goods. Within a similar timescale, so far as it is possible to judge, the uses of existing species of livestock also diversified, to provide traction and the secondary live products of milk and wool. A similar pattern can be seen in the domestication of plants. The first food-cultivars (drug-plants and fibre-plants were potentially earlier, perhaps back into the Pleistocene in tropical areas) were smallseeded annuals, yielding carbohydrate and some protein or oil. Woody perennials, capable of being propagated vegetatively and yielding oil, or sugarrich juices suitable for fermentation, came later — on a small scale in the Chalcolithic, but on a large scale only in the fourth millennium. Their extensive cultivation at this time was associated with the production of commodities — oil and wine, along with milk-products and wool — for circulation and consumption within the trading networks of the first urban communities. The reason for this rhythm of development — two episodes of innovation in both plant-husbandry and livestock-rearing — lay in their social and economic context. The first was associated with the earliest villages, the second with the appearance of towns: the Neolithic and Urban Revolutions respectively. The domestication of transport animals was associated with the growth of routes along which raw materials were carried for use in urban manufacturing processes, or along which exotic luxuries travelled, for consumption by urban élites. Their domestication is coeval with the first use of the sail for maritime transport; and caravans of pack animals plied cross-country routes, often linking with watertransport by boat along the arterial rivers (Algaze 1993). Thus donkeys were first used in the southern Levant (probably on the desert route along the coast to Egypt, the via maris), and soon spread round the Fertile Crescent to be used on routes across the Syrian Jezira, and down to Sumer and Elam (where they first occur in the Uruk period); Bactrian camels seem

low-cast bronze working in China). All this is symptomatic of a vastly increased range of contacts throughout Eurasia in the second millennium BC, and it was in this context that spoked-wheel vehicles drawn by horses made their appearance in the steppe zone, from the Carpathian Basin to the Urals and beyond. The far-flung nature of contacts at this time are well exemplified in the hoard from Borodino near Odessa on the Black Sea (Krivtsova-Grakova 1949; Hachmann 1957), with its silver spearheads, winged pin and dirk — astonishing alike for their composition, design and ornamentation. The pin, which is a schrägdurchlochte Kugelkopfnadel of Central European type (Reinecke A2) with added wings decorated in the same style as the spearheads, betokens connections along the Danube; the solid-socketed spearheads indicate a close relationship with SeimaTurbino industries of the forest-steppe region, extending across the north of Siberia to the Baikal region, which has also been suggested as a source for the nephrite axes in the hoard, and hint at relationships across vast distances; while the decoration, related to that on decorated antler harness-equipment (see below), suggests local workmanship of some sophistication (Chernykh & Kuzminykh 1987). Added to the finds of gold weapons from the lower Danube (Pers¸inari, Ma(cin), and the suggestion that gold vessels of Ra(deni/Kryzhovlin/Vulchetrun A type have their origin in the Monteoru culture (Sherratt & Taylor 1989), indicating a local tradition of gold sheet-working in complex shapes,13 the context of early chariot-use takes on a notably international dimension. This rapid survey of the evidence provided by metallurgy for the scale of inter-regional relations is offered as a benchmark by which to judge the plausibility of the suggestions which follow. These may be summarized in the assertion that the development of animal husbandry in the steppe region, in so far as it relates to the domestication and use of animals for transport (i.e. to the horse as a ridden and traction animal) cannot be seen simply as a process of local ‘evolution’, but is rather a process of dialectical interaction with neighbouring regions, driven ultimately by the processes unleashed by the formation of urban communities in Mesopotamia. This model has implications for where horse-domestication, and, later, chariotry, might have begun. Secondary domestication: animals for transport With the exception of the dog, the first generation of domesticated animals in the Old World were species that provided meat: goats, sheep, cattle and pigs. 238

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to have been domesticated in highland Iran or neighbouring Turkmenistan and Afghanistan in the later fourth millennium, in connection with the long-distance routes supplying lapis lazuli to Mesopotamia (some of which was then re-exported as far as Egypt). Arabian camels were first domesticated, probably as a local substitute for the Bactrian species, in Bahrein and Oman, on the opposite side of the Gulf, as these areas became important entrepots in the third millennium. Two genera of transport animals, then, were taken into domestication in the fourth and third millennia in the context of urbanization and the extension of trade-routes: two species of camel and at least one equid. On these grounds alone, it would be possible to postulate that domestication of Equus ferus [caballus] formed part of this pattern of secondary domestication, and was connected in some way with these developments; indeed, it would be a curious anomaly if another episode of equid domestication were to have taken place, in an adjacent area and at about the same time, for quite independent reasons. The coincidence is simply too striking. Should horses therefore be added to the list of transport animals drawn into human association as a result of urban growth, and associated with the proliferation of trade routes in the surrounding areas? The pattern and timing of events suggests that this is indeed the case; but such an association might have several explanations. We might distinguish between a strong model and a weak model: in the latter case, one might postulate that domestication of the horse resulted in some way from increased economic activity in the steppe region as an indirect result of urban expansion, for instance in the spread of advanced metallurgical techniques to the northern Caucasus, and in its knock-on effects in stimulating local cycles of exchange. While this is a possible line of argument, it does not tie horse-domestication directly to comparable events further south. To do so, we must elaborate a scenario capable of linking these episodes more specifically: and this strong model is elaborated below. It begins with a suggestion from Peter Uerpmann, that domestication of the horse took place, not on the Pontic steppes, but in Spain (Uerpmann 1990). Its relevance is not the suggested location (for most authors see domestic horses as being introduced to Iberia, probably as a result of Bell Beaker contacts, after a long chain of transmission from the steppes; though of course the initially introduced stock may have been enhanced by hybridization and intake from local wild populations), but rather in the

mechanism which he postulates. For Uerpmann, following his German archaeological colleagues such as Eduard Sangmeister, believes in a ‘colonial’ explanation for Chalcolithic sites of Los Millares and VNSP type in Iberia; direct influences from the Levant, bringing knowledge of the domestication of the donkey.15 Although I find this transmission along the length of the Mediterranean implausible at this period, the idea of donkey domestication as providing a model for the horse is a good one; and moreover it is immediately transferable to a rather nearer potential theatre of horse domestication, namely the areas on either side of the Caucasus mountains. We know (not least from the iconology of the Maikop vases: Andreeva 1979)16 that contacts, however indirect, existed between the Uruk complex and the northern Caucasus in the mid-fourth millennium; and also that donkeys spread rapidly round the network of Uruk routes in greater Mesopotamia. Indeed, new evidence from the Maikop-period levels at Galugay 1, presented at the Cambridge conference by Sergey Korenevsky indicates the presence of three equids at this site: horse, kulan (onager) and donkey (Equus ferus [caballus], E. hemionus and E. asinus respectively).17 While further contextual information would be helpful in assessing how these animals were in fact used, the obvious interpretation of this observation is that donkeys had been introduced to this area as pack animals, on routes leading from Arslantepe via the upper Euphrates and Transcaucasia. The implication of this evidence is that domestic donkeys — presumably used as pack animals — themselves reached the distribution-area of the wild horse in the late fourth millennium, when the idea of equid domestication was transmitted to Maikop at the same time as the new metallurgical techniques. It raises the possibility that horses themselves were first domesticated as substitute pack-animals, and may even have been initially used as wild sires for the production of mules (in the same way that has been postulated for captured onagers in third-millennium Mesopotamia, to produce asinus x hemionus crosses as draught animals). All this re-opens the question of where such a process of experimentation with E. ferus might have taken place, and suggests that the initial hearth of horse domestication within the steppe region lay closer to the Caucasus than the Urals. While the recent distributions of the three equids (asinus, hemionus and ferus) are largely discrete (with horse to the north of the Caucasus, wild ass in the southern Levant and North Africa/Arabia, and onager in the area from Greater Mesopotamia east to 239

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Central Asia), their ranges can be seen to have overlapped, because of the specialization of asses to rocky places and onagers to open plains (Uerpmann 1987). Thus the populations from which the first donkeys were domesticated were probably parts of distinctive Levantine/Arabian population, rather than an African one. The distribution of horses extended into the Near East during the Pleistocene (with the western end of the onager range being occupied by the now extinct, zebra-like, Equus hydruntinus, which survived into the Holocene in the Carpathian Basin and the Konya plain); and the distribution-area of the horse in the fourth millennium seems to have included both a more or less continuous set of populations in the steppe zone, with relict populations in more isolated open plains and forested areas to the west. These western, forest populations were notably smaller in stature, as were the local domestic populations before the spread of larger cavalry-horses from the steppes in the Iron Age. It is thus probable that populations of wild horses existed in Anatolia in the late-fourth millennium, and in some numbers on the open plains of Transcaucasia. (Claims of latefourth and early-third millennium horses in the Levant seem to be stratigraphically uncertain.) Horsebones from sites along the upper Euphrates have been claimed both as representing wild survivals (Boessneck & von den Driesch 1976) and also early domesticated specimens (Bökönyi 1991). In the extensive open areas of Transcaucasia, however, and especially in the drier east (along the shore of the Caspian) and especially in the plains of the lower Kura and Araks, wild horses may well have survived in considerable numbers during the Holocene. In the absence of detailed osteological information from sites of this period in Georgia (at least, any known to me),18 it seems prudent to admit the possibility that this area had a significant role in the domestication of the horse — indeed, if Uerpmann’s suggestion that the domestication of the donkey provided a model for that of the horse is a correct one, it may well have been the primary area of horse domestication. In any case, Uerpmann’s suggestion (with my geographical re-location of where it actually took place) throws critical attention on to the role of the upper Euphrates as a corridor of contact at the period in question, since this was the most probable route by which Uruk influences reached the Caucasian region. The upper Euphrates had been a route into the highlands since Neolithic times; and recent rescue excavations as a result of reservoir-building in the basins along its course have demonstrated the

extent of Uruk penetration in the middle and later fourth millennium. Major Uruk outposts like the fortified town of Habuba Kabira and the temples of Jebel Aruda, appropriately termed ‘colonies’, were founded on the Euphrates bend in Syria (in the area of the Tabqa basin now occupied by Lake Assad, where the Neolithic sites of Tell Abu Hureyra and Mureybet had also been situated, for arguably similar reasons). Uruk enclaves occur in native villages higher up the river in southern Turkey; and a major ‘Urukizing’ local centre grew up at Arslantepe near Malatya (where a hoard of metalwork offers the best analogies for many Maikop types: Frangipane & Palmieri 1983). Higher still, in the Altınova plain, rescue excavations in advance of the Keban dam revealed further evidence of the Uruk impact, and the local exploitation of copper sources at this period. Why penetrate further? The material of the Maikop vases suggests the answer: even higher-value materials, such as precious metals — just as gold provided the incentive for contacts with Egypt, and lapis lazuli for links to Afghanistan. The road to the Caucasus lies along the connecting valleys: principally along the route past Erzurum to the upper Araks (Arakses) and down to Yerevan in Armenia and so on to Central Georgia (and potentially also north to the Çoruh and down to the coast at Batumi). It was in these areas that the Kura-Araks culture grew up during the fourth millennium, whose fortified settlements and metallurgical activity provide the background to that of Maikop and the northern Caucasus, reachable either by the main military road to Ordzhonikidze, or by passes at the western end which give access to Maikop itself, and the Kuban plain beyond. My first suggestion, therefore, is that the penetration of influences along this route was the principal stimulus for the domestication of the horse — either in Transcaucasia, or in the northern Caucasus, or in the immediately adjacent steppes, at the time of the Early Kura-Araks and Maikop cultures, in the second half of the fourth millennium BC. This model of horse-domestication is completely congruent with the pattern described in the previous section for the spread of advanced metallurgical techniques such as the two-piece mould; indeed, it treats the domestication of transport-animals19 as part of the same process of expansion, centred on the Uruk cities, and calling into existence new centres of production and more intensive cycles of exchange in a great arc around the Mesopotamian heartlands. Direct Uruk ‘colonial’ expansion was restricted to northern Syria and the lowlands of southern Turkey; the native, ‘Urukizing’ polity centred on Arslantepe240

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cal populations were rare; and Benecke (1994) has suggested that such domestic stock arrived in Central Europe in the closing centuries of the fourth millennium (e.g. in Bernburg and Cham contexts), with a continuing impact further west, where domestic horses were adopted by Bell Beaker groups, and even introduced by them into Britain and Ireland where there were no wild survivors. This rapid spread of domestic horses into Europe contrasts with their slow southward dispersal, into lands to which they were ecologically less suited. If their principal role was as a pack animal, then donkeys provided a better-adapted alternative. In mountainous areas where both horses and donkeys were available, mules might have been desirable as pack animals, and domestic horses may have become a tradable commodity for this purpose in the areas around the upper Euphrates.21 There is some evidence that domestic horses spread along the eastern mountain fringes of Mesopotamia in the period following the collapse of the northern Uruk colonies around 3200 BC, when Transcaucasian (late KuraAraks) populations expanded southwards into the vacuum — taking over Arslantepe (level VI B), and appearing at Godin Tepe in Kermanshah (level IV) where horse bones appear for the first time. Moreover there are interesting suggestions at this latter site that hybridization with local onagers may have been practiced (Gilbert 1991), and it seems likely that the southward spread of horses was initially connected with their use as pack animals, and more particularly in producing hybrids for this purpose, either with donkeys or onagers depending on their local availability. What is still unclear, however, is what other roles horses may have played — especially on the steppes and in temperate Europe — beyond their putative employment as pack-animals in the period before the development of horse-drawn transport. In steppe regions, the keeping of large numbers of horses may have had important ecological effects (such as their ability to clear snow and open snowcovered pastures for grazing by other livestock); but in forested Europe, their keeping was surely largely a matter of prestige. Whether this involved riding is an unsolved problem. In addition to their role as pack animals, donkeys in the ancient Near East were also ridden; and this aspect of their usefulness might also have been transferred to the horse. It is unlikely, however, that horses adapted very easily to being ridden (and the analogy of the Plains Indians, riding mustangs, is misleading in this respect, since the ancestors of such feral horses were specialized breeds

Maltya was a crucial nodal link; the powerful indigenous local culture centred on the Kura and Arakses valleys of Transcaucasia was a response to these opportunities, and transmitted Mesopotamian influences north of the Caucasus. These areas were far beyond the direct reach of Uruk emissaries: but so was Badakhshan and the sources of lapis lazuli. It was the growth of indigenous cultural foci, like the Kura-Araks culture in Transcaucasia or Altyn Depe and the Namazga culture in Turkmenistan, which provided a continuity of partners interested in exchange; and (like the Silk Route, along which materials flowed, although no individual travelled its entire length)20 provided a directional chain of preferentially oriented transactions, which allowed a complementary flow of products. As the Maikop vases demonstrate (and as Mikhail Rostovtzeff perceptively noted in the 1920s), the northern Caucasus at this time was an outpost of Mesopotamian influence (Rostovtzeff 1920). In this reconstruction, the initial domestication of the horse is situated in the interactions between Greater Mesopotamia and its neighbours at the period which saw the first urban economies and a new scale of contacts and trading-links with a wide arc of neighbouring cultures, from Egypt to Afghanistan. Just as the donkey and camel were pressed into service as transport animals on these extended overland routes, so horses provided a further opportunity for experimentation with a hitherto undomesticated ungulate which provided a new potential for moving goods. In the absence of the donkey, they could, themselves, be used as pack animals, useful in crossing the dry interfluves with goods or equipment, and enlarging the potential mobility of human populations and the area which could be exploited. Unlike the donkey and camel, however, which remained largely confined to urban communities and their immediate suppliers, the horse took on a new role in societies outside this tightly-linked network of interdependent economies: once in existence, domestic horses were adopted by a range of cultures in areas where horses were indigenous and provided a pool of animals for local intake from the wild — and even beyond, in places where Pleistocene horses had become extinct. Domesticated horses seem to have become an important element in the steppe region at the time of the great reorganization in the final Eneolithic, creating one of the preconditions for the emergence of the Yamnaya unity and its eastward expansion to the Urals (and possible influences even beyond); but domesticated horses could also be traded westwards, into the forested lands where lo241

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produced for just this purpose); it seems more likely that attempts to ride horses were first made with domestic draught-animals, long habituated to humans, in areas where donkeys provided a model for this practice: in the Near East in the later third and second millennia. (The style of early Near Eastern horse-riding, with a seat well to the rear, would support this inference.) The use of riding for military purposes only became common in the first millennium, however, and may have its origins in an intermediate area such as Iran, or even further east.22 It is unlikely to have been a major aspect of horse-usage in earlier times. While horses were clearly a desirable commodity amongst the third-millennium peoples of the steppe zone, and amongst their neighbours in forested Europe, much of their potential remained latent; and horses were slow to spread southwards, into the expanding economies of the Fertile Crescent. What did provide an incentive to acquire horses on the part of Near Eastern populations, however, was the role of wheeled transport and the first experimentation with equids as draught animals in the context of warfare. It is to this aspect of the story that we now turn; for the development of wheeled vehicles demonstrates a similar pattern of dialectical interaction between the steppe areas and the growing urban complex to the south.

of early irrigation from Choga Mami in eastern Iraq in the sixth millennium; wheels would still have begun in the fourth millennium, since the pictographs show them as being added to a sign representing a sledge — indicative of a relatively recent development. Two recent papers, and a reading of some of the translations of early administrative texts as part of the project in Berlin (Nissen et al. 1993), have convinced me that my first interpretation was correct.23 The first paper, by Paul Halstead (1995), pointed out the expense of draught oxen in Mediterranean environments: the keeping of an ox-team is only viable in a production-unit of 5 hectares or more (like the Turkish çiftlik)24; and oxen in these areas — as opposed to temperate Europe, where more abundant grazing is available — have always implied a degree of capitalization on large estates. This is supported by the evidence of early texts: barley had to be set aside to feed the oxen during ploughing (archive of Lugalanda of Lagash, 2400 BC: Nissen et al. 1993, 63 & 68), and this could be a high proportion of the expected yield — as much as that required for seed-grain. Moreover the training of draught oxen only began after their third year, so they represented a considerable investment. (A Sumerian literary text entitled ‘a disputation between the plough and the hoe’ amusingly contrasts the cheapness and reliability of the latter.) It seems unlikely, therefore, that plough-based cultivation in Mediterranean regions began before the emergence of institutions capable of making such an investment: and this implies that it was part of a developed agricultural regime such as that of the Uruk temple-estates, rather than Halaf villages — in fact, in precisely the same context where written records themselves began. The second paper is by Littauer & Crouwel (1990), with a philological contribution by Steinkeller, which deals with the interpretation of sledges — both those shown in the pictographs, and in other contemporary representations (one from Arslantepe). They suggest that these, too, are part of a regime of intensive farming, and in fact represent an ox-drawn tribulum or threshing-sledge.25 What, then, of the pictograph showing a ‘sled-with-wheels’? Steinkeller points to Old Babylonian texts which describe a ‘wooden thresher’ (gis&-bad) whose description corresponds to a device known ethnographically as a threshing wain, or plostellum poenicum. This employs a roller, mortised into the frame, and turned by its inset wooden projections as they make contact with the ground in threshing the grain — a device already halfway to the sled-with-wheels implied by the Uruk IV pictographic sign. In short, the capital-

The technology of wheeled transport: (1) before equid traction The second key innovation which arrived on the Pontic steppes, at the very end of the fourth millennium or the beginning of the third, was the solidwheeled wagon, widespread in burials of the Pit-Grave and Novotitarovka Group (contemporary with final Maikop/Novosvobodnaya and later KuraAraks further south, and corresponding in time to post-Uruk in Syria). Such wagons imply the use of oxen in paired draught, which can also be used for ploughing; and the two innovations have often spread together. Some years ago (1981) I reviewed the archaeological evidence for these, and concluded that both began shortly before the time of the first representational and soil-mark evidence for each of them (in Uruk pictographs, Boleráz and Baden culture wagon-models, and Danish TRB plough marks — all dating to the second half of the fourth millennium BC). I took this to imply a Mesopotamian origin, and rapid dispersal as part of the Uruk impact. In subsequent years, sensitive to criticisms that this was a naively positivistic reading of the evidence, I proposed that ploughing might have begun earlier, in northern Syria and Iraq, in parallel with evidence 242

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intensive agriculture on Sumerian temple estates provided the context for the genesis of the whole traction-complex, with its applications to ploughing, threshing, and also to the prototypes of wheeled vehicles. One could therefore envisage the following scenario. The first systematic application of animal traction, justifying the high costs of specialist draughtanimals, was the use of oxen in the intensive cultivation of irrigated farmland in lowland Mesopotamia. This was associated with the first use of the draughtpole and yoke. This form of cultivation (to judge from abundant later pictures of ploughs with seederfunnels) was probably developed as an adjunct to sowing and to the creation of furrows to act as fine channels carrying water across the fields to the growing plants — a pattern shown by preserved thirdmillennium plough-furrows from Kalibangan in Pakistan. Once economies supporting specialist draught animals were in existence, oxen could be put to other uses at complementary points in the farming cycle. After the harvest, livestock were traditionally used for threshing (‘the ox that treadeth out the corn’: Deuteronomy 25, 4), and oxen could be used to pull threshing-sledges of the kind that became widespread in the Near East down to recent times.26 Whereas in areas with ready access to stone these instruments were usually set with rows of flint or chert teeth, on the stoneless alluvium they needed to be equipped instead with captive or mortised rollers in order to accomplish this task; and moreover by adding wooden disks to the ends of these rollers this instrument could be easily adapted for carrying loads. The genesis of wheeled transport would thus have taken place through a unique conjunction of economic and environmental conditions in lower Mesopotamia in the fourth millennium: a technological breakthrough created in a particular set of historical circumstances.27 If this suggestion is correct, it implies that the traction-complex was a fundamental aspect of the kinds of intensive farming which came into being to support urbanization, and spread with the Uruk diaspora. Draught animals pulling ploughs and threshing-sledges were thus an integral part of the productive technology of early urban societies, just as pack-animals were integral parts of its transportation system; and aspects of both these technologies were capable of being adopted and transformed by societies brought into contact with them by expanding urban supply-routes. The attraction of such innovations may have been ideological as much as instrumental, for these novelties carried symbolic

meanings as well as technical effectiveness. This is well shown by the representations of élite figures ride on canopied (?threshing-)sledges from fourthmillennium contexts cited by Littauer and Crouwel);28 such a scene occurs in a wall-painting (in a conventionalized, textile-inspired style) at Urukizing Arslantepe, on the upper Euphrates route to the Caucasus (Frangipane 1997, fig. 15), where a wheel-model shows that freely-rotating disc-wheels were already known. Wheeled vehicles may initially have been principally for ‘ritual’ use (transport of important people) rather than simply a means of moving goods; and such practices would have been an important element in the appeal of such vehicles to élite groups in neighbouring societies. Along with the advanced metallurgy which was transmitted north to Transcaucasia, therefore, paired draught traction is another element that is likely to have been introduced through these contacts. Both plough and wheel were probably present from an early stage of the KuraAraks culture, and wheeled vehicles had crossed the Greater Caucasus by 3000 BC, in parallel to their introduction to Europe through the Balkans.29 As the widespread European evidence for Late Neolithic ploughs and wheels indicates, once the traction-complex had reached areas where more extensive grazing was available, it was released to some degree from its ecological and economic constraints: both the traction-plough and wheeled wagon became more widely available, even if still mostly in the hands of secular or religious élites and employed in ‘prestige’ practices rather than everyday uses. Both elements had reached the North European Plain by 3500 BC, and became widely integrated into the indigenous cultures of most of agricultural Europe during the third millennium. On the Pontic steppes after 3000 BC, ox-drawn wheeled vehicles joined the use of the domestic horse to become a fundamental feature of the life in this region. It was not for another millennium, however, that the two chains of innovation represented by the use of the horse and the wheel were to be united into a single machine: the first horse-drawn vehicle, the chariot. It is my contention that this innovation, like that of the initial domestication of the horse, can best be understood as the outcome of a dialectical interaction between the lands north and south of the Caucasus. The technology of wheeled transport: (2) equid traction Equids were first used as traction animals in the Near East, and specifically in a military context, at the time of the confrontations between city-states in Early Dynastic Mesopotamia during the first half of 243

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the third millennium. The variety of battle-wagons and battle-cars that were developed at this time (which are plentifully represented in clay models) has been well discussed by Littauer & Crouwel (1979): usually four equids were employed, two spanned by a yoke and the outer two attached to it by straps. They were crudely controlled (like cattle) by reins to a nose-ring or -band. This was highly inefficient and these vehicles no doubt almost as dangerous to their driver as to his opponents. Nevertheless it was this mode of use which first brought equid and wheel into conjunction, and it is unlikely that such a development would have occurred on the steppe lands in the absence of these pioneer attempts in the context of state-sponsored warfare. The use of equids in Near Eastern warfare was to provide a motive for sustained contacts with the steppe lands. The representations of equid-traction are paralleled by burials of paired equids (mainly donkeys, but some possibly hybrids) in Early Dynastic Mesopotamia (Zarins 1986): and textual evidence indicates that donkeys were widely employed by this time in agricultural work (including ploughing), and also that hybrids existed — probably initially with onagers, but later with horses (Postgate 1986). Horses may have been more common in Syria and northern Mesopotamia than in the south, and were probably continuously supplied from breeding-populations further north, in Anatolia or Transcaucasia — themselves perhaps augmented by intake from the steppes. This mode of use provided a continuing incentive for the importation of horses into northern Mesopotamia. But the vehicles (technically known as battlecars) which these equids were used to pull remained relatively massive and heavy — they were developments of the solid-wheeled, ox-drawn wagon, pressed into a wider range of military uses. Some of them (called platform-cars) now had two wheels, rather than four. The other innovation was the straddle-car, a device on which the rider sat astride a padded seat, as on a motorbike. It, too, had a pair of solid wooden wheels and was pulled by a team of equids; it may have been used in hunting, and by long-distance couriers, as well as in battle. In the steppe region, two-wheeled vehicles (i.e. carts) also came into use at this time,30 as shown by the Catacomb-Grave burial at Marievka barrow 11 (Zaporozhye region) with a two-wheeled vehicle having a solid wooden platform (Pustovalov 1994, fig.11). Neither this, nor the Mesopotamian platform-cars, can be called chariots; but they are evidence of a common desire, in both areas, to produce a smaller and more manoeuvrable vehicle than the wagon, for

personal transport. There is no evidence from the steppe region that equids were used to pull such devices. The incentive to develop an effective, equiddrawn vehicle came from the military needs of proliferating (and competing) Near Eastern states, and the capital investment which they could afford. This millennial developmental history, on the basis of the four-wheeled wagon which developed from early Uruk agricultural equipment, is a necessary background for understanding the emergence of the true chariot at the beginning of the second millennium. For this vehicle represented a complete re-design, on quite new principles, as Stuart Piggott has often emphasized (e.g. 1983, 27). Early chariots were light vehicles — as light as bicycles, and examples are sometimes shown in Bronze Age Egyptian reliefs being carried by a single man holding it in one hand. Spruytte’s reconstructions (on the basis of representations in rock art) give a good impression of how insubstantial such vehicles were: quite unlike the heavier form developed in the first millennium by the Assyrians, and driven in Roman racing-stadia — and immortalized on film — by Ben Hur (Spruytte 1983).31 This latter image is an anachronism for the Bronze Age, when the ‘chariot’ (in the barbarian world, though later improved by Near Eastern craftsmen) was little more than a platform on which the driver stood, supported by wheels which were little more than a stick bent into a circle, held by a scarf-joint, and supported by spokes radiating from a central hub which rotated about a fixed axle. Their construction was based on a tradition of woodworking which had its origins, not in solid, sculptural, carpentry but in the bentwood technology used for centuries in making recurved bows (Shishlina 1997). The wheels on the carriage from Barrow 5 at Pazyryk, vastly larger and with a multitude of spokes, give an impression of the potential of this simple but elegant constructional technique (Fig. 15.1). Along with this new constructional principle came innovations in harnessing and control. The yoke was adapted to equine necks, more delicate than those of bovids, by yoke-saddles;32 and the reins were now attached to a bridle and bit with cheek-pieces, giving sensitive directional control at speed. Since Dietz’s critique (1992), it has become clear that the various pieces of perforated antlerwork found in pre-Bronze Age contexts are unlikely to be the remains of cheek-pieces: even if early domestic horses were ridden, this did not require the use of a bit. The first true bits with cheek-pieces (‘psalia’) were associated with chariotry and driven horses, which had to be closely controlled as a pair: and it was this control 244

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system which provided the critical breakthrough in the development of a horse-drawn vehicle. The distribution of these harnessing elements thus provides the best guide to where chariotry began. They coincide with distinctive forms of compass-drawn ornament (‘Wellenbandmuster’) which may themselves be seen as allusions to wheels and fast rotation;33 and indeed with the settlement-plan of Arkaim itself, with its astonishing resemblance to a multi-spoked wheel. These coincidences are unlikely to be merely fortuitous, and testify to the symbolic power of the new vehicle and the mobility which it implied. Élites which formerly used solid-wheeled wagons, and were buried with them under a kurgan, now espoused a smaller but faster vehicle, drawn by the horse which could be kept in large numbers in steppe environments. The development of this new language of elite ostentation would have been an important factor in the propagation of this way of life eastwards towards the Altai. The antler cheek-pieces have been extensively studied in recent years (summarized in Hüttel 1981; Kuzmina 1994; Penner 1998; Boroffka 1998; Goncharova 1999), and show a distribution over an area from Hungary to beyond the southern Urals, with outliers in Mycenaean Greece and Anatolia.34 This coincides rather precisely with the steppe corridor, over a distance of some 3000 km: testimony to the rapid deployment of this complex in the early second millennium, and consistent with the indications of long-distance metallurgical contacts implicit in the Borodino hoard, discussed above. The most direct dates for these features are from the eastern end of the range (Sintashta and Krivoe Ozero, discussed elsewhere in this volume); but these are not necessarily the earliest occurrences. Although the precise succession of types is not yet clear, there is a broad division into a western wing (Carpathian Basin to the Ukraine) with the rod-like Stangenknebel, and an eastern wing (Danube mouth to the Urals and beyond) where flat forms dominate — either the round Scheibenknebel or rectangular Plattenknebel (both sometimes equipped with internal spikes or burrs). The flat forms have perforations for an attachment to a noseband or half-noseband (as shown on Mycenaean frescos); the rod forms have a different form of attachment using cheekstraps (as shown on later Assyrian reliefs).35 They thus represent parallel solutions to the same problem. This division is echoed by other contrasts, such as that between the fourspoked wheels shown in models from the Carpathian Basin, and the multi-spoked wheels shown by wheelimpressions like those from Sintashta — and typical

Figure 15.1. Detail of the scarf-joint on one of the large, multi-spoked, bentwood wheels of the carriage from barrow 5 at Pazyryk in the Altai mountains, mid–late first millennium BC, now in the Hermitage. This graphically illustrates the lightness and elegance of bentwood construction. (Author’s photo 1991.) of later steppe vehicles. Several different types of light vehicle may have been involved, all broadly describable as ‘chariots’, but not necessarily resembling the forms familiar from LBA Near Eastern representations (Littauer & Crouwel 1996). The multiple-spoked wheels, for instance, are often associated with rather wide-gauge vehicles, whether in the Urals, the Caucasus or in China. As in the later Near East (Moorey 1986), the chariot in eastern Europe was especially associated with archery, either for hunting or war (Lichardus & Vladár 1996, 34). All this emphasizes the diversity of practice which potentially underlies the use of these new light vehicles. In suggesting where, within the continuum of early second-millennium cultures in the steppe corridor (Otomani, Monteoru, Mnogovalikovaya Pottery, Abashevo, early Timber-Grave and Andronovo), these innovations are most likely to have taken place, the broader pattern of contacts needs to be considered. Following the Kura-Araks expansion at the end of the fourth millennium, Mesopotamian connections with the mountainous zone to the north were re-made during the earlier third millennium, culminating in the ED III and Akkadian periods. These relations were no longer of a ‘colonial’ nature, but involved a series of developed local polities. In Transcaucasia, this phase saw the rich tombs of Bedeni, Martkopi, and (slightly later) Trialeti themselves taking the form of mounds over sunken chambers (sometimes with wheeled vehicles) of the kind developed on the steppes — symptomatic of their 245

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Stangenknebel and Scheibenknebel types).37 Here, then, is a potential articulation-point between the increasingly urban world of Anatolia, and the communities of the steppe corridor. But the dual character of bridle-types and wheelconstruction, with their focal areas in the eastern and western parts of the Pontic steppes respectively, suggests that there was not one but two centres of innovation where the urban interest in harnessed equids, for the purposes of war and prestige, met the horse-handling expertise necessary to create horseharnessed vehicles and produce a design suitable for the task. The distinctive character of the eastern multispoked wheels and bridle using burred cheek-pieces suggests that a parallel process of innovation to that suggested above also took place along an axis between the Caucasus and the Urals, probably on the interfluves of the Don and Volga, en route to the expanding south-Ural metalworking centres.38 These two ‘nuclear’ areas in adjacent parts of the steppe zone were not, of course, completely independent of each other, and local centres in each of these areas were sufficiently in contact to share common metal types (as metalwork such as that from Borodino indicates); but the duplication of bridle and wheel designs suggests that these two areas of the steppe zone, which were most directly in touch with the greater Near Eastern world (via Anatolia and the Caucasus respectively), each elaborated their own local versions of the new technology. My second suggestion, therefore, is that the penetration of Near Eastern influences along these two routes was the principal stimulus for the creation of the chariot, at either end of the Black Sea, around the beginning of the second millennium BC. Just as the Caucasus had provided an interface between the Near Eastern and steppe areas in the fourth and earlier third millennia, so this connection, together with a new link through Anatolia, seem to have provided innovating contact-points in the later third and second millennia. As in the earlier episode, the acquisition of precious metals provided the incentive to explore such long-distance routes, leading to a novel conjunction of expertise and opportunity. The urbanization of Anatolia brought ‘metropolitan’ practices of equid traction and vehicle use into a region adjacent to the western steppes, where long familiarity with horses provided a more elegant solution to the design of a fast, horse-drawn vehicle at the very beginning of the second millennium. While the innovation (in its eastern version) spread with astonishing rapidity across the steppes beyond the Urals, this solution was only slowly adopted further south — probably via Anatolia and

‘middleman’ role between these two areas. Their fine metalwork, notably in gold, is particularly striking. The elaboration of pit-graves into catacombgraves in the East Pontic region is likely to reflect the increasing complexity of steppe societies in contact with these Caucasian trading networks. At the same time, trade between Syria (where powerful local states like that centred on Ebla had large-scale commodity economies) and the Anatolian plateau also tapped into increasingly prosperous communities gaining wealth from long-distance trade: Alaca Hüyük is a notable example, and its position in the bend of the Halys (Kızılırmak) is indicative of the importance of this area (the future Hittite heartland) in relation to these routes. Links along the coasts were also important, as Troy shows;36 and it was in this context that innovations such as tin-bronze and faience reached Hungary by way of the Danube in the mid-second millennium. The steppe corridor thus came to have two points of contact with the south: through the Caucasus, as in the previous millennium; and around the western end of the Black Sea, through northwest and Central Anatolia. By the early second millennium, we are fortunate in having a brief glimpse of the nature of this long-distance trade in the records of the Old Assyrian trading-post (karum) at Kültepe, ancient Kanish. Here, Mesopotamian textiles and tin (probably obtained via the Persian Gulf), having been brought by pack animals from As&s&ur, were traded for high-value materials like silver. But this was not the only such trading-post, and textual references indicate that others existed at sites like Acemhüyük and even on the Black Sea coast at Zalpa — potentially in touch with coastal traffic around the western shore, both to down to Troy (expanding in size in Troy VI) and up to the Danube and Dnestr. The gold sources of Transylvania would have offered a particular incentive for contacts with the Carpathian Basin, and the scatter of gold weapons and vessels of this period around the western Black Sea coast (Pers¸inari, Ma(cin, Ra(deni, Kryzhovlin, Vulchetrun, as well as Borodino), which employ relatively sophisticated techniques of production, suggest links with Anatolian workshops, whether at Troy or in the Sinop-Samsun region. Among the sites which grew to prominence on the European side of this link was the major hillfort of Sa( r ata-Monteoru, dominating a principal pass through the Carpathians to the goldfields of Transylvania (Sherratt 1993, 24–9; Boroffka 1998), and notable both for its diverse bronzework, gold finds, and for the plentiful occurrence of antler cheek-pieces — in a great variety of forms (including both 246

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Syria. Although there is abundant evidence from early Central Anatolian cities of an interest in twowheeled vehicles in the early centuries of the second millennium, these are not yet chariots. Both in the cylinder-seal impressions from Kültepe, and in bronze model wheels from Acemhöyük, there is evidence for the use of the four-spoked wheel, which on seal-impressions are shown as parts of twowheeled vehicles pulled by equids; yet the harnessing remains primitive: these Central Anatolian horses are controlled by nose-rings, and the yokes apparently lack yoke-saddles (Littauer & Crouwel 1979; 1996). There is thus a clear steppe priority in the development of the kinds of harnessing and control systems implied by the antler cheek-pieces. This several-centuries-long superiority would have provided a continuing incentive for contacts with the steppes, and the importation of its expertise and perhaps also its bloodstock — in the same way as the Chinese constantly looked to their more mobile neighbours, at the other end of the steppe corridor. By the sixteenth century BC the full steppe technology of chariot-construction and horse-control had spread to the Near East, and was subjected to Near Eastern adaptations and improvements: the eastern (burred) types of organic bits were translated into bronze, and more complex forms of carpentry and joinery applied to the construction both of the platform and the wheels: now, at last, the use of massed chariots became a standard element in Near Eastern armies (Moorey 1986). Yet even in the fourteenth century, at the height of the Hittite Empire, horse-trainers speaking an Indo-Iranian language were welcomed at Hittite and Mitannian courts, and no doubt brought with them items of equipment and decoration characteristic of their northern homelands. On the steppes themselves, as other papers in this volume attest, the combination of spreading metallurgical skills and new means of transport affected a fundamental transformation throughout the steppe and semi-desert zone, altering the geography of inter-regional contacts by creating links to Central Asia and the borders of China. In the wake of this geopolitical re-structuring, the urban communities of the Indus valley and its hinterlands collapsed and the old axis of Gulf traffic disappeared, while China entered the arena as a new Bronze Age civilization. These developments reflect the spreading consequences of the synthesis of critical elements which had taken place at the contact-points between urban life and the open corridors beyond, and the new scale of mobility which these brought to secondmillennium Eurasia.

Conclusion The societies of the steppes, and those of the agricultural and increasingly urban areas to the south, were very different in character, and became more different over the three millennia discussed here. But this differentiation was not the outcome of isolation; on the contrary, it was as a result of their interaction that each was able to develop further along its own lines. Even when they shared domesticated animals and new traction technologies, they used them in very different ways. As Ian Hodder pointed out long ago, interaction does not necessarily result in cultural convergence. The interconnections between the cultures on either side of the Black Sea and the Caucasus mountains are evident in the record of technological transfer, by which steppe communities gained access to technologies which could only have emerged in the more highly capitalized economies to the south; but in this process of exchange each of the participants gained elements which became fundamental to their own further development. While these transformations were largely initiated by changes in the fast-developing urban heartlands, the flow of innovations was never one-sided; and this pattern of reciprocal influences is best described, not as one of diffusion, but rather of dialectic. Yet talk of ‘economy’ and ‘technology’ is equally misleading in conveying the nature of the process. For all their impressiveness in the archaeological record of the steppe cultures and their European neighbours, wheeled vehicles probably remained essentially a ‘prestige’ element rather than an item of everyday use well into the Bronze Age; and this observation would apply also to the lighter, horsedrawn vehicles which succeeded them. Only in the Near East did wheeled transport become a significant element of warfare, in the hands of relatively centralized polities; and only in the first millennium did steppe groups obtain any military advantage in confrontations with their settled neighbours, in the context of true nomadism and mounted warfare. By this time it was the horse and rider, rather than the horse and its vehicle, that was the critical element. Nevertheless the wheel exercised a powerful symbolic influence over the imaginations of the cultures which possessed it; and it was through this ideological control that élites were able to make use of it during the Bronze Age, in ways which are reflected in elements of iconography and mythology, from Scandinavia to India. For barbarian Eurasia, the chariot of the sun was as significant an image as the massed battle-chariots of Ramses II, in his represen247

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tation of the victory at Kadesh sculpted on the walls of his temple at Karnak. 9.

Notes 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

This discussion continues themes explored at the Novorossisk Conference in 1991, organized by Professor V.M. Masson (Sherratt 1997a, chaps. 7 & 18; 1997b). The opportunity to become familiar with material from that region, and earlier visits to Moscow and Moldavia (with reciprocal visits from V. Trifonov, V. Dergachev and I. Manzura), afforded an excellent introduction to the rich materials of this region. The energy of Professor Peter Ucko in setting up this programme of visits must be gratefully acknowledged, especially as it helped to facilitate the programme of radiocarbon dating undertaken by the Oxford Radiocarbon Laboratory, through Dr Rupert Housley and Professor Robert Hedges, on which much of the current absolute chronology rests (Trifonov 1996; 1997). It should be noted that all dates used in this discussion are based on dendro-calibrated radiocarbon measurements. Russian culture names are used in forms familiar in the English-language literature: they are thus an inconsistent mixture of translation and transliteration, substantive and adjectival forms. Silken cloth, although a manufactured good, has a high value to weight ratio and is another precious material capable of being moved economically in small quantities over long distances. It only came into circulation in the west in the later first millennium BC. In both cases there was a parallel westward transmission via Anatolia, as I shall discuss; but it does not invalidate the point. It is to this phase, around 3400–3200 BC, that the arsenical-copper, lost-wax castings of yoked oxen from Bytyn@ in Central Poland should probably be attributed. The distribution-area of the Pit-Grave complex includes that of the former Usatovo group, and abuts that of the former core Tripolye area, which was now integrated (as the Horodishtea-Folteshti group) with the bloc of southeast European cultures that developed on the basis of the Baden/Cernavoda III complex. For instance in the transformation of a tall-sided cylindrical vessel into a more squat, cord-ornamented form, uncannily reminiscent of a British food-vessel (itself transformed from the taller bell-beaker form), and perhaps symptomatic of a parallel change in dietary practice, towards less liquid forms of food eaten with a spoon. It was characteristically smoked in the steppe region, but used as a drink further west, as was still the practice in Viking times, and may well be the nabid (funeral beer) referred to by Ibn Fadlan in his description of a Viking funeral on the Volga in 992. It is largely absent in the contemporary Poltavka group along the middle Volga and Samara rivers, for in-

10.

11.

12.

13. 14.

15.

16.

17.

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stance, which continued in the pit-grave tradition and with a notably less rich metallurgical repertoire than their catacomb-building contemporaries further west. This river-valley links the upper and middle Dnepr (above the rapids) with the Sea of Azov, and thus with the Kuban River and the Caucasus. It offers a bridge between the networks of the northern Caucasus and the eastern end of the North European Plain. The occurrence of metalworking equipment is not uncommon at this time: ‘cushion-stones’ for metalfinishing accompany élite burials in areas as far apart as Kladi Kurgan 31 in the northern Caucasus, in the well-known Bell Beaker grave from Lunteren in Holland, and from Helmsdorf in Central Germany. This innovation has its origin in the Caucasus (with its long tradition of sheet-metal working) in socketed meat-hooks of the late Maikop period, and was applied during the third millennium both to gouges and spearheads in the northern Caucasus and in Transcaucasia (Chernykh 1992). Examples also occur in contemporary Catacomb-grave and Poltavka contexts, and in the Fatyanovo-Balanovo culture in the woodland area to the north of the steppe zone. It became widespread in the second millennium, as at Sintashta and Arkaim. (The daggers of this period, by contrast, were mainly flat types; though large, flat sickles were a new form.) Spearheads with a split socket spread southwards from the Caucasus, to the Levant and the Aegean, after 1700; there is no reason to connect their appearance in the Shaft Graves with a special Pontic connection (contra Penner 1998). It is tempting, in reference to the Seima-Turbino phenomenon, to situate it in a context which owes as much to ‘shamanism’ as to disembedded Western notions of ‘technology’. I.e. not just flat forms, as at Varna, but hemispherical and complex shapes. Some of these species (notably cattle and pig) spread beyond the limits of cereal cultivation, being adopted by sedentary fishing and hunting communities such as those along the rivers running down to the Black Sea — those ambiguous ‘Sub-neolithic’ pottery-users which resist categorization in terms of a strict dichotomy between ‘farmers’ and ‘foragers’. Though the donkeys themselves, so far as I am aware, arrived in Iberia only in the first millennium, in Phoenician times. Probably transmitted via images on seals, or on their sealings; there is one cylinder-seal (although with a rather primitive image) known from this area at the relevant time: Krasnogvardeskoe (Nekhaev 1986). Data given in Korenevsky et al. (2000), according to V.P. Danilchenko’s identifications; four donkey bones, perhaps from one individual, forming some .68 per cent of the identified ungulates (1.7 per cent of MIND). The presence of three distinguishable species lends authority to the identification of asinus: in view of its importance it would be highly desirable to confirm its fourth-millennium date by a radiocarbon determination.

The Horse and the Wheel

18. Chernykh (1992, 59) notes, though without further references, that ‘at a number of [Kura-Araks] sites the remains of domesticated horses form a significant proportion of the faunal assemblage (Shengavit, Elar, Didube, Kvatskhelebi, etc.)’. 19. This model would also apply to new breeds of commodity-bearing species, such as woolly sheep. 20. Until the twelfth century — when, of course, they brought the Black Death from China to Europe (McNeill 1976). 21. This would accord with Bökönyi’s interpretation of the Uruk-period Arslantepe horses as domestic. If, however, von den Driesch is correct that these Chalcolithic occurrences simply represent animals hunted from relict wild populations, then there is as yet no evidence for such a supposition until the third millennium. 22. Camels seem to have originally been used as pack- or draught animals: the practice of riding is also a firstmillennium phenomenon, and was probably secondary to the use of horses for this purpose. 23. Another crucial development is the reinterpretation of supposed fifth-millennium charcoal-filled plough marks from beneath the Sarnowo barrow in Poland as in fact burnt beams (Niesiol⁄ owska-Sèreniowska 1999). 24. From Turkish çift, ‘pair’. 25. A circular threshing-floor and associated granaries and a flint workshop for sledge-blades of late fourth millennium (EBI) date was excavated at Uvda in the southern Negev (Avner 1990); the evidence that segments of ‘Canaanean’ flint blades, used for sickles, were re-used for threshing-sledge flints in early third millennium Syria is presented by Anderson & Inizan (1994). This would indicate the widespread employment of threshing-sledges, during or shortly after the period of the Uruk colonies. 26. Threshing-sledges were driven in a circle (see note 25), sometimes by a single animal, whereas ploughs were driven in straight lines. This would perhaps explain why Uruk-period depictions of sledges show them attached to their draught animals by flexible traces tied to the horns (as shown both on the Arslantepe sealing, and on the stone plaque in the British Museum), even though the draught-pole and yoke soon became standard for sledges as well as ploughs — perhaps at the same time as yoked traction was applied to more advanced forms of wheeled transport, with developments such as the neck-yoke rather than the horn-yoke. 27. The fixed axle with freely-revolving, naved wheels, secured by a linch-pin, may have been a northern development, in Syria or Transcaucasia, rather than a south-Mesopotamian one: see note 29 and discussion in Bakker et al. 1999. There is a continuing problem in distinguishing wheel-models from spindle-whorls (in the absence of models of complete vehicles), but the continuing tradition of such models in Transcaucasia, in many sizes and in stone as well as clay, argues in favour of accepting the examples cited by Bakker et al.

28.

29.

30. 31.

32.

33. 34.

249

from Jebel Aruda and Arslantepe, which are the earliest well-dated occurrences. Just as the crook and the flail became the symbols of rulership in Egypt — not only metonymic of the complementary productive activities of herding and cultivation, but metaphorically representing the balance of ‘pastoral’ care and the threat of punishment (‘a thrashing’, as we still say) — so the threshing-sledge embodied references not only to fertility and abundance but also to power and the ability to crush opposition. A sledge was included in the grave of Queen Pu-Abi in the Royal Cemetery at Ur in the ED III period — though by this time male graves sometimes contained wheeled vehicles, and the sledge had perhaps lost its initial status as a symbol of male strength and power. It is just possible that wheeled vehicles reached the Pontic steppe zone from the western end of the Black Sea (i.e. from the Anatolian-Balkan-North European Plain axis of spread, via late-Tripolye groups) at about the same time, since the traction complex was expanding northwards by both routes. It now seems unlikely that wheeled vehicles reached forested Europe via the steppes, as was once believed, though steppe cultures may have been responsible for transmitting freely-rotating, naved wheels on a fixed axle. The evidence is slender, but suggestive. The earliest Central European wheels are from a pre-Corded Ware context under Lake Zürich, and they are fixed wheels on a revolving axle — the two wheels cannot revolve independently. The axle-type cannot be determined from model vehicles, so it is possible that this relatively primitive type was the one which first spread through Anatolia to Boleráz and Baden Europe. However all the steppe examples, and most Corded Ware and later wheels from Europe, revolve independently on fixed axles, being secured by linch-pins. This form may have been developed, either in Transcaucasia or northern Mesopotamia (see note 27), and transmitted thence to forested Europe in Corded Ware times. The withers-yoke, as opposed to the earlier horn-yoke, may have been a part of this improved technology. According to I. Izbitzer (1993) they were apparently not used in Pit-Grave times. Reconstructions of early two-wheeled vehicles by Ukrainian and Russian colleagues often show implausibly ponderous machines built out of solid planks designs unnecessarily complex for oxen, and too heavy for horses. There is no direct evidence for yoke-saddles before the surviving examples of complete chariots, and accurate depictions in wall-paintings, in the later second millennium. This is also likely to be the origin of the swastika, in the form associated with Indo-Aryan symbolism. Mycenaean Greece (in the Shaft-grave period, c. 1600 BC) is an outlier to this distribution as a whole, and probably reflects imported expertise (obtained via Troy?) from the Pontic steppes, in the manner re-

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35.

36.

37.

38.

flected in the Hittite Kikkuli text of a century or so later. The Wellenband decoration would in this case be evocative of chariotry and horsemanship, even when applied to ornaments which were not themselves horse-gear. Occasional imports (of rod types to the east, and flat types to the west), are known, as well as local hybrid forms (combining some of the features of both), which occur in small numbers in both areas. This indicates that the two traditions were in contact, but maintained the essential integrity of their diffferent types of bridle. (The association of rod-like cheekpieces with early ridden horses in the first millennium raises the possibility that the Stangenknebel was actually a riding-bit from its inception: Hüttel 1982; Mary Littauer in litt. 1996.) Both by the size of its newly-discovered lower town, and by the long-distance links implied for example by the lazurite battle axe from the Troy II treasure. Sites of Arkaim type might be seen as nodes in a network of inter-regional exchanges (especially of metal) in the same way as contemporary Monteoru and Otomani fortresses guarding the Carpathian passes, with their box-ramparts and rich finds of gold, bronzework and amber, as well as decorated antler harness-equipment (Sherratt 1993). This would argue for a date at the end of the third millennium, perhaps slightly earlier than the postulated development of Stangenknebel types at the western end of the Pontic steppes.

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Shishlina, N., 1997. The bow and arrow of the Eurasian steppe nomads. Journal of European Archaeology 5(2), 53–66. Spruytte, J., 1983. Early Harness Systems. London: Allen. Trifonov, V.A., 1996. K absolyutnomi datirovaniyu ‘mikenskogo’ ornamenta epokhi razvitoi bronzy Evrazii. C14 Radiouglerod i Arkheologiya 1, 60–64. St Petersburg: IIMK. Trifonov, V.A., 1997. K absolyutnoi khronologii evroasiatskikh kulturnykh kontaktov v epokhu bronzy. C14 Radiouglerod i Arkheologiya 2, 94–7. St Petersburg: IIMK. Uerpmann, H.-P., 1987. The Ancient Distribution of Ungulate Mammals in the Middle East. (Beihefte zum Tübinger Atlas des Vorderen Orients A 27.)

Wiesbaden: Reichert. Uerpmann, H.-P., 1990. Die Domestikation des Pferdes im Chalkolithikum West- und Mitteleuropas. Madrider Mitteilungen 31, 109–53. Vajsov, I., 1993. Die frühesten Metalldolche Südost- und Mitteleuropas. Prähistorische Zeitschrift 68, 103–45. Wachsman, S., 1987. Aegeans in the Theban Tombs. (Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 20.) Louvain: Peeters. Werbart, B., 1996. Khazars or ‘Saltovo-Majaki culture’? Archaeology and ethnicity. Current Swedish Archaeology 4, 199–221. Zarins, J., 1986. Equids associated with human burials in third millennium BC Mesopotamia: two complementary facets, in Meadow & Uerpmann (eds.), 164–93.

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Fish in the Diet of Central Eurasian Peoples

Chapter 16 The Importance of Fish in the Diet of Central Eurasian Peoples from the Mesolithic to the Early Iron Age Tamsin O’Connell, Marsha Levine & Robert Hedges C

arbon and nitrogen isotopic analysis of human and animal remains provides a quantitative method of assessment of diet, and can provide information about diet or methods of subsistence where there is little or no other evidence. Results shown here of carbon and nitrogen isotopic analyses of samples of humans and domesticated animals from sites across Central Eurasia from the Mesolithic to the Iron Age periods give an insight into ancient subsistence economy and imply that fish was an important source of food to humans over the whole time period. Results from other isotopic studies across Eurasia support this conclusion. On the basis of artefactual and faunal data it is almost universally assumed that on the Central Eurasian steppe large mammals were the most important food source. The dating of the earliest pastoralism is uncertain and seems to have varied from place to place (Levine & Rassamakin 1996; Levine et al. 1999). During the Mesolithic and Neolithic, throughout most of the region, most meat appears to have been obtained by hunting (for example, Tsalkin 1970; Gaiduchenko 1998; Levine et al. 1999). Prey taxa included horse, onager, aurochs, European elk, roe deer, red deer, wild boar, saiga, along with various small mammals and carnivores, perhaps more important for their skins than for food. By the Eneolithic, livestock-breeding was probably carried out in the west and the south (for example, the western North Pontic region and in southern Central Asia), but throughout most of the northern steppelands, from the eastern North Pontic region to Kazakhstan, there is little indisputable evidence for animal domestication until perhaps the Early Bronze Age. The details connected with the origins and spread of pastoralism and the nature of early animal husbandry on the steppe are hotly debated (for example, Bibikova 1969; Petrenko 1984; Telegin 1986;

Levine & Rassamakin 1996; Benecke 1997; Levine et al. 1999). The origin of horse domestication is a matter of especially intense debate (for example, Petrenko 1984; Telegin 1986; Bökönyi 1994; Brown & Anthony 1998; Levine 1999). Moreover, throughout the whole period from the time of the earliest animal husbandry up to and including the present, hunting has been for many steppe inhabitants an important activity (for example, Rudenko 1970; Tsalkin 1970; Vinogradov 1981; Levine et al. 1999). The picture that emerges for steppe economies based either on hunting or herding is that humans were primarily nutritionally dependent upon large mammals. The model of steppe economies that most people keep in mind is that of Mongol nomadic pastoralists, with their herds of cattle, horses, sheep, goats and sometimes camels or yaks or alternatively that of the aboriginal hunters of the North American Plains (for example, Anthony 1986; Levine 1999). There has been relatively little discussion of other food sources exploited by the ancient steppe inhabitants. Relatively few sites have been systematically investigated for palaeobotanical remains (see Pashkevich 1993 and this volume). In any case, trying to work out the relative importance of plant and animal foods in the ancient diet on the basis of floral and faunal remains is probably impossible. Fishing is acknowledged as taking place practically everywhere in Central Eurasia, particularly during the earlier periods (for example, Vinogradov 1981; Telegin 1986; Kislenko & Tatarintsev 1999; Rassamakin 1999). Its importance is also recognized in the ethnographic literature (Vainshtein 1980). Because of their small size and fragility, fish bones are, however, seldom recovered, so the recognition of this food source is largely dependent upon the recovery of fishing equipment such as hooks, harpoons and net sinkers. Because so few remains are normally 253

Location

Kazakhstan Ukraine Altai, Russia Russia

Altai, Russia Altai, Russia

Ukraine Ukraine Ukraine Ukraine Ukraine Ukraine Ukraine Ukraine Ukraine Ukraine Kazakhstan Kazakhstan Kazakhstan Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan Altai, Russia Altai, Russia Altai, Russia Altai, Russia Altai, Russia Altai, Russia

Site

Botai Krivoi Rog Verkh-Kaljin II Abatsky 3

Verkh-Kaljin II Ak-Alakha 3

Molyukhov Bugor Molyukhov Bugor Molyukhov Bugor Molyukhov Bugor Semyenovka Semyenovka Desyatiny Desyatiny Desyatiny Desyatiny Botai Botai Botai Botai

Krasnii Yar Sergeevka Verkh-Kaljin II Ak-Alakha 3 Ak-Alakha 3 Ak-Alakha 3 Ak-Alakha 3 Ak-Alakha 3

Species human human human human wig wig horse horse horse horse horse horse horse horse cow cow horse horse horse horse horse horse horse horse horse horse horse horse

Period Eneolithic Eneolithic Iron Age Iron Age Iron Age Iron Age Eneolithic Eneolithc Neolithic Neolithic Eneolithic Neolithic E Bronze E Bronze E Bronze E Bronze Eneolithic Eneolithic Eneolithic Eneolithic Eneolithic E Bronze Iron Age Iron Age Iron Age Iron Age Iron Age Iron Age

254 bone bone hair hair hair hair hair hair

bone bone bone bone bone bone bone bone bone bone bone bone bone bone

hair hair

Sample type bone bone hair hair

sq. i49/g sq. i49/v sq. i49/g sq. i49/v 12368 25670 30610 91–3, XVI–XVII Lower (loess) level 91–7, lower level 385c/3436 140 cm depth Kurgan 3 Kurgan 1, Horse #1 Kurgan 1, Horse #2 Kurgan 1, Horse #3 Kurgan 1, Horse #4 Kurgan 1

sq. 2b, depth 40–50 sq. 3, depth 10–20 depth .25–.35 sq. 5, depth 40–501

Female, Kurgan 2 Female, Kurgan 1

91–6, Site XV Cemetery 3 Male, Kurgan 3 Male, Kurgan 2

Site code

MLH06 MLH13 p4 p5 p6 p7 p8 ml1

MLH07 MLH08 MLH09 MLH10 MLH11 MLH12 ml6 ml7 ml8 ml9 MLH01 MLH02 MLH03 MLH05

p2 p1

Lab code MLH04 ML24 p3 p9

–20.0 –20.8 –22.1 –22.0 –22.1 –21.5 –21.8 –21.4

–21.1 –21.8 –20.8 –21.6 –21.0 –21.2 –20.0 –20.4 –19.0 –20.2 –19.9 –20.2 –19.6 –20.3

–18.8 –21.6

δ13C (‰) –18.1 –19.4 –19.8 –22.4

3.1 2.5 5.7 5.1 5.7 5.3 4.9 5.3

4.9 4.0 4.7 5.0 3.2 2.9 6.5 4.7 5.8 5.6 2.6 2.3 3.8 2.2

12.3 5.8

δ15N (‰) 12.4 11.5 11.8 11.5

3.23 3.14 3.55 3.46 3.57 3.38 3.49 3.50

3.23 3.96 3.38 3.38 3.19 3.24 3.31 3.31 3.33 3.32 3.21 3.11 3.16 3.15

3.50 3.55

3.18 3.32 3.53 3.79

C/N ‡

20.3 29.0 – – – – – –

29.7 6.7 17.2 15.7 30.8 31.8 32.2 34.0 38.8 35.9 24.5 35.4 32.0 35.2

– –

% C in collagen § 36.2 27.0 – –

7.3 10.8 – – – – – –

10.7 2.0 5.9 5.4 11.3 11.4 11.3 11.9 13.7 12.6 8.9 13.3 11.8 13.0

– –

% N in collagen§ 13.3 9.5 – –

Table 16.1. List of samples analyzed and their isotopic results. ‡ Acceptable C/N ratio ranges are 3.0–3.8 for hair and 2.9–3.6 for bone. § No percentage carbon or nitrogen is given when the sample is hair keratin.

Chapter 16

recovered, on the Central Eurasian steppe freshwater fish are conventionally viewed as a supplement to a diet for the most part dependent upon large mammals. Concerning Pazyryk, Rudenko wrote: ‘It must be assumed that the people were not concerned with fishing, since natural conditions were not favourable’ (Rudenko 1970, 60). We believe that this picture underestimates the true importance of fish in Central Eurasian subsistence strategies throughout the whole period extending from the Mesolithic to the Early Iron Age. In this paper we have re-evaluated the diet of humans in this region by analyzing the effect of their diet on the isotopic configuration of their bone collagen and hair keratin. We find no evidence for an economy primarily based on meat and animal products, but a strong implication that fish was a major source of dietary protein. Results from three other studies are in agreement with this interpretation.

Isotopic analyses

Direct archaeological evidence of diet is often elusive and usually can only be taken as qualitative. However because body tissues are constructed from the foods eaten — ‘you are what you eat’ — the biochemical analysis of body tissues is an indirect analysis of food con-

Fish in the Diet of Central Eurasian Peoples

sumed. The technique used here, carbon and nitrogen Neolithic isotopic analysis of archaeo+ Molyukhov Bugor horse × logical human tissues (bone, × Semyenovka horse hair, muscle) is a quantitaEneolithic Molyukhov Bugor horse tive and objective technique Semyenovka horse for the study of palaeodiet Krasnii Yar horse Botai horse (Schwarcz & Schoeninger + Botai human 1991). Krivoi Rog human Early Bronze Age The carbon and nitroDesyatiny horse gen stable isotopic values Desyatiny cow 13 15 (δ C and δ N) of an indiSergeevka horse Iron Age vidual’s body tissues reflect Pazyryk horse hair the isotopic values of the Pazyryk wig hair × Pazyryk human hair dietary protein consumed × Abatsky human hair during that individual’s lifetime (Ambrose 1993). Depending on the tissue analyzed, the isotopic value measured is an integral of the isotopic values of the Figure 16.1. Human and animal isotopic results from this study. dietary protein intake over a period of time. Tissues with a long turnover time, of Ak-Alakha and Verkh-Kaljin on the Ukok Plae.g. bone, reflect dietary protein over a time span of teau. Six human samples were analyzed from the up to 10 years (Stenhouse & Baxter 1979), whilst five sites of Botai, Ak-Alakha, Verkh-Kaljin, Krivoi tissues with a faster turnover rate, e.g. hair, reflect Rog in the Ukraine, and Abatsky, in south western dietary protein over a shorter period, of the order of Siberia on the Ishim river. Human and animal samples span the period from the Neolithic to the Iron 6–12 months (Jones et al. 1981). Carbon isotopic values reflect the type of ecoAge. Samples were prepared according to the standsystem that provides the plant base of an individuard laboratory protocols, as given in Appendix 16.1. al’s diet: for example, it may indicate a terrestrial The results, together with full sample details, food web based on either the C3 or the C4 photosynare given in Table 16.1, and presented graphically in Figure 16.1. All analyses were judged to be from thetic pathway, or one using marine resources uncontaminated samples, since the measured C/N (Schoeninger 1989). Nitrogen isotopic values reflect ratios were within the accepted range (DeNiro 1985; an individual’s position in the food chain (herbivO’Connell & Hedges 1999a). The isotopic results are ore, omnivore, carnivore), since an individual is approximately 3‰ higher in δ 15 N than its diet presented here using the ‘δ’ notation, where the iso(Schoeninger & DeNiro 1984). For humans, the δ15N topic values are expressed relative to a standard can be taken as a rough measure of the amount of (Gonfiantini 1984; Gonfiantini et al. 1990). For carmeat or animal protein consumed as opposed to the bon, the δ13C value is defined as: 15 level of plant protein eaten: the higher the δ N value, the larger the proportion of animal protein consumed δ13C = [(13/12Csample /13/12CVPDB) - 1] × 1000 in the diet. In order to interpret the isotopic values of an A similar expression can be written for nitrogen as individual, it is important to have isotopic values of δ15N, relative to AIR. The more positive the δ value, the the likely food sources such as faunal remains from more enriched the sample is with the heavier isothe same ecological context. The results presented tope. Units are ‘parts per thousand’ or permil (‰). here include analyses of both human and animal tissue samples. Results & discussion Twenty-two animal samples were analyzed from eight sites: Molyukhov Bugor, Semyenovka and Animal samples Desyatiny in the Ukraine; Botai, Krasnii Yar and Most of the animal samples analyzed are of bone Sergeevka in Kazakhstan; the Pazyryk culture sites collagen, however the six Early Iron Age Altai horse 255

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they do not have directly comparable carbon isotopic values, since bone collagen δ13C values are generally more positive (‘heavier’) than hair keratin δ13C values by about 1–2‰, probably owing to the variation in amino acid composition of the two proteins (DeNiro & Epstein 1978; Jones et al. 1981; A B = = = Tieszen et al. 1983; Tieszen & = = = = = = Boutton 1988; Katzenberg & = = = 0 1m Krouse 1989; Hare et al. 1991; O’Connell & Hedges 1999b). a This must be borne in mind 85 A 13 when comparing the bone col–110 lagen and hair keratin isotopic 2 4 1 values presented here. 12 ** 11 The isotopic values ob* * * –90 Dwelling * –80 * –100 **** = = 14 loam = tained from all horse samples Excavated area 3 8 humus –75 –110 Eroded riverbank analyzed in this study are in 5 ancient soil Modern woodland 9 –100 the range of –22.4 to –19.6‰ –90 * * ochre –90 * * 10 for δ13C, and +2.2 to +6.5‰ for 7 border of infill δ15N: these are typical of hercharcoal 6 N bivorous animals in a temperLocation of trepanned ate C3 ecosystem (Schoeninger human skull, Botai, B 0 40 cm & DeNiro 1984; Katzenberg excavation XV, square V-88, dwelling 44, pit 10: 1989). The cow samples from 1) skull; 2) horse phalange; 3) stone; 4) horse rib fragments; Desyatiny produced similar 5) bone fragments; 6) bone fragments; 7) bone fragment; –14 results (–20.2 and –19.0‰ for 8) scraper; 9) bone tool; 10) abrasive; 11) bone tool; +¤ 12) comb stamp; 13) bone concentration; 14) half-finished disc. δ13C; and +5.8 and +5.6‰ for c δ15N) to those found for the horse samples from Desyatiny, suggesting that all domesticated herbivorous animals kept at a single site probably had similar diets. In two cases where faunal samples have been analyzed from different time periods Iman within a site (Semyenovka, -Bur luk Molyukhov Bugor) there is little difference between the two 0 60 m periods suggesting a consistb ency of plant isotopic composition and animal diet. There Figure 16.2. Botai trepanned skull: a) photograph by G. Owen; b) Botai plan (from is some spread in both δ13C and Kislenko & Tatarintsev 1999, fig. 4.16); c) location of skull (from Kislenko & δ15N over the different sites for Tatarintsev 1999, fig. 4.32). all samples analyzed. However the isotopic results are closely enough clustered that we can consider terrestrial samples from Ak-Alakha and Verkh-Kaljin are of herbivores in all time periods over the whole region hair keratin. The two different tissues can be taken as a single group with an isotopically consistent diet. to have similar nitrogen isotopic values, however v¤v¤v¤v¤v¤v¤

–7

0

v¤ v¤ v¤

256

Fish in the Diet of Central Eurasian Peoples

Similar bone collagen isotopic results from both wild and possibly domesticated fauna have been measured in two other studies. Isotopic analysis of Neolithic bovid bones from the Iron Gates region of Eastern Europe gave a mean δ13C value of –21.0‰ and a δ15N value of +5.6‰ (n = 10, standard deviation 0.4 for δ13C, 1.0 for δ15N) (Bonsall et al. 1997). From the Cis Baikal region of Siberia, prehistoric elk (Alces alces) had a mean δ13C value of –19.3‰ and a δ15N value of +4.1‰ (n = 3, standard deviation 1.2 for δ13C, 1.4 for δ15N), prehistoric red deer (Cervus elaphus) had a mean δ13C value of –19.0‰ and a δ15N value of +5.0‰ (n = 8, standard deviation 0.6 for δ13C, 1.1 for δ15N), and prehistoric roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) had a mean δ13C value of –20.1‰ and a δ15N value of +5.4‰ (n = 8, standard deviation 0.5 for δ13C, 1.0 for δ15N) (Katzenberg & Weber 1999). Neolithic freshwater Lake Baikal seals (Phoca sibirica) who would be expected to feed solely on freshwater fish had a mean δ13C value of –22.0‰ and a δ15N value of +14.0‰ (n = 8, standard deviation 0.9 for δ13C, 1.1 for δ15N) (Katzenberg & Weber 1999). These faunal analyses provide a baseline which can be used to interpret the human isotopic values. They indicate that the animal isotopic values are as expected, consistent with the pertinent type of ecosystem. The nitrogen isotopic values of the terrestrial herbivores also furnish representative values for animal flesh and milk in the putative diet of the humans.

Figure 16.3. Ak-Alakha 3, kurgan 1, woman in a wig (Polos’mak 1994b). has isotopic values similar to those of the Early Iron Age Altai horse hair samples analyzed (δ13C of –21.6‰, δ15N of +5.8‰), in contrast to the wig hair sample from Verkh-Kaljin which has isotopic values similar to the two human hair samples analyzed from Verkh-Kaljin and Abatsky (δ13C of –18.8‰, δ15N of +12.3‰). This shows that the hair sampled from the Ak-Alakha 3 wig was probably not human, but rather from a herbivorous animal, probably horse, whereas the hair from the Verkh-Kaljin wig would appear to be human. This finding is in agreement with the assessment of the two wigs by the Russian excavating archaeologists, V.I. Molodin and N.V. Polosmak (Polosmak 1994b).

Human samples The isotopic values of the human bone collagen sample from Botai (91-6, Site XV, Eneolithic) are –18.1‰ for δ13C, and +12.4‰ for δ15N (Fig. 16.2). The human bone collagen sample from Krivoi Rog (Cemetery 3, Eneolithic) has a δ13C value of –19.4‰ and a δ15N value of +11.5‰. The two Iron Age human hair keratin samples (from Verkh-Kaljin, kurgan 3, and Abatsky, kurgan 2) had δ13C values of –19.8‰ and –22.4‰, and δ15N values of +11.8‰ and +11.5‰ respectively. The carbon isotopic values of all four samples are fairly typical of those living in a temperate climate in which C3 plants predominated. The nitrogen isotopic values are high, indicating that these individuals had consumed a diet which was itself quite high in δ15N: this suggests protein of animal origin. As well as these three human samples, two Pazyryk culture wig samples were analyzed, from Ak-Alakha 3, kurgan 1, and Verkh-Kaljin II, kurgan 2 (both dated to 500–300 BC). Although superficially similar in diameter and structure when examined by binocular microscopy, they had very different isotopic values. The sample from Ak-Alakha (Fig. 16.3)

Assessment of diet from nitrogen isotopic values Based on laboratory findings, the explanation for the high (> +11‰) δ15N in humans is that their average dietary protein δ15N was at least +7‰, and probably about +8‰, given the 3‰ enrichment in δ15N between diet and body protein (Schoeninger & DeNiro 1984). Horse or other herbivore flesh or milk would have had δ15N values of +3 to +6‰, since milk and flesh have similar nitrogen isotopic values to bone 257

Chapter 16

the Iron Gates region of Eastern Europe demonstrated a reliance on riverine fish (Bonsall et al. 1997). The δ15N values that they found were much higher (c. +14 – 15‰) than those found either in this study or by Lillie & Richards, which, when combined with δ13C values of –23‰, clearly indicate consumption of freshwater fish. Results from an isotopic study of 65 humans from ten Neolithic and Early Bronze Age sites in the Cis Baikal region of Siberia also indicate that fish was an important part of human diet throughout the time period studied, not only for individuals living close to the shores of Lake Baikal, but also for those up to 500 km away (Katzenberg & Weber 1999). The high nitrogen isotopic values of all these human individuals suggest that fish was a major protein source in the diet. Comparison with the isotopic values of the Neolithic Lake Baikal seals (δ15N of +14.0‰), whose diet can safely be said to be totally fish-based, supports this conclusion. In contrast, archaeological individuals who are not expected to be consuming fish, such as the Iron Age occupants of the settlement of Poundbury, Dorset, UK, have carbon isotopic values of –19.9‰, and nitrogen isotopic values of +8.5‰ (both with a standard deviation of ±0.5‰, n = 13) (Richards et al. 1998). Although our results on collagen and keratin stable isotopic composition, particularly the differences between δ15N of humans and of local herbivores, imply that freshwater fish was probably an important element of dietary protein, it is difficult to provide a definite estimate of dietary composition. This is because, even at its most simplified, at least three types of protein can be considered as contributing to the human diet in this case, namely cereal, herbivore meat and fish. Because carbon and nitrogen isotopic analysis of body tissues reflects primarily the protein consumption of an individual, cereals and other plant foods tend to be less ‘visible’ isotopically, due to the lower proportion of protein in such foods relative to animal foods. However, a complete absence of all plant foods from human diet in this region is unlikely. From the recovered faunal evidence, we can also assume that they consumed at least some terrestrial animal protein, either domesticated or wild (horse, cow, sheep, elk, deer etc.). The isotopic signatures for these three protein sources are not known exactly (although we have good estimates for the herbivore meat), and the predicted isotopic composition for a human eating such a diet is also not known exactly (the degree of trophic level enrichment is not well known, and may also depend on various factors, e.g. the protein level of the diet).

collagen and hair keratin (Katzenberg & Krouse 1989; Minagawa 1992; Schoeller et al. 1986). Consumption of horse and other terrestrial herbivores would therefore have resulted in a diet with a δ15N value of +6‰ or less, not more than +8‰ as we predict. Terrestrial carnivores feeding on horses or other terrestrial herbivores might be expected to have nitrogen isotopic values of the right magnitude, but it is not reasonable to consider them as an important dietary resource. For one thing, relatively few carnivore bones have been found at the sites in question even when taphonomic conditions are favourable. Moreover, because of their trophic position at or near the top of the food chain, terrestrial carnivores would rarely be abundant enough to feed human populations as large as those considered here. Fish, however, can be locally very abundant and are generally enriched in δ15N as a result of their greater food web complexity (δ15N of +8 to +15‰: Schoeninger & DeNiro 1984; Bonsall et al. 1997). Both the geographical locations and the δ13C values of the humans analyzed rule out marine fish (which have δ 13C of –19 to –9‰: Schoeninger & DeNiro 1984), but riverine fish are the most probable candidate (typical δ13C of –20 to –23‰). Other food source possibilities include such ‘aquatic species’ as fish-eating birds, turtles, amphibians, and freshwater shellfish. Therefore, despite an absence of physical evidence for fish consumption at the sites mentioned in this study, but based on the isotopic data, we must conclude that human consumption of significant quantities of riverine fish or other such aquatic species is highly likely. This is in agreement with the conclusions of Lillie & Richards (2000) in their study of subsistence during the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition at the Dnepr Rapids in Ukraine. Analyses of 16 individuals from five sites spanning 7000 to 4000 BP produced similarly high δ15N values (c. +10 to +13‰) relative to the values of the human individuals analyzed by us from Botai, Krivoi Rog, Ak-Alakha, Verkh-Kaljin and Abatsky. In the same study, two individuals from the sites of Nikolskoe and Igren VIII, dating to the Early Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age respectively, also had high nitrogen isotopic values (+12.3‰ and +12.1‰). Lilley & Richards state that ‘The evidence from the Dnepr Rapids region suggests that there is a strong influence from river fish in the diets of the Mesolithic and Neolithic populations, with the overall contribution of this resource increasing into the Neolithic’ (Lillie & Richards 2000). Bonsall et al. also concluded that their series of isotopic analyses of 70 humans from three sites in 258

Fish in the Diet of Central Eurasian Peoples

K o ly m

a

Dn ep r

Ob

y Yenise

Do n

ga

Abatsky

Kam a

ea

U ra

l

kS

ac Bl

To bo l

Semyenovka

Ob

Ir t

ysh

Sergeevka Botai Krasnii Yar

Sy r

Lake Baikal

Ak-Alakha

ng

He

Caspian Sea

Upper Lena Angara

Is h i m

ya ar D

Dereivka Molyukhov Bugor Desyatiny Krivoi Rog

na

V ol

Iron Gates

Le

Hu

a

iang gJ an h C

0

2000 km

dak del

Figure 16.4. Map showing locations of all Central Eurasian sites mentioned. However, it is possible to model the expected outcome (i.e. human collagen δ15N values) for the complete range of diets (all possible combinations of cereal, meat and fish), using the complete range of realistically possible isotopic compositions and enrichment factors. This approach is detailed in Appendix 16.2. While the outcome depends on the values assumed, it is only possible to explain the high human δ15N values observed over central Eurasia if the diet consumed has a fish/meat protein ratio of more than 1. Most scenarios (especially those where dietary cereal accounts for 20 per cent or more of protein dietary intake) can only explain such high human δ15N values when the fish/meat ratio exceeds 2 or 3. Therefore when we say that there was substan-

tial fish consumption, we mean that more, and probably a lot more, fish protein was eaten than meat protein for a large part of the year, with fish providing at least half of their total dietary protein intake. As regards terrestrial animal protein, it is not possible to distinguish between the consumption of primary or secondary animal products, i.e. meat or milk, since all protein sources from the same animal are isotopically indistinguishable. It is also not possible from these limited results to distinguish whether the ‘mixed’ diet that we postulate represents a mix of terrestrial and aquatic food resources all year round or a seasonal dependence on different food resources — terrestrial and aquatic foods — at different times of year. 259

Chapter 16

Dn

ep r

Desyatiny Molyukhov Bugor

Dereivka Nikolskoe

Krivoi Rog

Yasinovatka

Bu

D n e s tr

So ut he rn

Igren VIII Vasilyevka V Marievka

g

Semyenovka

e pr Dn

N

Azov Sea Kuban

Black Sea 0

100 km

dak del

Figure 16.5. Map showing locations of Ukraine sites.

I rt ysh

Tob ol

Abatsky

Petropavlovsk

I sh im

Cheliabinsk

Krasnii Yar Botai Kokchetav a

nIma k lu Bur

U bagan

ak T ogus

C ha glin k

Tobol Kushmurun

Sel eta

Kustanai

Aral Sea

Caspian Sea

S hi dert y

Esil Atbasar

100 km

n seka Ter

0

Akmola ra Nu dak del

Figure 16.6. Map showing locations of Kazakh sites. 260

The Botai paradox The stable isotope study of the human skull from Botai confounds all intuitive interpretations of the site’s faunal assemblage. Hundreds of thousands of bones and teeth were excavated from the Eneolithic levels at Botai, 99.9 per cent of which came from horse; but no more than a couple of fish bones have been recovered. Moreover, the residues from the potsherd study by Dudd et al. (this volume) apparently also attest to the overwhelming dependence of the site’s inhabitants on horse flesh. Our assertion that this individual, whose skull was sampled, was, in fact, dependent upon fish for more than 50 per cent of his dietary protein might, therefore, seem rather foolhardy to fly in the face of definitive evidence. However, this apparent discrepancy is not really so difficult to account for: 1. Although the stable isotope signature of the Botai skull indicates that at least 50 per cent of his total dietary protein came from fish, it cannot tell us where the fish were consumed or discarded. Even if they were eaten on site, their bones could have been either scavenged or taken away from the habitation for disposal. Alternatively, they could have been consumed elsewhere altogether. The well-built clay dwellings indicate that the settlement was ‘permanent’, but its occupation could have been seasonal. 2. The scarcity of fish bones recovered from Botai could be accounted for by site taphonomy as well as the fact that only a very small proportion of the site has been sieved. Fish bone is much smaller and much less mineralized than horse bone. It cannot be assumed that the conditions that favoured the preservation of horse would have favoured that of fish.

Fish in the Diet of Central Eurasian Peoples

Mesolithic Neolithic Eneolithic E. Bronze Age Iron Age non-fish eaters 3. Regarding the potsherd residue study (Dudd et al. this volume), it cannot be asseals Poundbury sumed that the residues in Iron Age those pots were representahumans tive of all the foods consumed by the occupants of the site throughout the year. The sherds sampled were chosen for analysis because of the presence of visible residues. Sherds without residues were not tested. The absence of lipid eviHumans dence for freshwater fish Animals could be accounted for either if their residues were not preserved or if fish were not cooked in pots. 4. The skull sampled might not have come from a typical inhabitant of Botai. In fact, Figure 16.7. Eurasian human and animal isotopic values by time period. he might not have come from Botai at all: he might have been a visitor. Unfortunately, relatively few human burials have been found at Botai-Tersek culture sites (Rykushina & Zaibert 1984). This one, represented only by a skull — with a double trepanation and masked in clay — and several vertebrae, was found in the clay fill of a pit between two dwellings (Rykushina & Zaibert 1984). Such an extraordinary individual might not have had a typical diet. The carbon and nitrogen stable isotope values across Central Eurasia, from the Iron Gates to Lake Baikal, are so uniform that Figure 16.8. The Iman-Burluk river at Botai. the pattern cannot be disMesolithic period to the Iron Age, as reflected in the missed. However, in order to understand the situaisotopic values of the samples analyzed in this and tion at Botai, it must be acknowledged that many other studies (Table 16.2 & Fig. 16.7). The isotopic more samples must be analyzed. values of both humans and animals vary little with time or location, leading us to conclude that fish Variation in time and space continues to be an important human food resource Despite the wide range of excavation locations of throughout Central Eurasia during the whole period samples discussed here (Figs. 16.4, 16.5 & 16.6), there in question. appears to be little change in human diet from the

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close to water: on lake shores (such as Khotoruk at Lake Baikal), along rivers (Ak-Alakha, Krivoi Rog, δ15N Sergeevka, Krasnii Yar, Botai: Fig. mean std dev 16.8), islands in rivers or lakes (Molyukhov Bugor, Desyatiny, and 11.4 Khuzir on Lake Baikal) or on river 11.3 1.5 terraces (Semyenovka, Verkh-Kaljin). 15.4 0.4 14.8 0.6 Settlement sites are, in fact, rarely 14.4 1.8 found far from water, on the open steppe and high plateaux (for exam10.7 1.0 ple, Rassamakin 1999; Kislenko & 10.8 1.1 Tatarintseva 1999). Of course, it is 11.1 2.5 12.3 much more difficult to survey such 12.6 1.8 habitats than river and lake margins, 14.4 1.0 and taphonomic conditions are very 11.5 0.2 different. Even taking that into ac12.6 12.0 0.8 count, according to the data avail10.9 0.7 able today, it appears that prehistoric 5.6 1.0 human habitation was generally tied 2.9 firmly to freshwater resources, and 4.8 that the open steppe itself was not 4.1 1.4 an area of permanent habitation, but 5.0 1.1 5.4 1.0 rather probably used only for short 14.0 1.1 visits. This would agree with our conclusion that riverine resources 12.4 were of primary importance to Cen11.5 tral Eurasian economies, with ungu2.7 0.7 late resources playing a secondary 3.1 role. 3.2 4.5 Faunal evidence for consumption of aquatic food resources is 12.3 widespread, but not abundant. For 10.2 1.2 example, at Kozhai I settlement in 14.3 0.5 Kazakhstan (Tersek-Botai culture), 10.1 0.8 remains of steppe tortoise (Testudo 5.7 horsfieldi), northern pike (Esox lucius), 5.6 frog (Rana sp.), crucian carp (Carassius 2.5 carassius) and freshwater mussels 12.1 (Anodonta sp.) were identified in ad11.7 dition to various waterfowl (Gaidu12.3 chenko 1998). Waterfowl, otter, bea5.3 0.3 ver, European pond terrapin (Emys orbicularis), European catfish (Siluris glanis), common carp (Cyprinus carpio), asp (Aspius aspius), pike (Esox lucius), roach (Rutilus rutilus), zander (Lucioperca lucioperca) and rudd (Scardinius erhythrophthalmus) were found at Dereivka settlement (Dereivka culture, Eneolithic) (Telegin 1986). A layer of mussel (Unio) and river snail (Viviparus sp.1) shell covered much of the occupation level of this settlement. Bones of tortoise/terrapin are very common in the new excavations at Molyukhov Bugor; fish

Table 16.2. Isotopic values of all samples discussed, listed by time period. (1 Data from Lillie & Richards 2000; 2 data from Bonsall et al. 1997; 3 data from Katzenberg & Weber 1999.) Site

Species

No. of samples

δ13C mean

std dev

0.2 0.2 0.3 0.6

Mesolithic Dereivka1 Marievka1 Schela Cladovei2 Vlasac2 Lepenski Vir2

human human human human human

1 3 8 29 17

–23.6 –21.9 –19.6 –19.0 –19.0

Neolithic Dereivka1 Vasilyevka V1 Yasinovatka1 Nikolskoe1 Lepenski Vir2 Angara3 Angara3 Baikal3 Upper Lena3 Upper Lena3

human human human human human human human human human human

3 4 4 1 16 20 4 3 11 3

–22.8 –22.0 –22.8 –23.1 –19.3 –15.8 –19.2 –17.6 –20.2 –19.5

0.9 1.3 0.6

Iron Gates2 Semyenovka Molyukhov Bugor Cis-Baikal3 Cis-Baikal3 Cis-Baikal3 Cis-Baikal3

bovid horse horse elk red deer roe deer seal

7 1 2 3 8 8 8

–21.0 –21.2 –21.2 –19.3 –19.0 –20.1 –22.0

0.4

Eneolithic Botai Krivoi Rog

human human

1 1

–18.1 –19.4

Botai Krasnii Yar Semyenovka Molyukhov Bugor

horse horse horse horse

4 1 1 2

–20.0 –20.0 –21.0 –21.4

Early Bronze Age Nikolskoe1 Angara3 Baikal3 Upper Lena3

human human human human

1 5 6 13

–22.2 –19.9 –18.4 –19.5

Desyatiny Desyatiny Sergeevka

horse cow horse

2 2 1

–19.6 –20.2 –20.8

Iron Age Igren VIII1 Pazyryk Pazyryk

human human wig

1 2 1

–17.4 –21.1 –18.8

Pazyryk

horse

7

–21.9

0.5 1.1 0.3 0.9 0.6 0.4

1.2 0.6 0.5 0.9

0.3

1.0 0.4 0.4

0.4

Other evidence for fish With a few notable exceptions (for example, Vinogradov 1981; Kislenko & Tatarintsev 1999), the role of fish in the diet of the steppe inhabitants of Central Eurasia has not been given much attention. However, it might be expected, on the basis of their location, that fish or other aquatic species should have provided a significant share of the human daily food ration. Almost all the sites discussed here are found

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Fish in the Diet of Central Eurasian Peoples

and beaver were also recovered from both the Neolithic and Eneolithic deposits (M.A.L. identification). Even if fishbone is generally unrepresented and probably underrepresented in Central Eurasian deposits, fishing tools — fishhooks, net weights, harpoons — are nevertheless widespread 0 2 cm (Fig. 16.9). It is possible that many more excavated tools b a were originally used for fishing than is currently accepted. The drive to label certain groups as nomadic pastoralists may have coloured the way in which the function of tools is assessed. At Dereivka, a tool made from antler was found in a context interpreted by the excavator as a place for repairing fishing tackle and d processing fish. It would ap0 2 cm pear likely that it was a net0 3 cm c ting tool, yet subsequently 0 2 cm this piece was designated a horse ‘cheekpiece’, despite its context, and despite being found at a site where 0 5 cm over 100 fishing net weights were found (Fig. 16.9c; Telegin 1973, 42–3, fig 23.17; Rassamakin 1999). Kislenko & Tatarintseva (1999) point out e 0 2 cm that small blades and microf liths could have belonged to composite tools, such as harpoons, spears and arrowheads. Bone harpoons were Figure 16.9. Fish hooks and tools: a) Ukrainian Eneolithic bone/antler fishing tools recovered from Botai (Kislen- (from Danilenko 1974, 48); b) bone fishing tools from Botai (from Danilenko 1985, 38) - left to right: 1 gaffe, 2 harpoons, 1 fish hook; c) fish hook and antler ‘cheekpiece’/’netting ko & Tatarintseva 1999). There is also some icono- tool’ from Dereivka, Eneolithic settlement (from Telegin 1986, 16); d) a bronze fish hook graphic evidence that fish from an Early Iron Age Altai burial, Kaindy, kurgan 40 (from Neverov & Stepanova played a significant role in 1990, 244); e) a bronze fish hook from the Early Iron Age occupation of Denisova cave the lives of Central Eurasian (from Derevianko & Molodin 1994, 41); f) bronze fish hooks from a Middle Bronze Age people (Fig. 16.10). One of burial at Sintashta (from Gening et al. 1992, fig. 30). the Early Iron Age male mummies from Pazyryk (kurgan 2) has a large fish picted on the saddle ornaments from both Pazyryk, tattoo on his shin, identified by Rudenko possibly as kurgan 1, and Ak-Alakha 1, kurgan 1 (Fig. 16.10d) a burbot (Lota lota) (Fig. 16.10a). Fish are also de(Rudenko 1970; Polosmak 1994a). 263

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a

c

b

Figure 16.10. Fish pictures: a) fish tattoo from Early Iron Age site of Pazyryk, kurgan 2 (from Rudenko 1970, fig. 51); b) saddle pendant from Pazyryk, kurgan 1, fish seizing a ram’s head (from Rudenko 1970, pl. 47); c) saddle pendant from Pazyryk, kurgan 1, fish (from Rudenko 1970, pl. 167D); d) Ak-Alakha 1, kurgan 1, felt saddle cover (from Polosmak 1994a, fig. 39). Conclusions These limited isotopic results suggest that at least some of the inhabitants of Central Eurasia had a diet rich in fish and animal protein, with freshwater fish perhaps supplying up to 50 per cent of their total protein intake. The consumption of a mixed diet of fish, herbivorous animals and some plants would seem to be likely, given their environment: a forest steppe region with many rivers and lakes running through it. The apparent dominance of fish in the diet is particularly striking. However, there is good reason for people to eat fish in preference to ungulates even when hunting or husbanding the latter

d 264

Fish in the Diet of Central Eurasian Peoples

would require less energy expenditure. Freshwater fish are proportionately higher in long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids than terrestrial food sources, making them particularly important for neural and cardiovascular development and function in humans (Crawford & Marsh 1995; Broadhurst et al. 1998). Further isotopic analysis is needed of more human and animal samples from a wider range of sites in order to confirm that the results of this study are truly representative of ancient central Eurasian diets.

of nitrogen), which are cereal, meat and fish. Other food types can be subsumed within one of the main three, e.g. dairy products can be considered as meat, since milk and flesh from the same animal have similar nitrogen isotopic values (Katzenberg & Krouse 1989; Minagawa 1992; Schoeller et al. 1986). The nitrogen isotopic value of human protein is equal to the average nitrogen isotopic value of the diet (the nitrogen isotopic values of each food source multiplied by the proportion in the diet) with an additional enrichment, E, which is the observed enrichment between an individual’s diet and their body protein (Schoeninger & DeNiro 1984). This can be expressed as:

Appendix 1: sample preparation Bone Whole bone samples of approximately 200 mg were taken for isotopic analysis. The surfaces of the samples were shot-blasted to remove surface contamination, then crushed. Samples were demineralized by leaving them in 10ml of 0.5M aq. hydrochloric acid solution overnight at approximately 4°C. The insoluble protein residue was washed twice in distilled H2O, then gelatinized by sealing in a tube of aq. hydrochloric acid solution at pH 3 for 20 hours at 70°C. After this, the supernate was decanted then lyophilized. The resulting ‘collagen’ sample was used for isotopic analysis.

Equation 1: δ15N human = (δ15N cereal × %cereal) + (δ15N meat × %meat) + (δ15N fish × %fish) + E The three food groups, cereal, meat and fish, have distinctive δ15N values. The δ15N values for meat are reasonably well known from the herbivore bone collagen analyses done in this study, and are here taken to be an average value of +5.5‰. For cereal, a value of +3.5‰ has been taken — it might well be lower (since a value of +3.5‰ implies only a 2‰ enrichment between cereal protein and herbivore protein), but an error of overestimation will tend to underemphasize the contribution by fish. For fish, one can take general values found in modern and archaeological freshwater ecosystems, but the value can depend on what types of fish are actually consumed. This is unknown, and so a range from +10–12‰ has been taken, typical of freshwater and some anadromous fish (Schoeninger & DeNiro 1984). E, the magnitude of the observed enrichment between an individual’s diet and their body protein, is not known exactly, but is expected to be about 3‰. It may perhaps be higher than this, and so a value of E = 4‰ is also considered. (Again, taking too high a value of E will tend to under-emphasize the fish content of the diet). Since the three protein sources must amount to a total of 100 per cent, there are only two independent variables in the diet, which can be conveniently represented as: the percentage of cereal consumed (‘per cent cereal’), and the ratio of the amounts consumed of fish and meat (‘ratio fish/meat’). We can now consider what values of per cent cereal and ratio fish/meat, according to Eqn 1, are required to give a human δ15N of at least +10.5‰. This of course depends on different combinations of

Hair Hair samples of approximately 10 individual hairs were cleaned prior to isotopic analysis. Samples were ultra-sonicated in distilled H2O, then twice in chloroform and methanol (2:1, v/v), then in distilled H2O again. Samples were then wrapped lengthways in aluminium foil, sectioned into approximately 1 cm lengths, dried under vacuum, then rolled into balls ready for isotopic analysis. Isotopic analysis Samples were isotopically analyzed by a Carlo Erba automated carbon and nitrogen analyzer coupled to a Europa Geo 20/20 continuous flow isotope ratio mass-spectrometer. Typical measurement errors are of the order of ±0.2‰ for δ13C and δ15N. Appendix 2: Calculating the possible dietary components consistent with the observed δ15N values for humans The nitrogen isotopic values of a consumer’s body tissues (such as human bone collagen) reflect the nitrogen isotopic values of their dietary protein. When considering diet composition, only three food groups need be considered as sources of protein (or 265

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It is probably safest to regard this model as implying a minimum value for the ratio fish/meat, using the lower boundary of the shaded area. Here we see that even for 10 per cent cereal protein, fish would constitute about 35 per cent of all protein, while, for 20 per cent cereal protein, fish would constitute at least 40 per cent of all protein (that is, at least equal to the dietary intake of meat). It is difficult to believe that cereal, or other plant protein, constituted less than 20 per cent of the total dietary protein intake.

Ratio of fish to meat protein in the diet

10

8 15

6

4

2

0 0

10

20

30

40

Percentage of cereal protein in the diet

50 Acknowledgements

Our thanks to the following for providing us with samples: A.M. Kislenko (Arkaim Centre, Chelyabinsk), V.F. Zaibert (Institute of Archaeology, Petropavlovsk), Y.Y. Rassamakin (Institute of Archaeology, Kiev), V.I. Molodin & N.V. Polosmak (Institute of Archaeology, Novosibirsk). We are grateful to Mike Richards for useful discussion and his helpful comments on the text. Thanks to Ken Neal and Adam Holman at the RLAHA, Oxford, for help with the preparation of samples for analysis. We would like to thank the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (Cambridge) for the use of photographs. This research was in part funded by the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research and by the NERC (project no. GR3/10372). TCO’C gratefully acknowledges the support of the Wellcome Trust under the BioArchaeology scheme.

Figure 16.11. Possible dietary compositions consistent with isotopic modelling. E (from 3 to 4‰) and δ15N fish (from +10–12‰), so that there is a boundary between diets that are too low in 15N, and diets sufficient or too high in 15N. This boundary is rather broad, however, because of the uncertainties in the values used in the equation, but the possible range of values enables us to decide on the width of the boundary. This is depicted in Figure 16.11. It may be interpreted as follows. Any diet to the lower right of the shaded area is too low in 15N to account for the observed human δ15N values, even using values in the equation which would maximise the effect of eating fish (and therefore imply less fish in the diet). The area is curved because the more cereal that is eaten, the more fish would need to be consumed to provide more 15N. Any diet to the upper left of the shaded area has more than enough 15N to account for the observed human δ15N values (or at least those of +10.5‰; higher human nitrogen isotopic values would naturally be more consistent with diets in this area). These diets are all high in fish, and even for an unrealistically low cereal content (say 10 per cent of the total protein input), the human values are only explained by assuming that at least twice as much fish as meat is being consumed. Diets in the intermediate shaded area are consistent with human δ15N values, but depend on the values chosen for the model. It is not possible to be more exact than this at present (without better data for Eqn. 1).

Note 1.

Given in the site report as Palludino, an unknown species, which we assume to be Paludina, the former name of Viviparus sp., the river snail.

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into the effect of diet on modern human hair isotopic values. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 108, 409–25. O’Connell, T.C. & R.E.M. Hedges, 1999b. Isotopic comparison of hair and bone: archaeological analyses. Journal of Archaeological Science 26, 661–5. Pashkevich, G.A., 1993. Features of Eneolithic–Bronze Age palaeoethnobotanical complexes in the territory of the Ukraine [Osobennosti paleoetnobotanicheskikh kompleksov eneolita–bronzy territorii Ukrainy], in The Fourth Millennium BC, ed. P. Georgieva. Sofia: New Bulgarian University, 99–108. Petrenko, A.G., 1984. Ancient and Medieval Animal Husbandry in the Volga and Ural regions [Drevnee i Srednevekoboe Zhivotnobodstvo Srednevo Povolzhia i Preduralia]. Moscow: Academy of Sciences. Polosmak, N.V., 1994a. Griffins Watching over Gold, the AkAlakha Kurgans [Steregyshchie Zoloto Grify, AkAlakhinskie Kurgany]. Novosibirsk: Hauka. Polosmak, N.V., 1994b. The burial of an aristocratic Pazyryk woman on the Ukok plateau. Altaica 4, 3– 10. Rassamakin, Y.Y., 1999. The Eneolithic of the Black Sea Steppe: dynamics of cultural and economic development 4500–2300 BC, in Levine et al. 1999, 59–182. Richards, M.P., R.E.M. Hedges, T.I. Molleson & J.C. Vogel, 1998. Stable isotope analysis reveals variations in human diet at the Poundbury Camp cemetery site. Journal of Archaeological Science 25, 1247–52. Rudenko, S.I., 1970. The Frozen Tombs of Siberia. London: Dent. Rykushina, G.V. & V.F. Zaibert, 1984. A preliminary report on the human skeletal remains from the Eneolithic settlement of Botai [Predvaritelnoe soobshchenie o skeletnykh ostatkakh liudei s eneoliticheskogo poseleniia Botai], in The Bronze Age Ural–Irtysh Interfluve [Bronzovyi Vek Uralo–Irtyshskogo Mezhdurechiia]. Cheliabinsk: Cheliabinsk State University, 121–36. Schoeller, D.A., M. Minagawa, R. Slater & I.R. Kaplan, 1986. Stable isotopes of carbon, nitrogen and hydro-

gen in the contemporary North American human food web. Ecology of Food and Nutrition 18, 159–70. Schoeninger, M.J., 1989. Reconstructing prehistoric human diet, in Chemistry of Prehistoric Human Bone, ed. T.D. Price. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 38–67. Schoeninger, M.J. & M.J. DeNiro, 1984. Nitrogen and carbon isotopic composition of bone collagen from marine and terrestrial animals. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 48, 625–39. Schwarcz, H.P. & M.J. Schoeninger, 1991. Stable isotopic analyses in human nutritional ecology. Yearbook of Physical Anthropology 34, 283–321. Stenhouse, M.J. & M.S. Baxter, 1979. The uptake of bomb 14 C in humans, in Radiocarbon Dating, eds. R. Berger & H.E. Suess. Berkeley (CA): University of California Press, 324–41. Telegin, D.Y., 1973. Serednostogivska Kultura Epokhy Midi. Kiev: Naukova dumka. Telegin, D.Y., 1986. Dereivka: a Settlement and Cemetery of Copper Age Horse Keepers on the Middle Dnieper. (British Archaeological Reports International Series 287.) Oxford: BAR. Tieszen, L.L. & T.W. Boutton, 1988. Stable carbon isotopes in terrestrial ecosystem research, in Stable Isotopes in Ecological Research, eds. P.W. Rundel, J.R. Ehleringer & K.A. Nagy. Berlin & New York (NY): SpringerVerlag, 68, 167–95. Tieszen, L.L., T.W. Boutton, K.G. Tesdahl & N.A. Slade, 1983. Fractionation and turnover of stable isotopes in animal tissues: implications for δ13C analysis of diet. Oecologia 57, 32–7. Tsalkin, B.I., 1970. The Most Ancient Domestic Animals of Eastern Europe [Drevneishie Domashnie Zhivotnye Vostochnoi Evropy]. Moscow: Nauka. Vainshtein, S., 1980. Nomads of South Siberia: the Pastoral Economies of Tuva. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Vinogradov, A.V., 1981. Ancient Hunting and Fishing in the Central Asian Interfluve [Drevnie Okhotniki i Rybolovy Sredneaziatskogo Mezhdurechia]. Moscow: Nauka.

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Agriculture and Pastoralism in the Northern Pontic Steppe Area

Chapter 17 Correlations between Agriculture and Pastoralism in the Northern Pontic Steppe Area during the Bronze Age Kateryna P. Bunyatyan The Northern Pontic steppes form the western ex-

culture evolved into a classic nomadic society. However, the basic technological and social foundations for the emergence of such a true society had not yet come about. Further improvements in the economic potential of the steppe continue with the growth of intensification of agriculture. This process can be traced in later cultures on the basis of increased numbers of settlements, the emergence of permanent year-round settled base-camps alongside seasonal camps, development of the household, broadening of craft activities and changes in ritual practice. The steppe system economy reached its peak during the Sabatinovka culture, the progress of which was based, among other things, on territorial differentiation of stock-breeding and agriculture. The Northern Pontic steppes form the western extremity of the ‘Great Belt’ of the Eurasian steppes, from Sayany in the East to the Danube in the West. Their extensive exploitation began with the transition to a food-producing economy, namely agriculture and stock-breeding. The introduction of these new forms of economic activity in the Ukraine took place around the sixth millennium BC, in two basic forms. The natural conditions of the forest steppe promote the development of agriculture and the rise of societies, with a combined form of economy in which agriculture was a leading component. A good example of an early agricultural culture in the Ukraine is represented by the Tripolye culture. In general, steppe areas were equally favourable for both agriculture and stock-breeding. Low humidity is compensated for by warm climate and fertility of soils. These soils are too heavy for processing by hand, but the steppes provide additional advantages of another kind. Endless rich pastures are a stimulant for stock-breeding, which formed a significant part of the economic activity for many centuries.

tremity of the ‘Great Belt’ of the Eurasian steppes. Their active exploitation began with the transition to a food-producing economy, i.e. to agriculture and stock-breeding. The natural conditions of the steppe zone and the primitive nature of the technology available defined the mode of economic adaptation; pastoralism became the major form of economy for many centuries. The instability of pastoralism and the need for bread, however, forced the steppe people to develop arable agriculture as well. Conflicts existed in this system: maintenance of large herds demanded mobility, whilst agriculture required a sedentary way of life. Thus, during the Bronze Age, we see attempts to overcome these contradictions and to balance both sides of the economy. Interrelation between pastoralism and agriculture was different at sites of different archaeological cultures. Choices in modes of subsistence affected the livelihood, features of the household, and methods of economic activity etc. The importance of pastoralism in the steppe is marked during the Bronze Age by the appearance of kurgans in the Kvityana (a post-Mariupol entity, in old terminology) and Mikhailovka cultures. Following the emergence of kurgans, cult activity spread out from the limits of settlements, and became focused on funerary and commemorative rituals. The new burial rite reflects an emphasis on space, i.e. pastures, which guaranteed the survival of the steppe people. Cattle became the main focus of ritual practice. The peak of kurgan construction in the Northern Pontic area is associated with the population of the Yamnaya culture. There is an enormous discrepancy between funerary and settlement records, as well as other data, which allows us to reach conclusions concerning, not only the prime importance of pastoralism, but also the limited agriculture in the area. In this way the population of the Yamnaya 269

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The development of stock-breeding brought about a largely different way of life to that of agricultural societies. Maintenance of sufficient numbers of stock often leads to regular movement from one pasture to another. People migrated together with their animals, but the instability of pastoralism, together with the need for bread, forced the steppe people to adopt agriculture, a practice which requires a settled way of life. For this reason a characteristic mobile/settled way of life developed in steppe areas. The leading role of pastoralism, with its associated mobility, determined the patterns and way of life of the steppe population, its social organization, its material and spiritual culture, and formed a particular rationale. It is certainly true that the formation of a stock-breeding/agricultural economy in the steppe demonstrates a flexible system of adaptation to the environment, but it also leads to certain consequences. For example, a duality of economic systems, where pastoralism requires mobility, while agriculture needs a settled way of life, hampers the development of both branches of the economy as well as that of non-food production. This economy was extensive while it was based on stock-grazing. At first glance, the occurrence of rich pastures results in a rapid increase in the number of livestock. But the stock was equally easy to lose. Winter was an especially hard season for pastoralists due to mass deaths of animals, especially the young, owing to the cold and scarcity of food. Disasters such as disease or the raiding of stock by neighbouring tribes also occurred. Such conditions determine the slow rate of development of these communities. Their economic activities may have achieved self-sufficiency; however, essential shifts in the development of a society are only possible during constant escalation of economical potential, which must outstrip any increase in population. These processes within pastoralist society were additionally complicated by other factors. Agricultural activity is characterized by seasonality. Periods of hard work, for example preparation for sowing and harvesting, alternate with times free from agricultural work, for example, maturing of crops and the autumn-winter period. Such rhythm releases time for other activities, namely domestic and household activities and the manufacturing of goods; i.e. it promotes the expansion of non-food production activity, and the accumulation and consolidation of experience in these activities. This, in turn, promotes intensification of modes of food production, which is why agricultural settlements are more comfortable and the life of inhabitants is surrounded by

objects, which are diverse in terms of type and quality. Conversely, maintenance of stock requires endless daily care. There are no breaks in work here (Tolybekov 1971, 318–19). The work of stock-breeders is continuous, and pastoralism by and large does not require the use of any special tools. Therefore, active stock-breeding does not promote other kinds of activity, and mobility disrupts the accumulation of wealth and results in simplification of the way of life. The pastoralist does not accumulate many things and those which they do are light weight and strong. Similarly, the hardship involved in such a life frequently results in simple art forms. A different system of values is involved in a pastoralist society, in which stock played a leading role. Livestock formed the main wealth of the steppe inhabitants, the measure of social and property status of family and community in general. Livestock supplied the people with all their requirements, food and various raw materials, and served as a means of exchange. They also formed the main focus of cult practice. Despite the importance of pastoralism, steppe populations also needed agricultural products. Although agriculture played a subordinate role in the steppe environment, it was not insignificant, for realistically, a few poods1 of corn are essential for a family. Subsidiary agriculture, therefore, must also have existed, providing a minimum amount of grain. Other sources of grain were practically absent when agricultural peoples lived at some remove from the pastoralists, for the majority of steppe inhabitants were only distant neighbours. Agriculturalists, however, rarely possess sufficient wheat surplus to satisfy their own and the steppe population’s grain requirements. This explains why attempts by the steppe population to intensify agriculture, i.e. to balance both branches of the economy, are observed during the Bronze Age (third and second millennia BC). The relative importance of pastoralism and agriculture in the economy of communities belonging to different archaeological cultures varied. This is apparent in the different modes of subsistence, in particular the interrelation between mobility and sedentism, as well as in characteristics of the household, methods of pastoralist practice etc. Therefore, the elaboration of concrete models of economic adaptation, for the various periods and ecological niches, is one of the most important aspects of modern archaeology. The difficulties involved mean that only a few aspects of this theme may be considered. The development of a specific way of life in the steppe is associated with the spread of pastoralism 270

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mobility was probably rather limited, as is shown by the concentration of flat grave cemeteries and settlements near rivers. The primary importance of steppe pastoralism is indicated by the emergence of the Kurgan rite of funerary practice and its rapid spread: the Mikhailovka and so-called post-Mariupol cultures (Kovaleva 1984, 4–53), the latter now being defined as the Kvityana culture (Rassamakin 1997, 285–9; 1999, 83– 7, 91–2). They are synchronous to Tripolye C and are dated by Rassamakin to between 3800/3700 and 3500/3400 BC. This new burial rite reflects the formation of a world view of a new kind of people: the ‘steppe people’. This population developed a highly characteristic adherence to movement and space, cultivation of the male principle as an embodiment of power, endurance and simplicity of a way of life, and a specific system of values in which cattle appeared to be a measure of social status and wealth. The new burial rite reflects the emphasis on spatial characteristics of the surrounding world, more specifically on pastures which were the only guarantee of the survival of steppe inhabitants and their way of life. Kurgans acted not only as structures over graves: sharply elevated over the monotonous steppe landscapes, they serve as clear markers of the direction of traditional pastoralist routes. They symbolize liaisons with ancestors and serve as material manifestations of indissoluble links between the past and present. Kurgans were the original temples of the steppe, as details of their construction and various associated remnants of cult activity indicate. Despite their insignificant proportions, some kurgan mounds were surrounded by powerful timbers constructed of large flat and elongated stone blocks or logs oriented vertically and placed close to each other. Timbers add an expressive and monumental appearance to the structures. With the emergence of kurgans, cult activity spread out from settlements, and became focused on funerary and commemorative rituals. Technological and cultural achievements of steppe communities (building skill, ideological notions, art etc.) are embodied in the funerary rite. Indeed, ritual life may not only be limited to burial or commemorative behaviour. One might suggest that communities of cattle breeders gathered, from time to time, near kurgan-temples for ancestor worship activities, for bringing victims to the gods, or for celebrating sad or joyful events (Bunyatyan 1997a). The possibility that kurgan mounds also served as observatories can not be excluded.

and agriculture into the Pontic region. These new forms of economic activity (i.e. new in comparison to hunting, fishing and gathering) spread into the Ukraine, as well as Europe in general, around the same time as the movement of populations from Asia Minor. These were accompanied by exchange of information and knowledge concerning stockbreeding and plant cultivation with local huntergatherer populations. The first few signs of new kinds of activity are recognized in the steppe during the Neolithic, somewhere around the end of the sixth millennium BC. However, the introduction of this new mode of subsistence was slow and the population combined agriculture and cattle breeding with traditional hunting, fishing and gathering for a long time. The development of new and significant forms of economic activity, primarily pastoralism, is probably also reflected by the appearance of new and distinct forms of burial practice. In Ukrainian archaeology there is no single, established term for these burial practices, e.g. Novodanilovka type, Suvorovo group etc. are used. Rassamakin refers to them as the Skelya culture (Rassamakin 1997, 274– 81; 1999, 75–83). These burials are synchronous with the Middle (B1) stage of the Tripolye culture. Graves, similar in construction and accompanying goods, appeared around the second half of the fifth millennium BC, throughout the vast area between the Don and Danube and replaced the collective cemeteries of the preceding period. This fact itself is clearly witness to the essential changes which took place in economic activity and forms of social organization. The construction of graves (stone tombs), rich in accompanying funerary goods (metal ornaments, including the first gold pieces known in this territory together with high-quality flint tools and weapons), and the presence of symbols of authority (zoomorphic sceptres and maces) together point to the rise of persons possessing special status. Therefore, these graves mark the presence of specific conditions promoting the development of a prestigious economy based on the strengthening productive economy and amplifying the role of the family. The rarity of such graves indicates the appearance of leaders of a new type. Wide spatial scattering of these graves points to a tendency to assign pastoral territories to separate groups of the population. The presence of various categories of items points to wide exchange-contacts, in particular with the Tripolye population. The distribution of graves over wide areas might be regarded as being symbolic of the claim of this population to a wide area of the steppe, although its 271

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Figure 17.1. The earliest kurgan burial. Town Ordzhonikidze of Dnipropetrovsk district: 1) ochre. (Source: A.V. Nikolova & K.P. Bunyatyan.) The appearance of megalithic structures (cromlechs, timber uprights, stone tombs) and stone sculpture are connected with the emergence and rise of kurgan burial rites and the erection of kurgan sanctuaries. The elementary form of primitive sculpture was an elongated vertically-placed stone, slightly resembling a human figure (Figs. 17.1 & 17.2). However, there are also anthropomorphic stelae. As a rule, these are primitive and are generally characterized by poorly planned heads and shoulders. But in some cases there are ochre images of faces and hands or engraved motifs and scenes. The Kernosovka idol is an especially impressive example of such artefacts (Krylova 1976).

Formulation of the problem During the Eneolithic, in the territory of the Pontic steppes, a new economic system in which a leading role was played by mobile stock-breeding appeared and strengthened,. But at that time, as well as throughout the Bronze Age, this economy was complex and consisted of two components, i.e. stockbreeding and agriculture. A contradiction arises in this economic system, because breeding stock required mobility at that time, whilst the agriculture required a settled way of life. This contradiction appeared to hamper successful development of both parts of the economy, as well as the production of 272

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Figure 17.2. The earliest kurgan burial. Town Ordzhonikidze of Dnipropetrovsk district: 1) bone. (Source: A.V. Nikolova & K.P. Bunyatyan.) we link these, on first appearance unrelated, facts, i.e. an increase in the role of agriculture and, consequently, sedentism, and progressive expansion in the steppe as a result of the development of mobile stock-breeding? In my opinion, the steppe population during the Bronze Age developed a flexible system of economy, in which agriculture and stock-breeding were combined in an integrated system. The contradiction between stock-breeding/mobility and agriculture/sedentism was resolved by the territorial delimitation of these two forms of economic activity. By the term ‘territorial delimitation of agriculture and stock-breeding’ I do not mean inter-community sharing of activities where certain communities specialize in agriculture while others deal with stockbreeding, their symbiotic relationship being determined by exchange requirements. Assuming such subdivision of labour for the period discussed is hardly realistic. Such an idea implies a nomadic way of life, but neither the technological nor the social terms of the latter are as yet available (cf. Bunyatyan

non-food items. This may have been a major determinant in the slow rate of progress of steppe societies. I believe overcoming this contradiction represents the essence of the Bronze Age in the Ukrainian steppe. The result of the development of a steppe economic system is the appearance of pastoralism, the earliest stages of which are recorded by the Cimmerians and Early Scythians in the Pontic steppes. It may be logical to assume increased stock-breeding and associated mobility throughout the Bronze Age. On the other hand, archaeological evidence suggests the opposite and indicates a gradual increase in agriculture and the apparent spread of a settled way of life. The following question arises: was the apparent spread of a settled way of life the real obstacle to progress in stock-breeding and increasing population mobility? Archaeological records show that expansion of the limits of steppe exploitation took place due to both agriculture and stock-breeding. It means, as might be supposed, the rise of mobility. How do 273

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duction of wheeled transport: carts provide transport for children, the old and infirm and stored goods. When interpreting the Yamnaya culture records, researchers are inclined to distinguish two economiccultural types within the framework of the Northern Pontic area, namely settled agriculturalists and nomadic or semi-nomadic stock-breeders. The former lived in river valleys, particularly that of the Dnepr, and have left settlements and flat grave cemeteries; the latter utilized the open steppe and left kurgan necropolises. This idea was proposed, for the first time, within the context of the interpretation of records discovered at the well-known Mikhailovka settlement (Lagodovska et al. 1962, 167, 173, 178), and was later developed in the works of Merpert (1974, 116–17) and, especially, Shilov, who distinguishes two different models of economic activity, namely, nomadic sheep breeders of the remote steppe and settled cattle breeders, who lived in river valleys and bred large horned cattle (Shilov 1975). It is worth noting that kurgans of the Yamnaya culture in the open steppe of the Dnepr area are very scarce. They are located along rivers and ravines and are found between one and three kilometres into the steppe proper (Otroshchenko & Boltrik 1982, 43). Thus, the hypothetical model of nomadic sheep breeders of the remote steppe contradicts the available evidence. One should also note that the presence of settlements should not be regarded as an unequivocal argument for a settled way of life in its classic form. The domination of the kurgan burial rite, and its uniformity throughout the vast territory, suggests that this society was basically pastoral, although agriculture was also practised, although to a lesser, almost insignificant, degree. The fact that we see only a small number of vessels with imprints of grain from cultivated plants emphasizes the relative unimportance of agricultural activity. Among thousands of fragments of ceramics from settlements only a few such finds are known (Pashkevich 1991, 15). Judging from imprints observed on fragments of pottery, the Yamnaya population cultivated several kinds of wheat, barley, hemp, and millet (Kuzminova & Petrenko 1989, 120; Yarovoy 1990, 89; Pashkevich 1991, 15). Millet was especially popular (Kuzminova 1990). It is worth noting that it was not only the inhabitants of settlements who were engaged in agricultural activity; the presence of pollen of domestic cereals on the surfaces of vessels discovered in graves, points to the presence of these crops close to cemeteries (Yarovoy 1990, 99), i.e. on stock migration routes. Grinding stones and horn mattocks are occasionally discovered in kurgan mounds, ditches and graves.

1999, 183–5). Instead, I propose subdivision of labour within the community. One part of the community was engaged in agriculture and, consequently, was settled, while the other part was concerned with stock-breeding and practised a mobile way of life. Such a subdivision of labour was not strictly determined and certain functions were not specific to individuals or families. Inter-community labour sharing was flexible and was determined by the situation specific to the economic cycle of any one year. During different seasons, and in different kinds of work, different numbers of peoples might be involved; the task of arranging available work resources within the economic process was decided not only within the community, but also within each family. Neighbouring communities probably joined forces when pasturing and guarding the stock, thus freeing some people for other tasks. Such a subdivision of labour was dictated, on the one hand, by the adoption of agriculture in the steppe region and, on the other hand, by the development of traditionally stock-breeding on pasture. This subdivision is indicated by the appearance of different types of settlement, not only seasonal but all year round occupations, and by the spreading of kurgan assemblages onto the open steppe. Thus, the proposed approach allows us to reconstruct the mode of economy and the way of life of stock-breeders of the Northern Pontic area. Evolution of the economic system of the steppe region Flourishing kurgan construction is associated with the Yamnaya culture, the population of which inhabited the North Pontic steppes and adjacent areas to the east (as far as the Urals) in the third millennium BC. Thousands of kurgans belong to this culture but only a few settlements have been recorded, of which about a dozen are known in the Ukraine (Shaposhnikova et al. 1986, 14; Rassamakin 1999, 125– 7). Camps which are thought to have been seasonal occupations are more widely known. Such records show an increase in the role of pastoralism and mobility in the steppe. These changes were probably due to an increase in aridity, a crisis among agricultural societies, and certain innovations — in particular the development of dairy farming, indirect evidence of which takes the form of high frequencies of bones of large horned cattle in archaeozoological collections. As is widely known, blood and milk form a basic component of the diet of pastoralists. The increase in mobility was also supported by the intro274

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Figure 17.3. Yamnaya culture burial. Town Ordzhonikidze of Dnipropetrovsk district. (Source: A.V. Nikolova & K.P. Bunyatyan.) In general, the economic potential of the Yamnaya culture population was not high. Irregular and limited agricultural activity provides insignificant yield, while the number of cattle kept is limited by winter maintenance conditions. The absence of permanent settlements throughout the major part of the inhabited territory and the primitive nature of tools both bear witness to the fact that, during the winter, stock was protected by natural shelter, and

the volume of forage was insignificant. Grave inventories testify to the modest prosperity of the steppe population of the time (Fig. 17.3). For example, only about 40 per cent of graves contain grave goods, which are, as a rule, very modest and represented by small pots. The limited involvement of stock in funerary and commemorative rites is also noted; only a few Yamnaya burials contain animal bones (Yarovoy 1985, 76, 112; Shaposhnikova et al. 1986, 20; 275

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niches. In contrast with the Yamnaya culture, the Catacomb culture yielded numerous settlements: around two hundred are known. Generally speaking, these are not true permanent settlements but, more likely, are seasonal settlement sites. Some of them were regularly visited from one year to the next and, therefore, relatively significant cultural sequences formed here (Nikitin 1991). During the late Catacomb culture, permanent settlement sites also appeared, e.g. Matveevka I on the Southern Bug (Nikitin 1989), Kirovo settlement in the Crimea (Leskov 1970) and others. During the Catacomb culture period, attempts were made to overcome the eternal problem of wheat scarcity in the steppe. It was, to some extent, promoted by the development of bronze metallurgy, as well as the transition to plough agriculture, which can dated to this period (Shramko 1972) based on the fact that a wooden ard has been discovered in the oldest known Catacomb culture grave of the Steppe (Nikitenko 1977). In addition, more tools for grain processing (grinding stones, pestles) are known for this period. It appears that the significant number of ox bones known at certain settlements is linked with the development of agricultural activity (Zhuravlev & Sycheva 1989). Grain and individual kernels and ears of wheat, considered to be symbols of fertility, become a component of the burial rite, as the discovery of a bag of wheat in a grave of the Catacomb culture in the Crimea (Korpusova & Lyashko 1990) demonstrates. Finds of millet in graves in the Donetsk region have been reported by Gorodtsov (1905, 268, 277, 287 etc.) while evidence from other territories is known from recent excavations (Kovaleva 1983, 58). These finds, however, do not allow us to assign the Catacomb culture population to an agricultural type, as is done by Popova (1955, 154). We can, however, suggest that the Catacomb culture population developed better routes and patterns of stock movement which involved more active involvement in agriculture. Seasonal settlement sites, where people engaged in agriculture and, probably, constructed winter bases with shelters for stock and storage of forage, were arranged along stock migration routes. In Late Catacomb times, there appears to have been a tendency to leave some of the community at such sites to look after crops. It is significant perhaps, that some of these settlement sites yield pig bones. This may have implications concerning relatively continuous habitation by either the whole community, or at least of a part of it. As in the case of the Yamnaya culture, some varia-

Richkov 1987, 32–3). In the northern Azov Sea region there are more burials with grave goods (51 per cent) and animal bones (5.4 per cent) (Rassamakin 1992, 11–12), whilst in the north of the Dnepr Left Bank area corresponding indices are significantly lower (Kovaleva 1984, 79). The above suggests that the entire population of the Yamnaya culture community moved, together with their stock, and engaged in sporadic agriculture, i.e. the Yamnaya society was a nomadic one. Its mobility was limited, however, judging from the energy and space involved in the activity required during the year-round economic cycle. This assumption is supported, albeit indirectly, by data concerning the frequency of burials in single kurgan mounds. Such a way of life might be defined as mobile-settled or mobile with a limited settled pattern (cf. Bunyatyan 1997b, 34, 37). In general, river valleys and surrounding territories formed the main exploitation areas for this population. Gravitation of the Yamnaya culture population towards river valleys might have resulted in a tense situation, leading to a struggle for possession of these favourable sites. The emergence of fortified settlements (Mikhailovka, Skelya-Kamenolomnya) serves as an illustration of this situation. These settlements probably reflect not only this gravitation towards settled life but, more likely, they acted as centres of for the regulation of land use and the assignment of these lands for specific uses. Such settlement function followed naturally from the rise in population density, which also resulted in steady expansion to the north and west. A somewhat different situation began at the end of the third and the beginning of the second millennia BC, i.e. at the time of the Catacomb cultures (Bratchenko & Shaposhnikova 1985). Although these cultures were generally pastoral, features associated with agricultural populations are well represented. Among these are beautiful vessels, with ornamental motifs which are, to some extent, similar to Tripolye pottery (soft wavy lines, semi-ovals, concentric circles forming masks etc.), the ear motif on pottery and the presence of perfectly formed polished stone axes (Sharafutdinova 1980). As for the Ingul Catacomb culture, found on the Dnepr and Danube interfluve, the Kurgan burial rite was important in a more indirect manner, for its population preferred to bury their dead in already-existing kurgans. In this respect the Catacomb culture population continued the traditions of the final stages of the Yamnaya culture, the representatives of which already did not construct kurgans but occupied the same ecological 276

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Figure 17.4. Catacomb culture burial. Town Ordzhonikidze of Dnipropetrovsk district. (Source: A.V. Nikolova & K.P. Bunyatyan.) tion in economic adaptation might be suggested for the period; determined in particular by natural environmental conditions in the inhabited regions. Archaeozoological data, such as the presence of pig bones on some settlements, as mentioned above, also provide evidence of economic variability. But in general, the settlements of the Western area (e.g. the River Bug region) provide evidence for the domination of large horned cattle (Zhuravlev 1991). The eastern area (Northern Donets and Lower Don) yielded a few settlements; here bones of small horned cattle are common among observed grave goods (Bratchenko 1976, n. 1 & 2; Kravets 1992). Burials in

the northern steppe region more regularly included the bones of large horned cattle and horses. In addition, osteological material suggests chronological differences which cause problems when investigating, not only the specifics of the local system, but also the dynamics involved in the development of the economic system as a whole (Kovaleva 1983, 54–5). Reconstruction of forms of economic activity should hardly be reduced to opposition between nomadic sheep breeders and settled farmers (cf. Leskov 1967, 13; Kravets 1992). The matter concerns the nuances of managing a complex economy in which the leading role belongs to pastoralism. 277

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Figure 17.5. Catacomb culture burial. Town Ordzhonikidze of Dnipropetrovsk district. (Source: A.V. Nikolova & K.P. Bunyatyan.) In general, based on data concerning the role of pastoralism in the economy and the way of life of the Ingulets Catacomb culture, these populations can be considered to have been similar to their predecessors in many ways. At the same time, more careful attention to agriculture resulted, to a certain extent, in the rise of a settlement pattern which was more sedentary than that of the Yamnaya culture. Catacomb society reached a higher level of prosperity caused primarily, by an increase in the manufacturing of food products. A more elaborate and productive system of organization of agricultural productivity,

stimulated further development of various crafts. These shifts are reflected in the burial record. Graves of the Catacomb culture are arranged more ostentatiously; more than half the burials include grave goods, the composition of the funerary inventory is more diverse and the culture yields the highest frequency of burials with metal goods (Chernykh 1997, 16–17). Graves are more frequently accompanied by animal bones (15.6 per cent) (Pustovalov 1992, 50), animal offerings being more common. From this point of view the Catacomb culture is one of the most resplendent and notable of the Bronze Age. 278

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The culture is also notable for the shape of its graves (catacombs), for its pottery (in particular, highly unusual bowls, so called ‘smokers’), for the wonderful, frequently-decorated, polished stone axes and for burials which include specific tool kits (‘burials of craftsmen’) (Bochkarev 1978; Berezanskaya 1980). A generally complex burial rite is observed during this period, these burials yielding rich and diverse inventories. The burial rite entails manipulation of the dead body, for example the practice of separating and manipulating the head is highly unusual, as is that of modelling the face with clay on the defleshed surface of the skull. There are signs of primitive forms of mummification (Otroshchenko & Pustovalov 1991). Concentrating on the distinct and original features of this culture, one should note, nevertheless, that its originality is, in many ways, emphasized and strengthened by the fauna of the preceding (Yamnaya) and subsequent (Bagatovalykova pottery) cultures. In reality, the list of Catacomb culture grave goods is also small (pottery, stone and bone artefacts etc.) (Figs. 17.4 & 17.5), which is why the sociological reconstruction by Pustovalov, who regarded the Catacomb society as an example of early class (proto-state) formation (Pustovalov 1990), seems to be unjustified. In this society there are no factors indicating active class formation. There are no monumental cult constructions, and no magnificent tombs with real treasures and accompanying persons. The population has, however, overcome some of the limitations involved in the process of colonizing the steppe, by using a more flexible combination of pastoralism and agriculture. Later on, the agricultural tradition is strengthened, witnessed by materials of the Bagatovalykova pottery culture dated to the seventeenth–fifteenth centuries BC (uncalibrated) (Berezanskaya et al. 1986, 5–43). Field survey reveals significant numbers of settlements of the latter culture: around 30 in the Southern Bug area (Klyushintsev 1980, 63) and more than 50 in the Dnepr steppe area. There are seasonal and all-year-round settlements. The latter are sometimes quite large (up to four hectares) and may yield dwellings and specialized utilitarian structures (Sharafutdinova 1982, 11–16). The percentage of pig bones in faunal collections is informative. At the site of Babine-3, pig bones represent 18 per cent of the assemblage. Thus, Kushnir regards the Bagatovalykova pottery culture as a crucial moment in the economic development of the steppe population (Kushnir 1999, 22, 37, 122). In comparison with the Catacomb culture, the burial rite of the Bagatovalykova culture is simpler,

although this group revives the tradition of constructing of kurgans. It should be stressed that kurgans are now located on the steppe, far from the rivers (Kovaleva 1981, 37–8). The number of burials with grave goods falls slightly and the range of items decreases sharply. Grave goods are represented mainly by bone buckles and coarse, frequently carelessly-made, pottery (so called ‘cans’) (Figs. 17.6 & 17.7). Other kinds of artefacts are extremely rare (Otroshchenko 1981, 11; Savva 1992, 30, 41–2). The number of graves with animal bones also declines, although in the northern steppe areas there is a noticeable increase in such finds (Kovaleva 1981, 43). The range of artefacts discovered at settlements is richer. Several treasures are known for this period, including, probably, the famous Borodino treasure. An increase in the number of settlements and a reduction in the number of burials (although the latter seems to me to be rather doubtful) provides the basis for Bratchenko’s assumption concerning crucial change in the way of life. Bratchenko suggests probable changes in economic activities and greater sedentism of the Bagatovalykova pottery culture in comparison with the Catacomb culture (Bratchenko 1977, 35). Based on the presence of kurgans in the open steppe and on the predominance of sheep bones in burials, Kovaleva suggests that there was an increase in the degree of mobility at this time (Kovaleva 1983, 55). In all probability both investigators are right. Undoubtedly, pastoralism, as practised by the Bagatovalykova pottery culture population, maintains a primary role in the economy. The relative paucity of finds in the cultural layers (Klyushintsev 1980) suggests this. Tools for soil processing, as well as tools for the development of farming-related products, are not abundant (Berezanskaya et al. 1986, 39– 40). The appearance of year-round settlements, however, points to serious changes in life style and modes of stock-breeding. Increased permanent settlement may not indicate reduced movement of stock. The range of pastures may even have increased, as indicated by the appearance of kurgans on the open steppe. It points solely to a reduction in the number of people who moved together with the stock. Now part of the community (assuming that we can equate ‘community’ with ‘settlement’) lived at the settlement all year round, being engaged in agriculture, household tasks and foraging. Another section of the population, probably the more active and viable part, was engaged in pasturing stock. Probably, while engaged in this kind of activity, neighbouring communities were united in their efforts to ensure their safety. 279

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Figure 17.6. Mnogovalikova culture burial. Town Ordzhonikidze of Dnipropetrovsk district. (Source: A.V. Nikolova & K.P. Bunyatyan.) and stock-breeding, began to become more important with the appearance of all year round habitation. The appearance of the centres of permanent habitation and an increase in the attention paid to agriculture and household activities also changed the focus of ritual life. Such speculation might be invoked to explain the modest burial rite and poor funerary inventory observed. Prestige objects, especially those made of metal, are almost unknown in burials and are replaced by ‘treasures’ (objects of significant ritual and social importance). This reflects a change of focus in the prestige economy. The social position of the community is determined now, not simply by the quantity of cattle, but also by other kinds of wealth.

The release of some people from activities related to stock-breeding not only increased the mobility of the pastoralists but also gave rise to technological innovations, which may be related to further use of the horse, e.g. the introduction of a more effective bridle with bone psalii (cheekpieces) furnished with thorns, and chariots (wheels with spokes). This is why the stock-breeding Bagatovalykova pottery culture people were essentially more mobile than the Yamnaya or Catacomb culture population for whom movement of the whole community with stock, as well as insignificant agricultural activity, acted as constraining factors for mobility. The subdivision of labour in the agricultural sphere or, to be exact, the territorial delimitation of agriculture 280

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Figure 17.7. Mnogovalikova culture burial. Town Ordzhonikidze of Dnipropetrovsk district. (Source: A.V. Nikolova & K.P. Bunyatyan.) A new economic system developed and brought with it appreciable results during the Sabatinovka culture (fourteenth–twelfth centuries BC), the core territory of which was located west of the River Dnepr. This culture is represented by various sites including numerous settlements. Approximately 700 settlements are known so far, and are restricted to the Northwest Pontic area (Chernyakov 1985, 16, 20, 40). Significant numbers of settlements have been discovered in the Bug area (Klyushintsev 1993), and a somewhat less representative series in the Dnepr region (Sharafutdinova 1982, 11). The size of these

settlements ranges between 0.1 to 27 hectares. According to Klyushintsev, most sites in the Bug region are between three and five hectares in size; larger settlements are rare. These settlements take the form of basic settlements and seasonal settlement sites based on single findings (Klyushintsev 1997, 50). Two types of spatial organization of settlements may be recognized. There are macro-groups embracing up to several dozen settlements and involving a significant area, and micro-groups consisting of several neighbouring settlements. According to Chern281

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yakov, these groups reflect the same economic and habitation structure (Chernyakov 1985, 27). In the river Bug area, such micro-groups include up to ten settlements (Klyushintsev 1997, 50), while in the Lower Dnepr region, somewhat smaller groups are common (Gershkovich 1999, 29–30). Among these settlements the most impressive are the large sites, frequently with dense building structures, which reminds one of an urban system. As a rule, such large settlements are surrounded by smaller settlement sites. Many bronze treasures (local and imported) are known for this time, as well as foundry moulds and evidence of bronze casting workshops. The situation concerning burial evidence is more complex. Firstly, kurgan burials in the area inhabited by the Sabatinovka culture population are analogous to graves of the Srubnaya culture, and are frequently similar, in many ways, to funerary monuments belonging to the Bagatovalykova pottery culture. Therefore, it is clear that the population of the Sabatinovka culture has no unique burial rite, only a few graves show vessels characteristic of this culture. Secondly, there are substantially more Sabatinovka-type settlements and than burials (cf. Chernyakov 1985, 135). Thirdly, the relative paucity of finds from the Sabatinovka culture burials does not, it appears, match the rich and variable material culture of settlements and the complex structures of this period. The Sabatinovka culture, without doubt, reflects the peak of the steppe economy during the Bronze Age. This highest level was attained by combining agriculture and pastoralism (Chernyakov 1985, 50, 151, 153; Berezanskaya et al. 1986, 144). Material preconditions for this rise are seen in widespread new technological achievements, in particular construction of bronze instruments. At this time, bronze tools became significant in the life of the steppe population. Indeed, they became one of the major factors of agricultural colonization of the steppe. This, however, was not the only factor involved. Noting the essential shifts in the development of the agricultural economy of the Sabatinovka culture population, scholars disagree as to the relationship between different parts of the economy. One group is inclined to recognize rough parity in the roles of agriculture and pastoralism (Savva 1991), another group has no firm opinion (cf. Chernyakov 1985, 153 & 154), while a third group insists on the leading role of agriculture and lesser importance of stock-breeding (Sharafutdinova 1989). This question is not simple. Identified components of an agricul-

tural, settled life, associated with the Sabatinovka culture, mean that this is one of a group of agricultural cultures. Indications of this way of life include the number of settlements observed, their dimensions, the depth of cultural deposits, the occurrence of specialized utilitarian structures, workshops, abundant agricultural tools including the predominance of sickles, the occurrence of grinding stones in almost all dwellings, and evidence of grain storage and drying facilities etc. The importance and significance of agriculture are also reflected in the ritual sphere. The occurrence of clay lozenges (‘little loaves’), miniature zoomorphic and anthropomorphic figurines and the presence of ash lenses are usually considered to be manifestations of agriculture-related ritual (cf. Chernyakov 1985, 153–4; Berezanskaya et al. 1986, 110; Sharafutdinova 1989). The pastoral component, however, is also well represented in this cultural context. For example, deposits at Sabatinovka culture settlements are extremely rich in animal bones: they form approximately 50 per cent of finds at Ushkalka and up to 81 per cent at Peresadovka (Berezanskaya et al. 1986, 111). A high degree of bone artefact manufacturing and abundant tools for the processing of skins, are associated only with the Sabatinovka culture (Sharafutdinova 1989, 176–7). Characteristic features of the steppe tradition, such as the use of stone anthropomorphic sculptures in ritual activities, still survived in the context of the Sabatinovka culture. At Tashlyk I (Southern Bug) two sanctuaries are observed, accompanied by primitive stelai. One of the sanctuaries produced several clay lozenges (‘little loaves’) and small ram figurines. Another stone stele was discovered at the Late Sabatinovka settlement of Oktyabri I (Dovshenko 1997). The scattered steppe burials, which are associated mainly with earlier kurgans, should also be noted. The question arises, however: how could the people of this culture manage to maintain the potential for stock-breeding and even increase it, while paying so much attention to agriculture? There are grounds to assume that the rise of the Sabatinovka culture was based, not only on metallurgy and the widespread introduction of bronze artefacts, but also on the new organization of the agricultural economy, in particular the territorial differentiation between agriculture and stock-breeding. The territorial differentiation between two branches of the economy could solve the inevitable problem of the economic system of the steppe, in which mobile pastoralism, the most suitable form of economy given the conditions, leads to limited agricultural 282

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opportunities. Spatial differentiation between pastoralism and agriculture allowed a more rationalized use of collective manpower. Well-organized pastoralism does not require a large number of people in order to be successful. Therefore, the major part of the community could live in settlements and engage in agriculture, crafts and household activities. Life on the steppe became more comfortable at this time: for example, we see stone- and clay-built dwellings, and a wide range of pottery, including elegant and highquality products, and stable — as witnessed by utilitarian premises — stocks of corn. The enormous quantity of animal bones in layers at Sabatinovka sites, as well as numerous bone and horn artefacts, underlines not only the important role of stock-breeding, but also the key changes in this part of the economy, which allowed for consumption of significant quantities of meat. As is known from ethnography, mobile pastoralists look after their cattle very carefully, and meat consumption is usually timed to coincide with certain events. In particular it may take place when animals die naturally, or when there is not enough forage. Thus, there are grounds to assume that the growth in prosperity of the Sabatinovka culture was due, among other things, to an increase in the number of stock kept. The numbers of stock kept by pastoralists is determined largely by winter conditions. A number of animals may be lost due to the cold and a lack of forage, or due to forced consumption. This period of stress was probably managed by the Sabatinovka population by organizing stock-breeding bases and temporary sites. There are usually only a small number of animals found on farming sites: sufficient for the primary and secondary needs of the community. The main herds were grazed on the steppe during the major part of year. Returning herds to a settlement for wintering, however, creates a problem regarding forage and maintenance. This problem was solved by moving stock to a number of different temporary sites. In this way the number of animals is not limited by factors of winter maintenance at a single site. The dispersal of stock to different farmsteads not only lightened its winter maintenance load, but also prevented destruction of complete herds due to plagues from epizootics. In this way it is possible to explain the large number of Sabatinovka settlements, in particular those which yielded ephemeral cultural layers and only a few or even no structures. The latter might be represented by light structures such as shel-

ters for cattle and people, the remains of which are rarely observed archaeologically. The subdivision of settlements into permanent (year-round habitation) and temporary (seasonal) is not sufficient. Both the large settlements and the smaller ones, which might be hamlets, need to be reconsidered. Complexes consisting of several close settlements, e.g. Voronivka, Zhovtneve, Myrne, Buzki in the Northwestern Pontic area, as well as Sirogozka Balka in the Lower Dnepr area, are very promising from this point of view. Unfortunately, not one of them has yet been studied in sufficient detail. Some of these settlements could represent seasonal sites; others, with only one or two dwellings, could be farmsteads, where one or two families or even only several men lived. Although these people could manage a small subsidiary farm for their livelihood, their main task was the preparation for the wintering of stock, namely the construction of shelters and the preparation of winter forage. Bronze sickles may have been used to gather sufficient forage for winter. The distribution of such small settlements, peripheral to the larger ones, suggests that some forage might have been brought from central sites, in particular, the ‘waste-products’ of agricultural activity, such as straw. Thus, the active development of farming and increased sedentism allow intensification of pastoralism, which is based not only on grazing and constant movement, but also on active preparation of forage for winter, including the use of agricultural by-products. At this point cattle receive reliable protection from winter cold and seasonal food scarcity. The close spatial arrangement of building constructions found on certain settlements (for example, Voronivka II) might also be regarded as evidence for the practice of out-of-settlement maintenance of stock. Thus, the pastoralist tradition was uninterrupted during the Sabatinovka culture; it was renewed and became more elaborate. Exploitation of grazing resources on the steppe during warm seasons was combined with the winter maintenance of stock at special farmsteads, where stock was protected by shelters and supplied with forage. In essence, such organization of pastoralism is similar to transhumance as practised by populations occupying low mountains and mountainous areas (for example, Shamiladze 1979, 45–7). Nevertheless, it includes specific features triggered by environmental conditions. Classic transhumance is based on vertical zonality of pastureland. The richness of these pastures allows one to move between them several times each year, which is why spring, summer and 283

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other camps are clearly distinguished. The seasonal factor also has a role to play in the exploitation of the steppe: river valley pastures in open steppe areas were also exploited at different times. But movement between pastures in the steppe was more frequent, a fact which leads to the greater mobility of pastoralism and less recognizable seasonality of settlement sites. Owing to this, the most recognizable settlements must be winter ones, which were not only occupied for a long time, but also provide evidence of construction of defences for people and stock. Upkeep of stock demands careful maintenance and this may be reflected in the fact that there is evidence of settlement in shrubby areas. This combination of pastoralism and agriculture, however, resulted in crisis. Ploughing resulted in a reduction in pasture and a corresponding decline in pastoralism. Woods and clearings, which yielded the raw material for construction work, heating, metallurgical and ceramic manufacture, were also destroyed. This affected the ecological situation and caused river levels to drop and the steppe to become more arid (Chernyakov 1985; Sharafutdinova 1989, 178). Pasture may also have been destroyed due to over-grazing. The intensification of the settled way of life and increased animal herd size may also have caused the destruction of natural fodder resources. Natural restoration of the steppe phytomass is possible under a system of crop rotation, whereas the early harvesting and storage of hay damage pasture and do not allow regeneration of local vegetation. Nevertheless, the further development of events in the Pontic steppe, namely the renaissance of dominant pastoralism in the Bilogrudivska culture and its transformation into the nomadic Kimmerian culture, leads one to suggest that the reasons for the crisis in the Sabatinovka culture are rooted in agriculture and, primarily, the absence of intensification. Pashkevich’s conclusions support this theory. She concludes that, firstly, crops were planted in areas liable to flooding and, secondly, that these areas were not used for a considerable span of time (Pashkevich 1997). Therefore, despite the widespread introduction of bronze, heavy steppe soils were rarely involved in an agricultural economy. These data correspond well with the insignificant number of settlements in the Far Steppe (Klyushintsev 1997, 50), which are associated with hollows. Short-term use of cultivated areas suggests that the Sabatinovka population could not manage the fertility of the soil. For this reason the number of settlements observed might be explained in terms of

the extensive character of agriculture. From this point of view the Sabatinovka culture probably repeats the experience and fate of the Tripolye population. Acknowledgements I am very grateful to colleagues from the former Department of Theory and Methods of Archaeological Research, as well as to colleagues from the Department of Archaeology of the Eneolithic and Bronze Age, namely to V.V. Otroshchenko, Y.Y. Rassamakin, Y.P. Gershkovich, L.A. Chernykh. I am especially grateful to Professor C. Renfrew. Participation in the conference organized by him encouraged interest in this subject and was very useful to me. Note 1.

An Old Russian measure of weight equivalent to 16.38 kg.

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Savva, E.N., 1991. Kompleksny tip khozyaistva v kulturakh Sabatinovka-Noua Dnestrovsko–Prutskogo mezhdurechiya, in Drevneishiye Obshchnosti Zemledeltsev i Skotovodov Severnogo Prichernomoriya (V tys. do n.e.– V v.n.e.), ed. E.V. Yarovoy. Kiev: Institute of Archaeology, 133. Savva, E.N., 1992. Kultura Mnogovalikovoi Keramiki Dnestrovsko-Prutskogo Mezhdurechiya. Kishinev: Shtiintsa. Shamiladze, V.M., 1979. Khozyaistvenno-kulturniye i Sotsialno-ekonomicheskie Problemy Skotovodstva Gruzii. Tbilisi: Metsniereba. Shaposhnikova, O.G., 1985. Yamnaya kulturno-istoricheskaya obshchnost, in Telegin (ed.), 336–52. Shaposhnikova, O.G., V.N. Fomenko & N.D. Dovzhenko, 1986. Yamnaya Kulturno-istoricheskaya Oblast (Yuzhnobugskiy variant). Kiev: Naukova dumka. Sharafutdinova, I., 1980. Ornamentovani sokyry-molotky z katakombnikh pokhovan na Inguli. Arkheologiya 33, 60–70. Sharafutdinova, I., 1982. Stepnoye Podneproviye v epokhu Pozdnei Bronzy. Kiev: Naukova dumka. Sharafutdinova, I., 1989. Novoe v issledovanii Sabatinovskoi kultury, in Tolochko (ed.), 256–7.

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Chapter 18 Palaeoethnobotanical Evidence of Agriculture in the Steppe and the Forest-steppe of East Europe in the Late Neolithic and Bronze Age Galina Pashkevich T

his paper deals with compiled, recently published information on plant remains from Eastern Europe in an area stretching from the modern western border of the Ukraine to the Urals. These remains have been retrieved from Neolithic and Early Bronze Age sites within the greater part of the present-day foreststeppe and steppe zone in the southern part of the East European plain. The research material includes charred plant remains (mainly kernels and seeds), some of which were extracted by means of manual water flotation, as well as impressions on potsherds and daub. A sizeable data base of palaeoethnobotanical finds was constructed based on the results of this investigation. The objects of the palaeoethnobotanical research, i.e. charred grains and seeds as well as their impressions on pottery and mud daub of dwellings, provide conclusive evidence of ancient agriculture. Although finds of cultivated plants from the past have tended to be accidental, gradual accumulation of data enables us to begin to reconstruct an objective picture of agricultural practices in the past.

(Zohary & Hopf 1988). The first farmers brought with them the principal crop assemblages together with agricultural technology. Fields were cultivated with horn and stone mattocks, and cereals harvested by means of sickles with flint inserts. Palynological investigations show that, during the Neolithic, deciduous forests covered the greater part of Europe. Deforestation took place only so that settlements and fields could be established. ‘Natural steppes existed only in the Ukraine and southeast from there’ (Behre & Jacomet 1991). Agriculture spread into the area of the present-day forest-steppe and steppe of Southeast Europe (Moldova and the Ukraine) earlier than into any other region of the Russian Plain. The first agricultural tribes arrived in the area from Southwest Asia through the Balkan peninsula. The Starcevo-Cris cultural community was the oldest carrier of a productive economy in Europe. During the second half of the sixth millennium BC, representatives of this community occupied a significant part of Southeast Europe and were distributed eastwards from the Carpathians by the first half of the fifth millennium BC. They brought with them the skills for cultivating domesticated plants and breeding domestic animals (Dergachev 2000). According to Danilenko (1969), during the second part of the sixth millennium BC the Neolithic tribes of the Bug–Dnestr culture penetrated into the steppe and the northern part of the forest-steppe zone to the East of the Carpathians. Under conditions of increasing aridity and under the influence of the Cris-Ceres cultural community of the Balkan– Danubian region, the Bug–Dnestr culture began a new form of subsistence: a complex farming-livestock breeding economy. At the end of 1999, during preparation for the

The Neolithic From the time of the Neolithic onwards, the territory of the Ukraine, including Moldova, was, according to Vavilov (1987), one of the oldest centres of agriculture. Ancient agricultural tribes existed in this area over a long period of time, gradually replacing one another. Wheat, barley and pulses, including pea, lentil, chickpea and bitter vetch, were the first main cultivated plants which appeared in Southwest Asia. They expanded into Europe, Central Asia and North Africa from the eighth to the seventh millennium BC 287

Chapter 18

Triticum dicoccum

Hordeum vulgare

Panicum miliaceum

Setaria sp.

Cereal?

Bazkiv Ostriv Sokiltsy Zankivtsy

553 99 76

– – –

1 – ear

3 1 –

– 1 –

– – –

1 – –

Mikulina Brovarka Shumilovo Soroki 2* Soroki 3* Sorkoi 5*

119 30

– – x x x

– – x x x

2 1 x x x

– –

– –

– –

Sites

* = From Yanushevich 1989, 609

288

Cornus mas

No. of fragments

Triticum monococcum

Table 18.1. Plant composition from sites of the Bug–Dnestr culture.

site. Carbonized grains and spikelet forks of Triticum dicoccon and Triticum spelta and two parts of a Pisum sp. seed have been found preserved in daub. In addition to the charred economic plants, weed species were also found: two seeds of Setaria viridis or Setaria glauca, two seeds of Gallium sp., one fruit of Polygonum sp. and impressions of the seeds of Alyssum sp., Agrostemma sp. and Setaria sp. (Yanushevich 1986; Kuzminova & Petrenko 1989). In the opinion of Yanushevich, the main crop plants were wheat, Triticum dicoccon, and barley, Hordeum vulgare var. coeleste (Yanushevich 1986). The most significant evidence for plant cultivation in Eastern Europe, however, came from the Linear Pottery Culture. Linear Pottery culture sites are known from two regions in Eastern Europe: the north western part of the Ukraine (the province of Volhynia) and the Middle Dnestr (Moldova and the Ukraine). The northwestern part of the Ukraine forms the eastern edge of a large area of the Linear Pottery culture. There is a high concentration of Neolithic settlements within this area: more than 40 sites have thus far been excavated. The second Neolithic culture to be identified in the region is called the Volynska culture (Ohrimenko 1994). Ohrimenko has discovered 90 sites attributable to this culture in this area. The farming communities lived on the fringes of the loess plateau with highly fertile soils where the climate was 1°C warmer and considerably wetter than it is today (Klimanov & Bezusko 1981). The list of cultivated plants found at the Ukrainian Neolithic sites is, on the whole, identical to that established at contemporary sites in other parts of the Linear Pottery area (Pashkevich 1992). Impressions of crop-plant remains have been found on fragments of pottery and daub from the settlements at Rivne, Gnidava, Girka Polonka and Golyshiv (Linear Pottery) and Krushniki, Roznichi, Novoselki, Konik and M. Osniza (Volunska culture). For example, Triticum dicoccon is represented by an impression of an ear on a pottery 1 – fragment from Golyshiv. These seed 2? – impressions are present on the bases – – and walls of vessels, both inside and – – out (Pashkevich & Ohrimenko 1990). – – The assemblages of cultivated plants x illustrated in this way included: x Triticum monococcum, Triticum dicoccum, Hordeum vulgare, Hordeum vulgare var. coeleste, Panicum miliaLinum usitatissimum

‘Late Prehistoric Exploitation of the Eurasian Steppe Symposium’ volume, new data on the occurrence of agricultural practices in the economy of Neolithic tribes were received. The ceramics from some settlements of the Bug–Dnestr culture were reconsidered. If conclusions had been drawn from the available palaeoethnobotanical data, the role of agriculture would most probably have appeared to have been insignificant. Material from a total of nine settlements had been overlooked: Bazkiv Ostriv, Sokiltsy, Peschera, Mitkiv Ostriv, Savran, Zankivtsy, Mikulina Broyarka, Laduzin and Shumilovo. Impressions of cultivated plants have only been found on ceramics from five settlements (Table 18.1). They consist of individual impressions of kernels of Triticum monococcum, Triticum dicoccon, Hordeum vulgare, Panicum miliaceum and two seeds, probably, Linum usitatissimum. On a fragment of pottery from Zankivtsy there is a particularly clear impression of an ear of Triticum dicoccon. From the settlements at Soroki 2, Soroki 3 and Soroki 5 (Moldova), impressions of Triticum spelta, Triticum aestivum, Hordeum vulgare var. coeleste and Avena sp. have also been identified (Yanushevich 1989). Until recently, material from the settlement at Sacarovca 1 was also used for palaeoethnobotanical characterization of the Bug–Dnestr culture. This site, however, has now been assigned to a different cultural grouping following the intensive research of Dergachev and Larina. Currently it is the most investigated settlement of the Cris culture of Moldavia. The dating for this settlement is 4700±50 BC (Bln2425). Impressions of Triticum dicoccon, Triticum spelta, Hordeum vulgare, Hordeum vulgare var. coeleste, Avena sp., as well as Pisum sp., Lens sp. and the impressions of seeds of Prunus insitiatia, Prunus spinosa, Cornus mas and Malus sp. were found on pottery from this

Palaeoethnobotanical Evidence of Agriculture in the Steppe

ceum, Pisum sativum and Vicia 20 ervilia (Tables 18.2, 18.3 & Fig. 18.1). Triticum dicoccum and Hordeum vulgare var. coeleste 15 appear to have been the main cereal crop plants of the Neolithic farmers. In addition to 10 emmer and naked barley, einkorn, Triticum monococcum, hulled barley, Hordeum vulgare, 5 and possibly millet, Panicum miliaceum, formed part of the crop assemblage. Other cultivated plants included pea, 0 Asp Csp Hv Hvv Pm Ps Ssp Td Tm Tsl Ve Pisum sativum and bitter vetch, Figure 18.1. Linear pottery spectrum. (Here and in all subsequent tables: Asp = Vicia ervilia. Impressions of Triticum Avena species; Csp = Cannabis species; Hv = Hordeum vulgare; Hvv = dicoccon, Triticum monococcum, Hordeum vulgare var.coeleste; Pm = Panicum miliaceum; Ps = Pisum Triticum spelta, Triticum aestivo- sativum; Ssp = Secale species; Td = Triticum dicoccum; Tm = Triticum compactum, Hordeum vulgare, monococcum; Tsl = Triticum aestivum s.l.; Ve = Vicia ervilia.) Pisum sp., and Lathyrus sp. are also known from the Middle Table 18.2. Plant composition from the sites of Linear pottery. Dnestr region in Moldova Sites Plants Quantity of (Yanushevich 1989). Impresfragments Asp Csp Hv Hvv Pm Ps Ssp Td Tm Tsl Ve sions of Panicum miliaceum (59 – – 1 2 – – 1 2 – – – 76 examples) and Cannabis sativa Gnidava Golovna – – – – – – – – 1 – – 1 (9 examples), however, are rep- Golyshev – – 2 4 – – – 2 1 1 – 57 resented on potsherds from Girka Polonka – – 3 2 – – 1 1 – – – 90 – – – – – 1 – – – – – 1 Dancheny 1 only. Charred Litovii – – 2 9 2 3 – 5 – 1 – 1141 grains of Triticum dicoccon and Rivne Zimne 1 1 1 – – – – 2 – – 1 7 Pisum sativum have also been ur. Mohilki – – 1 – – – – – – – – 1 found at the site of Nezvisko Σ 1 1 10 17 2 4 2 12 2 2 1 in the Dnestr catchment area Table 18.3. Plant composition from the sites of Volunskaya culture. (Chernysh 1962). The composition of cultivated plant assemblages Sites Plants found at Southeast Neolithic sites is also identical to Pm Ps Td Tm Tsl Ve Konik – – – – – 1 that established at contemporary sites in other parts Krushniki 2 1 1 – – – of the Linear pottery area in Europe (Klichowska Novoselki – 1 – – 1 – 1961; Hajnalová 1975; Knörzer 1991; Wasylikowa et M.Osniza 1 – 1 – – – al. 1991). As described above, cereals such as hulled Roznichi – – – 1 – – Σ 3 2 2 1 1 1 wheats and barley with legumes (mainly peas) and bitter vetch formed the main crops. Bread wheat is also recorded, but as a small admixture only. The which have been excavated by Telegin and Neprina other records from the German Neolithic show Lens over the past 60 to 70 years, with the addition of new culinaris and Papaver setigerum (Knörzer 1991). material recently received from Sanzharov, have been reconsidered. Nine sites have been investigated: The Eneolithic Serebriynoe, Cherneckoe Ozero, Grini, Kamenka, Hutor Teterevskii, Pischiki, Buzki, Pustynka and Impressions of cultivated plants have recently been Uspenka. The impressions of cultivated plants on described on fragments of ceramics from the forestpottery are concentrated at seven settlements (Table steppe settlements of the Dnepr–Donets culture, 18.4). The highest number of them is found at Grini which falls at the end of fifth millennium BC. The in the Kiev district. These include impressions of ceramics from number settlements of this culture, Triticum dicoccon (1), Triticum aestivum sensu lato (1), 289

Chapter 18

Hordeum vulgare (5), Panicum miliaceum (3) and Pisum sativum (1?), Vicia ervilia (1) and some unidentifiable cereal impressions. This list is supplemented by impressions of hulled wheats in particular Triticum monococcum (Buzki, Pustynka, Kamenka) exemplified by an imprint of an ear of einkorn on fragment 285 from Kamenka and of emmer on a fragment from Pustynka. Between the end of the fifth and the fourth millennia BC, tribes of the Tripolye culture were distributed over the greater part of the modern foreststeppe zone, from the Prut as far as the Dnepr. Palynological data appear to show that forest-steppe vegetation was dominant in the Tripolye landscape (Pashkevich 1989; Kremenetski 1991). The Tripolye culture consists of three sequential stages of development. The earliest traces are known from Romania (Pre-Cucuteni 1). The Pre-Cucuteni tribes occupied the dry steppe and foothills of the Carpathians and then (Pre-Cucuteni 2, Tripolye, Stage A) spread quickly to the east, reaching the Dnestr and the Southern Bug. The tribes of Tripolye, Stage B, reached the Middle Dnepr during the subsequent period, during the much wetter conditions of the Atlantic climate and their settlements became larger and more numerous. The Tripolye culture disappeared in the second half of the fourth millennium BC during a period of dry Sub-Boreal climate (Tripolye, Stage C). In its final stages, however, it occupied a vast geographical area and not just the forest-steppe zone, settlements becoming more numerous in the forest-steppe zone, with some tribes penetrating further into the forest area to the North and the steppe zone to the South. Plant remains were recovered from around 80 settlements in Moldova and the Ukraine (Yanushevich 1976; 1986; Pashkevich 1980; 1989; 1991; Kuzminova 1989). Archaeobotanical assemblages from the three 290

Cornus sp.

3 – – – – 1 –

Bromus sp.

5 1 1 – 1 + 1? 1 1

Cereal?

– – – – – – 1

Vicia ervilia

Panicum miliaceum

1? – – – – – –

stages of the Tripolye culture are similar. Carbonized grains were found in some settlements of this culture, but the record is formed mainly from pottery impressions. Among the cereals, the dominant species 1? 1 2 – 1 were hulled wheats; Triticum – – – – – dicoccon, Triticum monococcum – – – – – and Triticum spelta; naked 1 – – – – barley Hordeum vulgare var. 1 – 2 1 – – – 8 – – coeleste and hulled barley, – – 1 – – Hordeum vulgare. Free threshing wheat occurred as a small admixture of the other cereals. Panicum miliaceum was much less common. Large numbers of naked barley were discovered in Early Tripolye Stage A, this variety being replaced by the hulled form during the next stages. The list of cultivated plants also includes Pisum sativum and Vicia ervilia. Pulses occur frequently. For example, a large number of charred seeds of Pisum sativum were recovered from the Maidanetske settlement (777 seeds) (Pashkevich 1989). The bulk of charred seeds of Vicia ervilia was retrieved from Karbuna in Moldova (Yanushevich 1976). Cultivated plant assemblages and land-use systems appear to have been the same for a long period of time. Arable land was continuously cultivated without improvement or fallow periods. Fields were cultivated using horn and stone hoes and antler mattocks which made the soil friable creating favorable conditions for sowing hulled wheats. The harvesting method by which only the ears were taken was used. The basic features of Tripolye agriculture were low yields, long periods of natural soil regeneration, primitive tools for cultivating and harvesting and sowing of undemanding species of cultivars. The use of a land management system without periods of fallow and low crop capacity demanded movement of settlements so that ‘virgin land’ was continuously brought into cultivation. During Stage C, large proto-urban settlements appeared. The need to feed the increasing population forced continuous expansion into hitherto uncultivated areas. The archaeobotanical record for the Tripolye culture over the whole of its geographical range has shown that the selection of crops cultivated by the Tripolye tribes differed considerably from those used to the east of the Black Sea. Yanushevich’s research has shown that in southern Central Asia and in the Caucasus the main cultivated plants were bread Pisum sativum

Hordeum vulgare

– 1 – – 1 + ear 2 – – 1 – 1? ear – –

Hordeum vulgare var. coel.

2281 155 516 450 3036 7313 403

Triticum aestivum s.l.

Grini Serebriynoe Kamenka Pischiki Buzki Pustynka Uspenka

No. of fragments

Triticum dicoccum

Sites

Triticum monococcum

Table 18.4. Plant composition from sites of the Dnepr–Donets culture.

Palaeoethnobotanical Evidence of Agriculture in the Steppe

representing the local vegetation. The number of grain impressions on ceramics from the forest-steppe settlements of Lysaya Gora and Prisya (Pivikha culture) is also low. Single impressions of Triticum dicoccum, Pisum sativum, cf. Vicia ervilia, Panicum miliaceum and Bromus sp. were identified on 774 potsherds examined from Lysaya Gora. In spite of the fact that 1086 potsherds have been examined from Prisya, only a single doubtful imprint of Panicum miliaceum was found. Analysis of palaeoethnobotanical remains from the Late Eneolithic steppe zone settlement group of the Usatovo tribes, for example, Bolshoi Kuyalnik and Mayaki, was carried out by Kuzminova. These sites were rich in vegetative impressions of all kinds including culm nodes and internode fragments, palea and spikelet forks. Among these are the impressions of grains of Triticum monococcum, Triticum dicoccon, Triticum aestivo-compactum, Panicum miliaceum, Hordeum vulgare var. coeleste and Pisum sativum have been identified. The prevalence of millet impressions was marked; in particular these impressions are found on 70 cult clay statuettes. It is possible that millet was the main cultivated plant of Usatovo agriculture (Kuzminova & Petrenko 1989). Certainly, the occurrence of large amounts of millet shows an agro-pastoral economic system (Table 18.5).

wheat and a special population of naked barley with round grains. Bread wheats appeared in Transcaucasia in the sixth millennium BC (Yanushevich 1989). Ancient farmers advanced from the Near Eastern centre of agriculture and via the Balkan peninsula, reaching Southeast Europe, including the south and southwest Russian plain. They brought with them knowledge of cultivated plants and skills for their cultivation. The crisis was further intensified by the Sub-Boreal drought and ultimately resulted in the total transformation of the economy. Subsistence strategies used by the nomadic and seminomadic tribes were of mixed character, combining agriculture with animal husbandry. At the end of Tripolye B1 and the start of Tripolye C, and during Stage C1, tribes were compelled to move northwards under the influence of the Dereivka culture’s nomadic tribes. At this time, the steppe zone from the Danube to the Molochnaya river was occupied by tribes of the Lower Mikhailovka culture. The area as far as the Dnepr was inhabited by tribes of the Pivikha culture. Impressions of cultivated plants on fragments of pottery from these cultures are low in number. Only nine imprints exist in a collection of 2461 pottery fragments from the lower layers of the Lower Mikhailovka culture settlement of Mikhailovka 1. Their composition is as follows: Triticum dicoccon - four impressions; Hordeum vulgare – four impressions; Panicum miliaceum – one impression. Such impressions as Vicia sp. (one impression), Setaria sp. (1 impression), indeterminate caryopsis of cereal and indterminate seed (one impression) supplement this list of plants. Grain impressions are under represented in assemblages associated with steppe and forest-steppe tribes during the Middle and Late Eneolithic with under-developed agriculture, as these cultures appear not to have used threshing residue as inclusions in clay, unlike agricultural communities, for example Tripolye, where this practice appears to have been characteristic. Besides the occurrence of palaeoethnobotanical data, however, there are numerous finds of antler hoes and fragments of querns from Dereivka culture settlements which denote primitive agriculture. Palaeoethnobotanical investigations were carried out on the fragments of pottery from the Dereivka culture settlement of Molyukhov Bugor. Eight impressions of grains of cultivated plants are found amongst the 372 fragments of pottery. Three of them show grains of Triticum dicoccon, one Triticum monococcum, and one imprint each of Panicum miliaceum, and Hordeum vulgare. There are two further impressions of possible grass grains, most probably,

The Early Bronze Age The increase in aridity during the first half of the Sub-Boreal period (Kremenetski 1991) and the expansion of the steppe zone were accompanied by the occurrence of tribes of the Yamnaya culture. These tribes settled in the vast steppe and forest-steppe area which stretched from the Urals in the east up to Dobrudzha in the west. The Yamnaya tribes existed in the Ukrainian steppes over a period of 400–500 years, beginning during the second half of the third to the beginning of the second millennium BC. In spite of the opinion that the basic subsistence of these tribes was pastoral, there are small amounts of data which demonstrate the existence of agriculture. Impressions of cultivated plants on ceramic fragments from the Yamnaya culture are rare. Only three impressions of cultivated plants have been identified on potsherds from the Mikhailovka 3 settlement: two Triticum dicoccon and indeterminate cereals and single impressions of Hordeum vulgare var. coeleste, Secale sp. and Cannabis sp. Impressions of millet (six in total) were most numerous on ceramics from the settlement at Skelya-Kamenolomnya. Wheat was identified in only two cases, and 291

Chapter 18

Sherds

Triticum dicoccum

Triticum aestivum s.l.

Hordeum vulgare var. coel.

Hordeum vulgare

Secale sp.

Pisum sativum

Vicia ervilia

Vcia sp.

Setaria sp.

Cereal?

Bromus sp.

Seed?

Nijne Mikhailovka culture: Mikhailovka 1 Dereivka culture: Molyukhov Bugor Dereivka Pivikha culture: Lysaya Gora Prisya Repin culture: Mikhailovka 2 Usatovo type: Usatovo, Mayaki 1

2461

–

4

–

–

4

–

1

–

–

1

3

1

–

1

372

–

–

–

–

3

1

1

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

Vessel 774

– –

– 1

– –

– –

1? –

1? –

– 1

– 1

– 1?

– –

– –

– –

– 1

– –

1086 3629

– –

– 3

– –

– –

– 2

– –

1 1

– –

– –

– –

– –

1 –

– 1

– –

+

+

+

+

–

–

+

+

+

–

–

–

–

–

1

Panicum miliaceum

Cultures & Sites

Triticum monococcum

Table 18.5. Plant composition from the Eneolithic sites.

From Kuzminova & Petrenko 1989, 119.

50

agrarian component in the economy of the tribes of the steppe zone of the Ukraine and Moldova (Yanushevich et al. 1981). Similar data are also known from the western part of the steppe area. Impressions of grains of millet and naked wheat have been identified on vessels of the Catacomb culture settlement at Mirnoe: millet on the ceramics of the multi-raised border pottery culture Strumok and Triticum monococcum and Hordeum vulgare sp. grain impressions from the settlement at Kiselovo (Kuzminova & Petrenko 1989) (Table 18.6). Such a limited assortment of cultivated plants was highly adapted to the agricultural practices of nomadic and semi-nomadic tribes. It is well established that emmer is particularly undemanding with regard to climate and soils (Stoletova 1924–25). Hulled barley withstands dry climate and poor soils equally easily, barley being one of the principal cereals for humans and important fodder for domestic animals (Zohary & Hopf 1988). Common millet is the preferred staple amongst traditional nomadic tribes, who appreciate its special qualities, i.e. a small sowing bulk, short life-cycle and drought resistance (Vavilov 1987).

40

30

20

10

0 Hv

Hvv

Pm

Ps

Td

Tsl

Figure 18.2. Composition of cultivated plants in Sabatinovka culture. is represented by indistinct grains which are probably Triticum aestivum sensu lato. In total 4038 fragments of ceramics were investigated. The impressions of grains, spikelet forks and straw of Triticum compactum, Triticum monococcum, Hordeum vulgare and Panicum miliaceum were identified from burial vessels from four settlements in the western area of the Yamnaya culture in the Lower Dnestr (Kuzminova & Petrenko 1989). The find of the sack filled with spikelets of Triticum dicoccon and Triticum monococcum in an early Catacomb burial from the settlement at Bolotnoe, in the Crimea, shows the existence of an

The Middle and Late Bronze Age Existing archaeobotanical records show that farming was an important component of the economy during the Middle and Late Bronze Age. Agriculture was most intensive during the second millennium BC, when Sabatinovka culture tribes spread south of the 292

Palaeoethnobotanical Evidence of Agriculture in the Steppe

Triticum dicoccum

Triticum aestivum s.l.

Hordeum vulgare var. coel.

Hordeum vulgare

Secale sp.

Panicum miliaceum

Pisum sativum

Vicia ervilia

Avena sp.

Cereal?

Bromus sp.

Cannabis sp.

Fruit?

–

2

–

1

–

1

–

–

–

–

1

1

1

–

–

4038

– 3

– –

1?+1 3

– –

1 2

– –

6 9

1? –

– –

– –

– –

– –

2 –

1 –

3 –

Sak with ears 1

+

+

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

+

–

–

–

+

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

Srubnaya culture: Usovo Ozero Veseloe 13 1 Maya3 Bezymennoe 24 Shirokaya balka 4 Kamushevataya 14 4 Russkaya Selit’ba5 Cherkasu5

7000 + moud 3 2 grains grains grains grains grains

–

13

11

27

37

2

184

–

1

1

–

–

–

–

–

– – – – – – –

– 2 – – – + –

– – – – – + +

– – – – – – –

2 4 – – – + –

– – – – – – –

– 5 1 – 5 + –

– – – – – – –

– – – – – – –

– – – – – – –

– – – 1 1 – –

– – – – – – –

– – – – – – –

– – – – – – –

– – – – – – –

Bondarichinskaya culture: Baba 1 Zalineynoe Lugovoe3 Rodnoyi krai3 Timchenki 3 Zirkuni3 Kuschevoe3

4026

–

1

–

–

5

2

36

–

–

–

1

–

1

–

–

68 1 4 7 1 1

– – – – – –

1 – – 1 – –

1 – 3 1 – –

1 – – – – –

4 3 2 12 – –

1 – – – – –

45 6 4 9 – 2

1 – – – 1 –

– – – – – –

– – – – – –

1 – – – – –

1 – – – – –

– – – – – –

– – – – – –

– – – – – –

Vessel grains

– –

– 1

– 21

– –

– 1

– –

10 16

– –

– –

– –

– 8

– –

– –

– –

– –

Cultures & Sites Early Bronze Age Yamnaya culture: Mikhailovka 3 Skelya-Kamenolomnya Burials from the Lower Dnestr1

Sherds 12,197

Catacomb culture: Bolotnoe Mirnoe1

Seed?

Triticum monococcum

Table 18.6. Plant composition from sites of the Bronze Age.

Late Bronze Age Sabatinovka culture: (see Tables 18.7 & 18.8)

Belozerskaya culture: Gupalovka Bezymennoe 14 1

From Kuzminova & Petrenko 1989, 120. See Tables 18.7 & 18.8. 3 From Yanushevich 1986, 36. 4 From Lebedeva 1992, 142–3. 5 From Chernych et al. 1991, 160. 2

forest-steppe and into the steppe zone itself. Twelve Sabatinovka sites have yielded particularly rich evidence. Thirteen thousand fragments of ceramics and twenty kilograms of daub were examined. Grain impressions included hulled and naked wheats Triticum dicoccon, Triticum monococcum, Triticum spelta, Triticum aestivum sensu lato, hulled and naked barley, millet and pulses (Table 18.7 & Fig. 18.2). Hordeum vulgare, Panicum miliaceum and Triticum dicoccon were the main species identified among the charred grains at the site of Vinogradnyi Sad. This collection of grains and seeds has been obtained from

flotation samples from the holes and dwellings. The majority of grains (over three thousand grains of barley) was identified within the limits of economic complex, where the crop had obviously been stored. This assemblage included grains of hulled wheat, naked barley, millet, pea and hemp. Weeds are represented by 19 species from the following families: Chenopodiaceae, Agropyroceae, Plantaginaceae, GalioUrticaceae. The composition of cultivated plants and weeds show that the settlement would have been situated in an open landscape. Agriculture would have been possible on small patches of high ground 293

Chapter 18

Triticum spelta

Triticum aestivum s.l.

Hordeum vulgare var. coel.

Hordeum vulgare

Secale sp.

Panicum miliaceum

Pisum sativum

Vicia ervilia

Vicia sp.

Cannabis sp.

Linum usitatis

– 3 – – – – – – – – – –

2 33 3 – 3 2 – 2 3 – 1 1

– 3 – – – – – – – – – –

– 11 – – 4 – – 2 1 – – –

– 1 2 – – – – – – – – –

1 3464 7 – 8 2 – 16 2 1 2 1

– – – – – – – 1 – – – –

– 53 2 3 18 – 53 9 9 1 – 3

1 5 – – – – – 1 – – – –

– 2 – – – – – – – – – –

– 9 – – – – – – – – – –

– – – – – – – – 1 – – –

– – – 1 – – – – – – – –

grains

1 2 3

Sherds

+ + – + + – – – –

+ – – + + + – – –

From Yanushevich 1976, 51 & 52, 58, 157. From Chernych et al. 1998, 239. From Kuzminova & Petrenko 1989, 120.

on the flood-plain along the Southern Bug or the slopes of adjoining ravines, which were wetter with sandy loam soils. Chenopodiaceae species reflect the ruderal vegetation in the vicinity of the settlement and the existence of weed vegetation on the margins of the fields (Pashkevich & Kostulov 1992). Archaeobotanical material is also known from other sites of this period. Millet occurs in the form of clumps of grain in a pit on the site of Cherevichnoe. Impressions of Panicum miliaceum grains are much more common than other cultivated plants on the settlement at Sasyk. 53 impressions of millet grains were identified on the base of one vessel. Impressions of millet, emmer, einkorn, barley and peas have been identified on pottery from Sabatinovka culture 294

Pisum sativum

+ + + + + + – – +

Panicum miliaceum

– – – – + – – – +

Hordeum vulgare

Triticum aestivum s.l.

720 grains Sherds

Triticum spelta

Sherds & Grains Sherds and grains

Triticum dicoccum

Sites Sloboda-Shiurezciy2 Nisporenu1 Gura Galbena1 Ekaterinovka1 Magala1 Coslogeny2 Bolgrad, Tudorovo, Cherevichnoe3 Voronivka 23

settlements in Moldova, for example, Voronovka 2, Tudorovo and Cherevichnoe (Kuzminova & Petrenko 1989) (Table 18.8). The summarized data show that Hordeum vulgare, Pani+ + + – cum miliaceum and Triticum – – + – dicoccon formed the princi– – – – pal crop assemblage of the – – – – – – – + Sabatinovka culture tribes. – + + – This core list of cultivated – – + – plants was supplemented – – – – by Pisum sativum, Vicia – + + – ervilia, Linum usatissimum and Cannabis sp. Charred grains of Triticum dicoccon, Triticum monococcum, Triticum spelta, Triticum aestivum sensu lato and barley, Hordeum vulgare and Hordeum vulgare var. coeleste are also known from the sites of Magala and Sloboda-Shiurezciy (Yanushevich 1976) (Table 18.8), which represent a group of neighbouring tribes, the Noa, distributed to the southwest of the Sabatinovka cultural area. Bronze Age plant husbandry is documented by records from many sites in Europe (Behre 1979; 1982; 1996; Hajnalová 1975; Tempir 1963; Wasylikowa et al. 1991; Willerding 1970; van Zeist 1970). Triticum dicoccon was one of the most widespread cereals, followed by Triticum monococcum which was of lesser importance. Hordeum vulgare may have increased in importance from its relatively minor role in the Neolithic. Bread wheat appeared more often in the

Triticum monococcum

Table 18.8. Plant composition from the sites of the Sabatinovka culture.

Hordeum vulgare var. coel.

1

Triticum dicoccum

Sites Potsherds Daub Babine-3 1026 Vinogradnyi Sad (gr)1 Vinogradnyi Sad 2674 10 kg Novogrigorovka 1194 Novokievka 1376 125 pieces Sabatinovka 478 Sasyk bottom Stepovoe 2387 Tashlyk I 3269 Tashlyk V 722 Ushkalka 7 Chikalovka 884 35 ‘breads’

Triticum monococcum

Table 18.7. Plant composition from the sites of Sabatinovka culture.

Palaeoethnobotanical Evidence of Agriculture in the Steppe

dicoccon, Hordeum vulgare and Panicum miliaceum are represented (Yanushevich 1986). A wider spectrum of cultivated plants have been identified from finds from the settlement at Usovo Ozero in the Ukraine. In addition to those species listed above, which are also frequent on this site, millet, Triticum aestivum sensu lato, Hordeum vulgare var. coeleste, Vicia ervilia, Avena sp. and Secale sp. grain impressions have also been identified (Pashkevich 1991) (Table 18.6). Such a significant difference in palaeoethnobotanical data from these type sites suggests the presence of two forms of subsistence economy in the wider Srubnaya culture complex. According to Otroschenko (this volume), this arises from two archaeological cultures within the Srubnaya culture complex: the Pokrovskaya and Berezhnovsko-Maevskaya cultures. These can be dated as being present at different times in various geographical areas and are identified as having different subsistence economies. Stock breeding appears to be the main orientation of the subsistence economy of the Pokrovskaya culture and an arable/stock breeding economy is characteristic for the Berezhnovsko-Mayivskaya culture. Thus, within the huge territory that forms Eastern Europe during the seventeenth to thirteenth centuries BC, both stock breeding and arable/stock breeding subsistence economies were of major importance. This appears to have occurred at the same time that an advanced agricultural system was already in existence in the Balkans and Near East.

Bronze Age than in the Neolithic but always in small numbers. Likewise, the significance of millet also increased. The more common occurrence of rye, however, in the opinion of Hajnalová, was due to its occurrence as a weed in crops of wheat and barley. Pulses were represented by pea, lentil and bitter vetch. Horsebean (Vicia faba) and chickpea (Cicer arietinum) appeared infrequently (Willerding 1970; Cârciumaru 1983; Tempir 1963; Hajnalová 1989) and there are only occasional finds of Camelina sativa and Linum usitatissimum (Valkó 1971; Knörzer 1971). In spite of some progress, associated with the use of bronze sickles, the plant husbandry system in the Bronze Age was the same as for the fifth and fourth millennia BC. It was characterized by a long fallow system, primitive agricultural technology and the constant bringing of virgin land into cultivation. Environmental changes were responsible for changes in economic activities. The role of animal husbandry and arable farming alternated with each other as to which had more economic significance. Agriculture was poorly developed in the territory to the east of the Dnepr as far as the Urals. Lebedeva reached the conclusion that ‘traces of agriculture among the cultures of the eastern zone are extremely rare and occur no earlier than the Late Bronze Age’ (Lebedeva 1996, 54). During flotation, charred grains were only found at ten sites and then only in small quantities: from one to twenty grains. Large numbers of grains of cultivated plants have only been identified at three sites. 137 individual grains and a collection of grains of Hordeum distichon, Hordeum vulgare (barley), wheat, mainly Triticum dicoccon and Triticum compactum, and Panicum miliaceum (23–29 per cent), totalling approximately three litres, have been identified from the final phase settlement at Late Bronze Age Russkaya Selitba in the Kuibishev district. There are also few charred grains reported from the fourth century Late Bronze Age settlements of Bezymennoe 1 and 2, Shirokaya Balka 2 and Kamushevataya 14. The structure of impressions of cultivated plants has appeared in numerous Belozer materials from the site of Bezymennoe 1 (Table 18.6). Only one grain of millet was recovered at Bezymennoe 2 (Srubnaya culture) and only five grains were found on the settlement of Kamushevataya 14. No palaeoethnobotanical materials were identified from the settlements of Shirokaya Balka 2, Ilichevka, Mayaki and Zlivki, also of the Srubnaya culture (Lebedeva 1992). Likewise, the records from the sites of Veseloe 1 and 1st May, in Moldova, have revealed insignificant quantities of cereal grain impressions: only Triticum

Conclusion 1. The palaeoethnobotanical evidence from the southern part of the Eastern European plain shows that the most ancient cultivated plants would have come to Europe from the Near East (Anatolia). Agriculture spread into the area of the presentday forest-steppe and steppe zones of Southeast Europe (Moldova and the Ukraine) earlier than into any other region of the Russian Plain. The most important cereals were hulled wheats and barley for a long period of time. The results of the investigation of materials from Eneolithic cultures showed that emmer and barley were also more abundant during the time of the Tripolye culture. Naked barley was replaced by hulled barley during the Eneolithic. These cereal species were accompanied by pulses. Triticum dicoccon and Hordeum vulgare were still well represented during the Bronze Age and later. Panicum miliaceum became more popular among the nomadic tribes which began to be more common during the 295

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Michnik. (Prähistorische Archäologie in Südosteuropa 12.) Munich: Südosteuropa-Gesellschaft und Verlag Marie Leidrof Gmbh, 234–52. Chernykh, E.N., S.A. Agapov, A.Y. Kravzhov, S.V. Kuzminykh, E.Y. Lebedeva, N.L. Morgunova, L.B. Orlovskaya & T.O. Teneishvili, 1991. O rabotah Bolgo-Uralskoyi kompleksnoyi ekspedicii v 1989– 90 godach, in Archeologicheskie Otkrutiya Urala i Povolzya. Igevsk: Akademia Nauk USSR, 159–64. Chernysh, E.K., 1962. K istorii naseleniya eneoliticheskogo vremeni v Srednem Podnestroye. Po materialam mnogosloinogo poseleniya u sela Nezvisko. Materialy i Issledovaniya po Arkheologii SSSR 103, 5–85. Danilenko, V.N., 1969. Neolit Ukrainy. Kiev: Naukova dumka. Dergachev, V., 2000. Cultural-historical dialogue between the Balkans and Eastern Europe (Neolithic– Eneolithic). Paper presented at the conference ‘Late Prehistoric Exploitation of the Eurasian Steppe’, 12– 16 Jan, 2000, McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Cambridge, UK. [Reprinted as Dergachev, V., 2002. Two studies in defence of the migration concept, in Ancient Interactions: East and West in Eurasia, eds. K. Boyle, C. Renfrew & M. Levine. (McDonald Institute Monographs.) Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, 92–112.] Hajnalová, E., 1975. Archeologické nálezy kultúrnych rastlin a burin na Slovensku. Slovenská Archeológia 23(1), 227–54. Hajnalová, E., 1989. Katalóg zvys&kov semien a plodov v archeologickych nálezoch na Slovensku. Acta Interdisciplinaria Archaeologica 6(3), 3–192. Klichowska, M., 1961. Znaleziska zboz na terenie ziem Polskich od neolity do 12 w.n.e. II Kwartalnik Historii Kultury Materialnei 9(4), 675–701. Klimanov, V. & L. Bezusko, 1981. Klimat i rastitelnost Malogo Polesia v golocene. Ukrainskyi Botaniceskyi Zhurnal 38, 24–6. Knörzer, K.-H.,1971. Urgeschichtliche unkräuter im Rheinland. Vegetatio 23, 89–111. Knörzer, K.-H., 1991. Deutschland nördlich der Donau, in van Zeist et al. (eds.), 189–206. Kremenetski, K.V., 1991. Paleoekologiya Drevneishikh Zemledeltsev i Skotovodov Russkoi Ravniny. Moscow: Akademia nauk SSSR. Institut Geografyi. Kuzminova, N.N., 1989. Crops and weeds in the Trypolye sites in Moldavia. Acta Interdisciplinaria Archaeologica 7, 199–201. Kuzminova, N.N. & V.G. Petrenko, 1989. Kulturnie rastenia na zapade Stepnogo Prichernomoria v seredine 3–2 tis. do n.e. (po dannum paleobotaniki), in Problemu Drevneyi Istorii i Arkheologii Ukrainskoi SSR, ed. P.P. Tolochko. Kiev: Naukova dumka, 119–20. Kuzminova, N.N., V.A. Dergachev & O.V. Larina, 1998. Paleobotanicheskie issledovaniya na poselenyi Sakarovka 1. Revista Arkheologica 2, 166–82. Lebedeva, E.Y., 1992. Paleobotanicheskie issledovaniya v Priasovie, in Istoria i Arkheologia Slobodskoyi Ukrainy, ed. V.K. Miheev. Charkov: Charkovskii Universitet,

Bronze Age. The change in the crop assemblage from hulled wheat to naked forms can be observed beginning in the final centuries BC. Unlike in Europe the importance of hulled wheats remained significant for a longer period. Bread wheats have only been of importance since the time of the Greek colonies and later, in the Middle Ages. Conversely, at the same time in other centres of ancient agriculture, southern Central Asia and the Caucasus, bread wheat and a particular population of naked barley were the main cultivated plants, from the sixth millennium BC onwards (Yanushevich 1989). 2. A restricted collection of cereals and pulses (Triticum dicoccon, Hordeum vulgare and Panicum miliaceum) was most advantageous for the primitive agrarian practices of the nomadic and seminomadic tribes. These plants were appropriate for the prevailing climatic conditions and the life paradigm of the well-adapted steppe societies of the Eneolithic and Bronze Age. 3. The quantity of grain impressions of cultivated plants on fragments of pottery of semi-nomadic tribes are of insignificant number. The steppe and forest-steppe tribes in Middle and Late Eneolithic and Bronze Age evidently had an underdeveloped agricultural subsistence economy and did not use threshing waste as a vegetative filler in clay, unlike those tribes with an agricultural subsistence economy, for example, Tripolye culture, where this was a characteristic practice. References Behre, K.E., 1979. Ein jungbronzezeitlicher Getreidefund aus Ostfriesland, in Festschrift fur Maria Hopf, ed. U. Körber-Gröhne. (Archaeo-Physika 8.) Bonn: Rheinland-Verlag GMBH; Köln: Kommission bei Rudolf Habelt Verlag GMBH, 11–20. Behre, K.E., 1982. Zwei jungbronzezeitliche Getreidefunde aus Niedersachsen. Nachrichten aus Niedersachsens Urgeschichte 51, 281–92. Behre, K.E., 1996. Landschaft und Landwirtschaft in der Bronzezeit Niedersachsens. Die Kunde N.F 47, 1–12. Behre, K.E. & S. Jacomet, 1991. The ecological interpretation of archeobotanical data, in van Zeist et al. (eds.), 81–108. Ca^ r ciumaru, M., 1983. Considerati paleobotanice si contributii la agricultura Geto-Dacilor. Traco-Dacia 4 (1–2), 126–34. Chernykh, E.N., E.E. Antipina & E.Y. Lebedeva, 1998. Productionsformen der Urgesellschaft in den Steppen Osteuropas (Ackerbau, Viehzucht, Erzgewinnung und Verhüttung), in Das Karpatenbecken und die Osteuropäische steppe, eds. B. Hänsel & J.

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141–3. Lebedeva, E.Y., 1996. O zemledelii v stepiakh i lesostepiakh Vostochnoiy Evropi v epokhu bronzu, in Uralskoe Arkheologicheskoe Sovezscanie. (Tezisu dokladov, chast 1.) Ufa: Rossiiskaya Akademis Nauk, Ufimskii Nauchnii centr. Institut Istorii, Yazuka i Literaturu, 53–5. Ohrimenko, G.V., 1994. Neolit Voluni. Luck: Pedagogocheskii Institut. Otroshchenko, V.V. 2000. The Peculiarity of Economy of Cultures of Srubnaya Community. Paper presented at the conference ‘Late Prehistoric Exploitation of the Eurasian Steppe’, 12–16 Jan, 2000, McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Cambridge, UK. [Reprinted here as Chapter 21.] Pashkevich, G.A., 1980. Kulturnie rasteniya tripolskikh poseleniy Podneprovya, in Pervobytnaya Arkheologiya. Poiski i Nakhodki, ed. I.I. Artemenko. Kiev: Naukova dumka, 234–42. Pashkevich, G.A., 1989. Paleobotanicheskie issledovania tripolskikh materialov mezdurechia Dnepra i Uinogo Buga, in Pervobutnaya Arkheologia, ed. S.S. Berezanskaya Kiev: Naukova dumka, 132–41. Pashkevich, G.A., 1991. Paleoetnobotanicheskie Nakhodki na Territorii Ukrainy (Neolit–Bronza). Catalog (preprint). Kiev: Akademia Nauk Ukrainu, Institut Archeologii. Pashkevich, G.A., 1992. Do reconstruksyi asortumentu kulturnukh roslun epokhu neolitu–bronzu na territorii Ukrainy, in Starodavne Virobnusztvo na Teritorii Ukrainy, ed. C.V. Pankov. Kiev: Naukova dumka, 179–94. Pashkevich, G.A. & G.V. Ohrimenko, 1990. Materialy do Vuvchenya Neolitu Voluni. Kiev: preprint. Pashkevich, G.A. & O. Kostulov, 1992. Sintaksonomichnuyi analiz paleobotanichnuh danuh na prukladi materialiv epokhi bronzyu. Oyikumena Ekologichnuyi Visnik 3, 71–7. Stoletova, E.A., 1924–25. Polba-emmer. Trudu po Prikladnoiy Botanike i Selekzyi 14, 27–105.

Tempir, Z., 1963. Pocatky pestovani rostlin Madarsku. Vedecke Prace Zemel Muzea (Prague) 3, 107–40. Valkó, E., 1971. Botanische Angaben aus der Bronzezeit in den Gebieten Ungarns, in Travaux du 3e Congrès Internacional des Musées d’agriculture. Budapest, 203– 6. van Zeist, W., 1970. Prehistoric and early historic food plants in the Netherlands. Palaeohistoria 14, 41–173. van Zeist, W., K. Wasylikowa & K.-E. Behre Rotterdam (eds.), 1991. Progress in Old World Palaeoethnobotany. Brookfield: A.A. Balkema. Vavilov, N.I., 1987. Proiskhozhdenie i Geografiya Kulturnykh Rastenii. Moscow: Nauka. Wasylikowa, K., M. Ca^ r ciumaru, E. Hajnalová, B. Hartyányi, G. Pashkevich & Z. Yanushevich, 1991. East-Central Europe, in van Zeist et al. (eds.), 207– 39. Willerding, U., 1970. Vor- und Fruhgeschichtliche Kulturund Pflanzenfunde in Mitteleuropa. Neue Ausgrabungen und Forschungen in Niedersachsen 5, 287–375. Yanushevich, Z.V., 1976. Kulturnie Rasteniya Yugo - Zapada SSSR po Palaeobotanicheskim Issledovaniyam. Kishinev: Shtiintsa. Yanushevich, Z.V., 1986. Kulturniyi Rastenia Severnogo Prichernomorya: Palaeoetnobotanicheskii Issledovaniya. Kishinev: Shtiintsa. Yanushevich, Z.V., 1989. Early agriculture north of the Black Sea, in Foraging and Farming: Evolution of Plant Exploitation, eds. D.R. Harris & G.C. Hillman. London: Unwin & Hyman, 607–19. Yanushevich, Z.V., B.N. Korpusova & G.A. Pashkevich, 1981. Pshenitsa iz zakhoroneniy katakombnoi kultury. Izvestiya AN Moldavskoi SSR, Serya biologicheskikh i chimicheskih nauk 5, 24–8. Yanushevich, Z.V., K.V. Kremenetski, & G.A. Pashkevich, 1993. Paleobotanicheskoe issledovanie tripolskoie kulture. Arkheologiya 3, 143–52. Zohary, D. & M. Hopf, 1988. Domestication of Plants in the Old World. London: Clarendon Press.

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First Cattle-Breeders of the Azov-Pontic Steppes

Chapter 19 First Cattle-breeders of the Azov-Pontic Steppes Volodymyr N. Stanko T

he present-day North Pontic steppes are found within the Pontic Lowland, one of the lowest plains in the Ukraine. They form a wide strip of flat terrain that stretches along the northern coasts of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, from the River Danube in the west to the Don in the east. Further east the steppes extend across the Caspian Lowland and Kazakhstan into Mongolia. Formed long before human occupation, this distinct geographic corridor has been the arena of human population ‘exchange’ between West and East since the Palaeolithic. The landscape of the Azov-Pontic portion of the steppes developed mainly under the influence of a local hydrological system that developed its current pattern at the transition from the Pliocene to the Pleistocene (Moliavko 1960, 186). The elevation of the terrain gradually declines from 200–300 m above sea level (asl) on the watersheds in the north to 10–0 m asl on the coast in the south. The landscape changes along an elevational gradient. In the north, it is a high plain with river valleys and gullies cut deeply into bedrock and associated with dense systems of ravines. Towards the sea it flattens out and features less partitioning by river valleys and gullies associated with flat interfluvial plateaus. The surface of the interfluves frequently contains small depressions, so-called pods or ‘steppe saucers’, that may hold fresh water all year round and support lush vegetation even during the driest seasons. Their abundant resources in an otherwise vegetation-scarce steppe environment always attracted herbivores and, along with them, human hunters and, subsequently, cattle-breeders (Molodykh 1982, 96). In the late Pleistocene and early Holocene, however, the coastal portion of the Azov-Pontic steppes was different from today. It changed periodically through time following fluctuations in the level of the Black Sea. Examination of the eustatic rise in sea level and geomorphological studies of the

shelf reveals three stages of shoreline stabilization during the Mediterranean and Black Sea transgressions: these took place at the end of Pleistocene (–55– 65 m), at the transition from early to middle Holocene (–20–30 m) and at the beginning of the late Holocene (–10–15 m). During the Mediterranean regression the present-day shelf was a loess-alluvial plain that connected the present-day Crimean Peninsula directly with the Dobrudzha. The Sea of Azov was a marshy plain, and the Don flowed directly into the Black Sea where today we find the Strait of Kerch. The landscape of the Azov-Pontic steppes in the late Pleistocene and early Holocene was thus significantly different from the modern landscape available for archaeological investigation (Ivanov & Ischenko 1974). Geomorphological reconstruction of the AzovPontic zone also suggests alternative routes of human occupation of southeastern Europe, specifically the Danube Basin. Well-documented similarities in material culture from some Palaeolithic and Mesolithic sites in the Crimea, North Pontic region, Bulgaria and Romania may well be a result of direct contact between populations from these regions (Gatsov 1984; Paunescu 1970; Stanko 1991). Therefore, in the late Pleistocene and early Holocene the North Pontic steppes formed an extensive plain that was 1.5 times larger than it is today. It featured numerous river valleys and gullies with forested slopes. Coniferous forests were typical during colder periods while deciduous, broad-leaf species dominated during warmer phases. Some broad-leaf species were always present in the region (Artiushenko 1970; Pashkevich 1981; Sirenko & Turlo 1986). Steppe vegetation supported a rich fauna. Faunal remains from Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic sites from the steppes indicate that local groups exploited animals for meat by hunting and, later, domestication. In the North Pontic zoogeographical province Bibikova (1975) identified a steppe 299

Chapter 19

faunal complex significantly dominated by bison during the Pleistocene and aurochs (Bos primigenius) during the Holocene. During various periods of the late Pleistocene and early Holocene there also were mammoth, horse, reindeer, roe deer, saiga, bison and aurochs and pig (Bibikova 1975; 1982; Bibikova & Starkin 1989a; Zhuravlov & Kotova 1996; Krizhevskaia 1992; Rekovets & Starkin 1990). It was under these palaeoecological conditions that radical changes in the prehistoric economy took place in the AzovPontic steppes (Stanko 1997b).

enced the natural environment and occasionally introduced quite radical ‘corrections’ into the course of natural processes. Some researchers argued that it was constant human disturbance of the environmental equilibrium resulting in frequent local and regional ecological crises that fostered rapid progress in the evolution of human society (Kiselev 1979, 75). The second set of issues is concerned with the evidence for domestication in floral and faunal assemblages from archaeological sites. However, the ambiguity of palaeobotanical and palaeozoological data as well as the archaeological context of many important finds introduce certain problems into these studies. For example, comparative analysis of skeletal morphology of wild and domestic animals rarely provides unambiguous results which would permit us to use these data for the study of early cattlebreeding. Domestication is a historical process, and no human intervention into biological evolution could instantly change skeletal morphology of the earliest domesticated animals. Furthermore, for many thousands of years domestic and wild animals grazed side by side and frequently mingled within the herds. As literary sources demonstrate, such mixing presented significant problems for even later cattle-breeders. Selecting individual animals for domestication was a long process that in some regions occurred over millennia. In order to evaluate this process, it is important to identify when domestication began and reconstruct its development through time. On the other hand, the process of domestication can also be studied by using other criteria. These include archaeological evidence for selective hunting, the presence of sickles in tool inventories and the remains of forage crops at sites. Selective hunting favoured the conservation and subsequent taming of one-year-old calves. Most game animals (aurochs and horse) reach reproductive maturity at the age of two. Since it was practically impossible to tame reproductively mature animals, it was more profitable to kill them than to try to domesticate them. Thus only animals younger than two years of age could be easily tamed. Therefore, combined with the absence of one-year-old individuals from faunal assemblages, the presence of sickles used for cutting grass and the remains of forage crops at archaeological sites may indicate initial domestication — even if all faunal remains morphologically resemble wild game species. In the remainder of this paper I attempt to apply this approach to the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic archaeological record from the Azov-Pontic steppes in order to study the process of domestication in the region.

Some methodological considerations Following V. Gordon Childe, many scholars see the transition from a food-consuming economy to one of food production as the agrarian revolution that predetermined the emergence of civilization. It is often argued that gradual progress of the hunter-gatherer economy at the end of the Upper Palaeolithic triggered the transition. Interdisciplinary research commonly encompasses three closely connected sets of issues. These include: 1) preconditions for the emergence of farming and cattle breeding; 2) centres, stages and directions of food production; and 3) consequences of the transition to new forms of economy. The first set focuses on causes and conditions of the food crisis in the hunter-gatherer economy throughout the world in order to explain the emergence of specific types of new economies. The main directions of research here include human demography and population growth, effects of population pressure on reproduction of critical subsistence resources, depletion of resources and the emergence of new forms of economic adaptation and/or food supplies as well as the role of beliefs and cults and their transformation under new economic conditions. The improvement of food procurement methods and techniques served as the main factor stabilizing the Upper Palaleolithic hunter-gatherer economy. Improved hunting weapons, specialization of hunting and more effective methods of game procurement significantly increased hunting productivity. Introduction of compound plant-processing tools stimulated the intensification of food gathering. Nonetheless, there are certain limits to the improvement of lithic inventories. On the other hand, within the context of a food-consuming economy, the elaboration of the hunting kit fosters the depletion of resources and eventually leads to ecological crisis. Therefore, the intensification of economic activities among hunter-gatherers significantly influ300

First Cattle-Breeders of the Azov-Pontic Steppes

son hunting and increased population density due to the influx of Central European groups during the last climatic cooling phase depleted subsistence resources. Archaeological prospection indicates rapid increase in the number of sites during the Late Upper Palaeolithic. While in search of hunting grounds, people occupied the interior of the steppes settling by pods far from larger rivers (Boriskovskii 1964, 5– 6; Olenkovskii 1991, 188). Most sites from this period represent small, short-term settlements which yielded small lithic inventories. Sparse faunal remains from sites such as Bolshaia Akkarzha, Kajstrova Balka, Novovladimirovka, Dmitrovka and Govorukha indicate that although bison still remained the main prey species, their procurement was supplemented by hunting other species, primarily the tarpan. The last small herds of bison that remained in some steppe habitats were possibly exterminated at the end of Pleistocene and during the early Holocene (Stanko 1999, 358). During the Mesolithic this ecological crisis developed further and led to the emergence of a foodproducing economy.

Upper Palaeolithic preconditions for the emergence of cattle-breeding Four major factors were responsible for the gradual development of specialized bison hunting in the Azov-Pontic steppes after the end of the Middle Palaeolithic. First, population levels of the largest hunted game — mammoths and rhinoceros — were rapidly decreasing until they completely disappeared from the steppes by the middle of the Upper Palaeolithic. Second, ecological conditions and the demographic situation in the steppes in the Middle Würm favoured reproduction of the bison. Third, with the disappearance of mammoth and rhinoceros, bison became the largest and thus most productive human prey species in the steppes. Finally, the landscape featuring a combination of grassland and river valleys and gullies, covered with trees and bushes provided the opportunity for effective drivehunting of poor-sighted animals such as bison. Specialized bison hunting stimulated widespread microlithic technology which, in the steppes, was associated with the invention of the bow and arrow (Praslov 1982; Demidenko 1987). Introduction of bow-and-arrow hunting allowed Upper Palaeolithic groups in the steppes to temporarily balance their economy. This is suggested by the spatial distribution of their long-term settlements with large inventories of tools, primarily various arrowheads, and the remains of large quantities of hunted animals. Such sites as Amvrosievka in the Don Basin and Anetovka 2 in the Lower Southern Bug region, for example, produced remains of more than 300 bison. The Anetovka faunal assemblage contained bison of all age groups, from foetuses to old individuals (Bibikova & Starkin 1989b, 10–11). Economic stability brought about by specialized procurement of abundant subsistence resources also influenced the evolution of the hunter-gatherer worldview. Evidence of new rituals, worshiping of bison as the main game animal, were found at Amvrosievka and Anetovka 2 (Boriskovskii 1954, 351; Stanko 1995). The worshiping of bison among the Upper Palaeolithic inhabitants of the Azov-Pontic steppes clearly facilitated their later domestication. The ritual should have included selection of animals for ceremonial performance, their procurement, butchering and subsequent distribution and thus presupposed a good knowledge of bison ecology, behaviour and anatomy. Without this knowledge later domestication of cattle would have been impossible. Intensification of the economy, specialized bi-

The steppe Mesolithic and Neolithic and the origin of cattle-breeding Archaeological research at Mesolithic and Neolithic sites in the steppes has resulted in the determination of the nature and specific form of the developing ecological crisis. Similar to the preceding period, the Mesolithic economy was originally based on the extensive exploitation of naturally available resources. With changes in game herd composition, primarily the replacement of bison by aurochs, we see the increasing intensification of hunting along with the elaboration and more complex organization of food gathering. For example, the Mesolithic inhabitants of Mirnoe in the Lower Danube Basin consumed seeds of Chenopodium album, Vica hirsuta and Polygonum convolvulus (Pashkevich 1982, 136). The site also produced a large number of seed-grinders and pestles used for processing plant food (Stanko 1982, 47–50). Bibikov (1977, 46) suggested that the increasing needs for bulk consumption of vegetable food stimulated the appearance of the earliest pottery in the North Pontic region — namely during the Mesolithic. It is possible that turtle shells found near hearths at Mirnoe may have also been used for cooking plant food. Further intensification of hunting included the widespread use of grooved bone points and stand301

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ardized microliths for making arrows. This allowed for easy repair of compound tools, which became widespread during this time and stimulated individual hunting practices. Widely-spaced communities of three to four small families, each containing four to six members, formed the main production units of the Mesolithic society. Nonetheless, more complex gathering of plants in the vegetation-poor Azov-Pontic steppes, individualization and intensification of hunting, plus increased mobility and dispersal of the population into new territories in search of new subsistence resources could not resolve the crisis growing within the hunter-gatherer economy. In this situation the solution lay in changing the main direction of the economy. Hunter-gatherers were thus forced to search for alternative ways to increase the productivity of exploited territories. Since Mesolithic groups occupied practically all ecological niches in the steppes, the demographic situation did not allow them to expand the boundaries of their hunting grounds without inter-group conflicts. As burial data indicate, warfare played a major role in the redistribution of exploited territories in the Lower Dnepr Basin during this time (Stanko 1997a, 146). Within the context of a well-developed and technologically-advanced hunter-gatherer economy, resolution of this problem required improved social relations that could promote the increase and preservation of resources within the exploited territory, primarily by means of selective hunting. The wellequipped Mesolithic hunter-gatherers thus faced a dilemma — their survival in the steppes required both procurement of game animals and preservation of their population. The knowledge of aurochs behaviour, biology and ecology which steppe hunter-gatherers had acquired over many generations favoured the selection of this species for the new economic strategy. Contrary to their Upper Palaeolithic counterparts from Anetovka 2, Mesolithic inhabitants of Mirnoe, for example, took only adult aurochs. This suggests intentional preservation of younger animals. Usewear from grass-cutting found on lithic inserts for sickles at Mirnoe (Korobkova 1989, 69) may possibly indicate even feeding and taming of calves. Furthermore, widespread worshiping of bulls in the steppes during the Upper Palaeolithic could have stimulated preservation of aurochs during the Mesolithic. Formal similarities in lithic assemblages from Anetovka 2 and Mirnoe, for example, suggest the persistence of Upper Palaeolithic cultural traditions in the soci-

ety of Mesolithic hunter-gatherers. New economic orientation was provided by a new, tribal social organization. Its appearance during the period of economic transformation was associated with: 1) decreasing mobility and emerging sedentism; 2) stabilization of regional population density; 3) conceptualization of a common feeding territory which requires rational exploitation and defense from strangers; and 4) perception of the exploited territory as the land of ancestors, resulting in the construction of burial grounds or cemeteries. A solid Mesolithic social structure existed, for example, in the area between the Danube and the Dnestr rivers. Its centre was located at the settlement of Mirnoe with a population of some 150 people (Stanko 1982). Smaller communities were scattered across the landscape within 90 km of it. In this context, Mirnoe can be regarded as a permanent centre of the organization of production. Small patrilineal communities scattered across the tribal territory procured animals, ‘tended’ aurochs and protected the resources. The study of aurochs hunting camps between the Dnestr and the Southern Bug rivers identified a similar social structure in the Kuchurgan river valley. Here, more than 20 small sites with typologically identical lithic inventories surrounded a larger organizational centre — the settlement of Girzhevo. Similar structures are also known in the Lower Dnepr Basin and on the coastal plain north of the Sea of Azov. During this time we also see the earliest evidence of aurochs (Bos primigenius) taming at Neolithic sites in the Lower Dnestr and the Lower Don basins (Bibikova 1978, 18; Krizhevskaia 1992, 166). A few bones of domesticated cattle (Bos taurus) occur at these sites together with numerous remains of wild aurochs. Typical of early Eneolithic cattle-breeding in the region, this association of faunal remains indicates that domestic animals grazed side by side with their wild counterparts (see below). Radiocarbon dates (uncalibrated) from sites such as Mirnoe (7200±80, JIE-1647), Matveev Kurgan (7180±70, JIE-1217; 7505±210 GrN-7199) and Girzhevo (7050±60 JIE-1703) indicate the time of the earliest domestication of aurochs in the Azov-Pontic steppes (Stanko & Svezhentsev 1988, 117; Timofeev & Zaitseva 1996, 337; Petrov 1986, 73). Calibration of these dates suggests that it occurred from the middle to the end of the seventh millennium BC. Benecke (1997, 635) argued that aurochs were domesticated in the North Pontic region later in time. His conclusion, however, was based exclusively on a comparison of skeletal parameters of wild aurochs (Bos 302

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primigenius) and domestic cattle from a much later period.

the bull cult practised by the Usatovo population should also have favoured this interaction. The fact that aurochs, as the main subsistence resource, symbolized human prosperity in the steppes indicates that hunter-gatherers protected these animals as much as they could. Following this tradition, the bearers of the Usatovo culture equally protected domestic bulls as a symbol of their own well-being. The discovery of an aurochs skull and bones near the sanctuary indicates that for ritual feasting they sacrificed the wild relatives of cattle, the aurochs. In this context, the use of wild aurochs for improving the breed of domestic bulls had both practical and magic significance for the Usatovo cattle-breeders. The hypothetical origin of the Usatovo bull cult directly from the hunter-gatherer bison cult described above and its association with production magic and fertility cults suggest that the Usatovo people initially only slightly modified the ritual of the bull cult ceremony. However, the ideas of production magic were already penetrating their conception not only of everyday life but also of the after-life. Through time the nature of ceremonial performance also changed. It became more rigorous and canonized and, judging from the size of the sanctuaries, was most likely restricted to a limited set of performers or priests. Lahodovska (1948) proposed a similar interpretation of the burial with a sanctuary as described above. These features become common during later periods in early class societies. One of the significant features that relate the Usatovo bull cult with ceremonial practices of the Upper Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers of the steppes is human sacrifice. A pile of bones within the sanctuary at Anetovka 2 contained a skull of a young female while the Usatovo sanctuary contained crowns of human teeth. Alekseev (pers. comm. 1986) also suggested that performance of the bull cult in the steppe region included human sacrifices. Perhaps the combination of animal and human sacrifice symbolized fertility and well-being in these prehistoric societies. Compositional structure of the burial mound discussed above also reflects the worldview system and symbolic behaviour of the Usatovo population. It shows that placement of four female figurines symbolizing fertility near the sculpture of a bull’s head in the pit was an important part of performing the bull cult during the burial ceremony. In contrast to the Upper Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers of the steppes who showed little concern for a sacrificed female and simply tossed her skull onto a pile of bison bones, the Usatovo people show much more care in

Eneolithic cattle-breeders of the Usatovo culture The economy of the Usatovo population was based primarily on breeding cattle, horses and pigs. The dominant role of large cattle in the Usatovo livestock suggests that people tended most of the cattle near the settlements and possibly kept their sheep further away on the steppe pastures. It is likely that people only occasionally provided forage for sheep and horses which most of the time grazed on distant pastures. The Usatovo people also practised welldeveloped farming. Most likely they cultivated land with cattle-pulled ploughs. Cattle power could have been used in other economic activities as well (Bibikov 1965, 52). The bull was also associated with one of the two major cults of the Usatovo culture. The settlement of Bolshoi Kuyalnik, for example, yields evidence of a production-related bull cult which includes two ‘sanctuaries’, one within the settlement and another under a burial mound nearby. The former was a one-metre-long bull head carved on the surface of a limestone cliff and covered with ash. Three limestone plates were placed vertically around the sculpture forming a sort of a stone box. One more plate was placed on top of the box. An aurochs skull and bones associated with bull figurines made of clay were found near the structure (Lahodovska 1948, 49). The second bull (aurochs?) head carved from limestone came from the bottom of a 1 × 1 m ritual pit at the base of a burial mound. A round amphora was found next to its left horn, and further left, by the pit wall, there was another amphora, this time with oblique criss-crossing on the shoulder, and an undecorated cup. Space between these vessels was densely covered with white powder. A pile of ochre was found to the right of the bull’s head. Further down there were four female figurines placed against each other in pairs. The pit also contained five human tooth crowns, three beads and a miniature vessel with a large handle (Patokova 1979, 81–2). Long ago Pidoplichko (1937, 120) and Brauner (1948) suggested that the Usatovo people could have practised interbreeding of domestic cattle with wild aurochs in order to improve the breed of the former. It is very likely that during that time wild aurochs were still present in the Khadzhibei Basin and thus could easily interact with domestic animals in the vicinity of human settlements. Selective hunting and 303

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placing female figurines by the bull’s head. Perhaps it was only in such association that they were perceived as a symbol of prosperity in Usatovo society (Makarevich 1961, 296–7). The concluding part of a burial ceremony was also symbolic. It included the construction of a stone box symbolizing the sun as the source of human prosperity. This brought together all components of Usatovo mythology that combined the cults of bull, female and the sun in a single entity. There is no reason to argue that burial ritual, reconstructed from the structure of the mound and the associated performances of the cult, followed any specific hierarchical sequence. What is important though is that they formed a single entity in the mythology of early cattle-breeders and farmers. Altogether, the worldview of the Usatovo population was characterized by complex interweaving of belief systems of Palaeolithic bison hunters, Neolithic cattle-breeders and early pastoralists and agriculturists. Their ideology most likely developed as a combination of bull and sun cults practised by hunter-gatherers and cattle-breeders, on the one hand, and a female cult symbolizing fertility, household protection, prosperity and sedentary lifeway among the agriculturists, on the other. In concluding this discussion of one of the most interesting and well-known periods of human prehistory in the North Pontic region I should like to address briefly the issue of the origin of the Usatovo population. The literature commonly describes them as the bearers of the Late Tripolye cultural tradition who settled in the North Pontic steppes along the Dnestr river as the Late Tripolye cultural entity fell apart. In the process of colonization of new areas, they occupied the Khadzhibei river valley where they faced new environmental conditions, changed their traditional economic lifestyle and became cattle-breeders and farmers (Zbenovich 1974, 147). This interpretation of the origin of the Usatovo culture appears somewhat simplified. Although the Tripolye component clearly dominated in the Usatovo cultural tradition, its people were of different physical types. The Tripolye population belonged to a proto-Mediterranean type while the Usatovo people were of proto-Europoid type (Potekhina 1989, 129–30). Rather than being accidental, the distinct physical appearance of the Usatovo population should have been a result of assimilation between local proto-Europoid cattle-breeders (the descendants of a more ancient population of the steppe region) and the arriving proto-Mediterranean agriculturists. The higher level of socio-economic development of

the Tripolye newcomers determined the domination of their cultural traits among the Usatovo population. Having settled in the area which witnessed population and material exchange between East and West, the Usatovo population thus experienced the influence and, to some extent, absorbed cultural traditions of both eastern and western neighbours, mainly from the Balkans. References Artiushenko, A.T., 1970. Rastitelnost Lesostepi i Stepi Ukrainy v Chetvertichnom Periode. Kiev: Naukova Dumka. Benecke, N., 1997. Archeozoological studies on the transition from the Mesolithic to the Neolithic in the North Pontic region. Anthropozoologica 25–26, 631–41. Bibikov, S.N., 1965. Khoziaistvenno-ekonomicheskii kompleks razvitogo tripolia. Sovetskaia Arkheologiia 1, 48–62. Bibikov, S.N., 1977. Epokha mezolitu, in Istoriia Ukrainskoi RSR, ed. I.I. Artemenko. Kiev: Naukova Dumka, 41–9. Bibikova, V.I., 1975. O smene nekotorykh komponentov fauny kopytnykh na Ukraine v golotsene. Bulleten Moskovskogo Obschestva Ispytatelei Prirody – Biologicheskoe Otdelenie 80(6), 67–72. Bibikova, V.I., 1978. Fauna mezoliticheskikh poselenii Belolese i Girzhevo, in Arkheologicheskie Issledovaniia Severo-Zapadnogo Prichernomoria, eds. P.O. Karyshkovskii. Kiev: Naukova Dumka, 17–29. Bibikova, V.I., 1982. Teriofauna poseleniia Mirnoe, in Stanko (ed.), 139–64. Bibikova, V.I. & A.V. Starkin, 1989a. Kharakteristika osteologicheskogo materiala iz raskopok pozdnepaleoliticheskogo poseleniia Anetovka 2, in Pozdnepaleoliticheskoe Poselenie Anetovka II, eds. V.N. Stanko, G.V. Grigoreva & T.N. Shvajko. Kiev: Naukova Dumka, 127–31. Bibikova, V.I. & A.V. Starkin, 1989b. Teriokomplex pozdnepaleolitiche-skogo poselenia Anetovka II, in Quarternary Age: Palaeontology and Archaeology, ed. A.L. Yanshin. Kishinev: Shtiintsa, 8–16. Boriskovskii, P.I., 1954. Paleolit Ukrainy. Leningrad: Nauka. Boriskovskii, P.I., 1964. Problema Razvitiia Pozdnepaleoliticheskoi Kultury Stepnoi Oblasti. Moscow: Nauka. Brauner, A.A., 1948. Proshloe Stepnogo LimannoMorskogo Landshafta Pravoberezhnoi Ukrainy. Manuscript on file, Archaeological Museum of Odessa, Ukraine. Demidenko, I.E., 1987. Do pytannia pro chas vynakhodu luka ta stril. Arkheologiya 60, 1–6. Gatsov, I., 1984. Mestonakhozhdenie kremnevykh orudii rannegolotse-novogo vremeni v mestnosti Pobitite kamyni (Dikilitash). Studia Praehistorica 7, 3–16. Ivanov, G.I. & L.V. Ischenko, 1974. Novye dannye o razvitii shelfa Severo-Zapadnogo rajona Chernogo moria v

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golotsene. Baltica 5, 265–73. Kiselev, N.N. 1979. Obeki Ekologii i Ego Evoliutsiya: Filosofskometodologicheskii Aspekt. Kiev: Naukova Dumka. Korobkova, G.F. 1989. Predposylki slozhenia proizvodiaschego khoziajstva v Severo-Zapadnom Prichernomore, in Pervobytnaia Arkheologiya: Materialy i Issledovaniya, ed. S.S. Berezanskaia. Kiev: Naukova Dumka, 54–63. Krizhevskaia, L.I., 1992. Nachalo Neolita v Stepiakh Severnogo Pri-chernomoria. St Petersburg: IIMK Press. Lahodovska, O.F., 1948. Usativska kultura ta ii mistse v arkheologich-nomu mynulomu Ukrainy. Visti AN URSR 6, 47–57. Makarevich, M.L., 1961. Ob ideologicheskikh predstavleniiakh u tri-polskikh plemen. Zapiski Odesskogo Arkheologicheskogo Obschestva 1, 290–301. Moliavko, G.I., 1960. Neohen Pivdnia Ukrainy. Kiev: Naukova Dumka. Molodykh, I.I., 1982. Grunty Podov i Stepnykh Bliudets Subaeralnogo Pokrova Ukrainy. Kiev: Naukova Dumka. Olenkovskii, N.P., 1991. Pozdnii Paleolit i Mezolit Nizhnego Dnepra. Kherson: Odessa University Press. Pashkevich, G.A., 1981. Dinamika rastitelnogo pokrova Severo-Zapadnogo Prichernomoria v golotsene, ego izmeneniia pod vliianiem cheloveka, in Antropogennye Faktory v Istorii Razvitiia Sovremennykh Ekosistem, ed. L.G. Denesman. Moscow: Nauka, 74–86. Pashkevich, G.A., 1982. Paleobotanicheskaia kharakteristika poselenia Mirnoe, in Stanko (ed.), 132–8. Patokova, E.F., 1979. Usatovskie Poselenie i Mogilnik. Kiev: Naukova Dumka. Paunescu, A., 1970. Evolutia Uneltelor si Armelor de Piatra Cioplita Descoperite pe Teritoriul Romaniti. Bucharest: Editura Academiei republicii socialiste Romania. Petrov, A., 1986. Ranna Istoria i Evolyutsia na Domashnyte Zhyvotny. Sofia: Izdatelstvo na Blgarskata Akademia na Naukite. Pidoplichko, I.G., 1937. Do pytannia pro sviiski tvaryny trypilskikh poselen. Naukovi Zapysky Instytutu Istorii Materialnoi Kultury 2, 111–20. Potekhina, I.D., 1989. Antropologicheskie materialy iz mogilnika Maia-ki, in Pamiatniki Tripolskoi Kultury v Severo-Zapadnom Pricherno-more, eds. E.F. Patokova & N.B. Burdo. Kiev: Naukova Dumka, 125–30.

Praslov, N.D., 1982. O vremeni izobreteniia luka. Abstracts of the IXth Congress of INQUA 2, 232–6. Rekovets, L.I. & A.V. Starkin, 1990. Teriofauna pozdnepaleoliticheskogo poseleniia Anetovka 2 iuga Ukrainy. Vestnik Zoologii 3, 40–71. Sirenko, N.A. & S.I. Turlo, 1986. Pazvitie Pochv i Rastitelnosti Ukrainy v Pliotsene i Pleistotsene. Kiev: Naukova Dumka. Stanko, V.N. (ed.), 1982. Mirnoe. Kiev: Naukova Dumka. Stanko, V.N., 1991. Kulturno-istoricheskii protsess v mezolite Severo-Zapadnogo Prichernomoria, in Severo-Zapadnoe Prichernomore – Kontaktnaia Zona Drevnikh Kultur, ed. V.P. Vanchugov. Kiev: Naukova Dumka, 5–17. Stanko, V.N., 1995. Kult bizona (byka) v drevnikh obschestvakh Iugo-Vostochnoi Evropy, in Starozhytnosti Prychornomoria, ed. V.N. Stanko. Odessa: Gegmes, 1–11. Stanko, V.N., 1997a. Epokha mezolitu, in Davnia Istoriia Ukrainy, ed. V.N. Stanko. Kiev: Naukova Dumka, 114–56. Stanko, V.N., 1997b. Landscape dynamics and Mesolithic settlement in the North Pontic steppe, in Landscapes in Flux Central and Eastern Europe in Antiquity, eds. J. Chapman & P. Dolukhanov. Oxford: Oxbow Books, 253–62. Stanko, V.N., 1999. Bison hunters in the Late Palaeolithic of the Ukraine, in Le Bison: gibier et moyen de subsistance des hommes du paléolithique aux paléoindiens des Grandes Plaines, eds. J.-P. Brugal, F. David, J.G. Enloe & J. Jaubert. Antibes: Editions APDCA, 343– 59. Stanko, V.N. & I.S. Svezhentsev, 1988. Khronologiia i periodzatsiia pozdnego paleolita i mezolita Severnogo Prichernomoria. Bulleten Komissii po Izucheniiu Chetvertichnogo Perioda 57, 116–20. Timofeev, V.I. & G.I. Zaitseva, 1996. Spisok radiouglerodnykh datirovok neolita, in Neolit Severnoi Evrazii, ed. S.V. Oshibkina. Moscow: Nauka, 337–48. Zbenovich, V.G., 1974. Pozdnetripolskie Plemena Severnogo Pricher-nomoria. Kiev: Naukova Dumka. Zhuravlov, O.P. & N.S. Kotova, 1996. Tvarynnytstvo neolitychnogo naselennia Ukrainy. Arkheologiya 2, 3–17.

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Chapter 20 Farmers and Pastoralists of the Pontic Lowland during the Late Bronze Age Yakov P. Gershkovich During the Late Bronze Age, sites of the Sabatinovka

Settlement structure

culture were distributed from the left bank of the Lower Danube and Lower Dnepr to the beginning of the springs in the Azov Hills (Gershkovich 1993, 15– 22) (Fig. 20.1). This forms an extensive steppe zone. The Pontic lowlands are characterized by aridity and excessive evaporation. In the eastern part of this ecotope, there is a weak development of water runoff. A dry steppe area is situated at the edge of these Pontic lowlands and along the northern part of the Crimean peninsula.

Settlement structure is characterized by groups of dwellings clustered together, along with their household storage pits. In lowland areas they appear as slight heel-like rises; referred to as ‘zolniks’, they appear to be similar to small kurgans (Gershkovich [Cers&kovic&] 1999, 6–7). Stone house structures are more characteristic in the western area of the Sabatinovka sites and in the Lower Dnepr basin. Earthen clay structures and semi-subterranean pit houses are more characteristic for the steppe zone on the left bank of the Lower Dnepr. Instances of settlements in the form of distinctive blocks or ‘nests’ of stone house structures have also been observed (Sharafutdinova & Balushkin 1997, 35; Eliseev & Klyushentsev 1997, 44–5). This form of settlement pattern appears to show the construction of discrete living and working areas or ‘modules’, possibly estates or manors. Large-scale excavation of these settlements with stone dwellings in the Bug region (such as the sites of Bugskoe IV, Tashlyk I, Tashlyk IV, Vinogradnyi Sad I etc.) will provide more data with which to explore this theory. One aim of these excavations is to determine whether or not the structures, within a single large settlement, were occupied simultaneously, or whether they grew incrementally and formed as the result of the sequential abandonment of ‘modules’ or estates and the construction of new ones, near them or at a distance.

The topography of Sabatinovka culture settlements At the western end of the range of the Sabatinovka culture, settlements are situated along the low banks of rivers, in hollows and marshes, and along the edges of dried-up lakes and small streams (Fig. 20.1a) (Chernyakov 1985, 25–7). In the Bug–Ingul interfluve (Fig. 20.1b), to the east, settlements are located along rivers and in depressions, occupying practically all the accessible places from the source of the rivers to their mouths, including the waterless steppe regions (Klyushentsev 1976, 15). Significantly fewer sites have been excavated in the areas of the Lower Dnepr and between the Dnepr, Molochnaya, Obitochnaya and Berda rivers (Sharafutdinova 1982), but aerial photographs record the presence of a great number of sites there (Shishkin 1964, 202). These sites have not yet been investigated since they are difficult to discern in the steppe. On the slopes of depressions they are rarely exposed and in the dry steppe belt bordering the Black Sea, ploughing has failed to bring them to light. The sites in this area are located along the banks of the rivers, principally on the lowest terraces, as well as in the open steppe, as far as the edge of the Lower Dnepr sands in the Sivash region (Fig. 20.1c).

An overview of the Sabatinovka culture A detailed description of the material remains of these sites will not be presented here. We want to emphasize, however, particularly to foreign and English-speaking readers, that the old hypothesis, postulating the formation of the Sabatinovka culture 307

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Figure 20.1. Map showing Sabatinovka culture settlements and temporary stations from the Northern Pontic area: a) Lower Danube–Dnestr interfluve (according I.T. Chernyakov); b) Dnestr–Southern Bug interfluve (according I.T. Chernyakov); c) Ingulec– Lower Dnepr interfluve and zone of the open steppe up to the rivers Obitochnaya and Berda (1 - Snegirevka; 2 - Dudchany; 3 - Dremaylovka; 4 - Novokievka; 5 - Agayman; 6 - Obitochnaya).

c

b a

a

settlements

excavated settlements

b

c

2 1 5

3

4

6

Lower Dnepr sands settlements temporary stations border of the microregions

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directly on the Timber-Grave (Srubnaya) culture, is now no longer accepted unconditionally, as it was several decades ago (Krivtsova-Grakova 1955, 131– 2; Leskov 1970, 48). Neither is it unconditionally accepted that the Sabatinovka and Srubnaya cultures were generically linked, with the latter immediately preceding the former. By the 1950s, several investigators (Dobrovolskii 1952, 87; Bodyanskii 1952) were already commenting on the distinctive structures, ceramics and metals from the Northern Pontic area, and later Rybolova (1961), Pogrebova (1961, 88), Sharafutdinova (1968, 16–18), Chernyakov (1985) and others wrote about the possibility of defining a separate Sabatinovka culture. The author has frequently commented upon this issue (Gershkovich 1998b, 323–4) and recently addressed it in a monograph devoted to this culture (Gershkovich 1999). We believe that the process of formation of the Sabatinovka culture occurred simultaneously with the formation of the other large culture-historical communities, such as the Tshcieniec-Komarov and Timber-Grave cultures, which appeared in the areas immediately adjacent to it (Gershkovich 1998b, 63– 6). Each of these cultures appears in its own distinct form and each was in contact with the other throughout the period of their existence. In other words, there is no Timber-Grave culture foundation to the Sabatinovka culture; the latter developed as one of the basic structural components of the NovaSabatinovka-Koslodzen culture complex. In terms of its form and relationship to Southeast Europe, the Sabatinovka culture is diametrically opposed to that of the Timber-Grave Culture. They occupy distinctive regions of the steppe: the Sabatinovka is generally located farther south and the Timber-Grave culture to the north, including the area of the foreststeppe. This regional distinction means that, even if each of these cultures had basically the same type of economic structure, they would still have formed on distinct soils, different vegetation cover and separate possibilities of using water sources. The southern and northern steppes do not correspond in the time that crops are sown and harvested, nor in the quality and types of fodder to sustain their livestock. For the Timber-Grave culture livestock-breeding was probably more mobile and extensive. Its settlements do not appear in the Lower Dnepr region, i.e. in the Sabatinovka culture area, although Timber-Grave culture graves are frequent in the kurgans of this area. Hence, spatial separation of the Timber-Grave and Sabatinovka culture populations can be observed. The nearest settlements of the Timber-Grave culture are concentrated in the steppe zone of the

Northern Azov area and in the steppe-forest zone of the Severski Donets river, and therefore the distance between the two cultures could be up to 200 kilometres or more. The question of dating the Sabatinovka culture is solved by the presence of artefacts of the IngulKrasnomayak metalworking complex in the Transylvanian hoards of the BD-HaA1 periods (Chernykh 1976, 153–8; Boc&karev & Leskov 1980; Leskov 1981, 91–5, tab. 15). But these finds do not date the earliest phase of the Ingul-Krasnomayak complex and Sabatinovka culture as whole, but only the developed phase of the complex and culture, i.e. the time that the coalescing northern Pontic Sabatinovka tradition moved westwards (Gershkovich et al. 1987, 156–8). Already by the twelfth century BC (HaA1), sites including settlements, cemeteries and hoards of the Belozer-Tudorovo type (Otroshchenko 1975, 202– 4; Vanchugov 1990, 108) are found within the area previously occupied by the Sabatinovka culture. All this indicates that the chronological range of the Sabatinovka should be moved earlier. At present, it is dated between the fifteenth and the end of the thirteenth centuries BC (Gershkovich 1999, 84–5). Unfortunately no sequence of radiocarbon dates is currently available for Sabatinovka sites. Available calibrated radiocarbon dates from sites in the river Bug region suggest an earlier date for the Sabatinovka culture: the end of the twentieth to the middle of the eighteenth century BC (Lázslo 1993, 36); however, such dates demand additional verification. Thus, conventional dates for the Bronze Age of Central Europe are estimated in this paper. The economy of the Sabatinovka culture A more precise determination of the chronological limits of the Sabatinovka culture are important, not only for the resolution of purely archaeological problems, but also for ascertaining the time when, within the general limits of the Sub-Boreal periods, natural and climatic conditions were such as to made the occupation of the steppe zone by populations with a mixed pastoral/arable economy possible. Thus, if livestock breeding was the traditional economy for the open steppe zone from Neolithic times onwards, the development of steppe agriculture must appear as a specific phenomenon, requiring its own explanation. Agriculture can only be practised in this area with the aid of artificial irrigation, under current natural climatic conditions. Moreover, it is probable that the relative relationship between arable agriculture and animal husbandry was not always and 309

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everywhere the same throughout of the NovaSabatinovka-Koslodzen cultural complex. Undoubtedly, the study of the prehistoric subsistence economy should be based on a multi-discipline approach. Palynologists, palaeobotanists and archaeozoologists have a particular contribution to make to the discussion as they can effectively stimulate the ideas of archaeologists who base their opinions on their visual assessment of tools and other artefacts. The results of the study of the source of agriculture in Eastern Europe, recently conducted by the multi-disciplinary Volga-Ural Archaeological Expedition, under the direction of Chernykh, illustrate this conclusion. This research showed that neither the finds of sickles nor grinding stones were sufficient indicators of the practice of agriculture. It came to the unexpected conclusion that agriculture was under developed in the area from the TransUrals to the eastern and central region of the Ukraine (Chernykh et al. 1997, 27–8). This conclusion was based on the exceptionally small quantity of palaeobotanical remains of domesticated plant species, recovered through the flotation of sediments, from a series of archaeological sites. Although the conclusions of those who conducted these experiments are not being questioned here, attention should be drawn to the fact that, in the list of the Late Bronze Age sites which were researched by Chernykh and co-researchers, there was not a single Sabatinovka culture site. In 1998 the settlement at Koslogen (Chernykh et al. 1998, 236–8) was added to the list. Here sixteen out of nineteen samples floated showed carbonized plant material. This frequency of carbonized plant material (almost 80 per cent of samples show positive) is unusual for Late Bronze Age sites in the Southern Ural, Volga and Don regions and the Northeast Azov area (Chernykh et al. 1998, 238–9, fig. 6). Hence, the conclusion stating that agriculture was under-developed during this period in Eastern Europe is related to the Timber-Grave culture only.

traces, caused by smoothing the external and internal surfaces of the pot with straw. Organic temper is found in the plaster, in the form of straw, paleae and seeds. These organic materials have been identified as representing the following: Triticum dicoccum, Triticum aestivum, Triticum compactum, Triticum aestivocompactum, Hordeum vulgare, and Panicum milliaceum (Pashkevich 1991, 41). The composition of botanical remains appears even more diverse on the settlements in the Bug area, especially at Vinogradnyi Sad I where charred seeds were discovered. Besides those species already mentioned, Triticum monococcum, Triticum spelta, Hordeum vulgare var. coeleste, Pisum sativum, Vicia ervilia and Vicia sp. were identified (Pashkevich 1991, 41; 1997, 59). As can be seen, a broad spectrum of plants is demonstrated. Triticum aestivum s.l. (naked wheat) could haven been a weed in the hulled wheat crop. Hulled cultivars are well adapted for growing in the steppes, as all except spelt are adapted to arid conditions. One should note, however, that here there is the assumption that naked wheats (and naked grained barley, ordinary millet, flax and hemp) could have already been sown in the Late Bronze Age (Pashkevich 1991, 28; 1997, 59). The working of soil in the past has long been a complex question. It is well-known that hulled wheat and barley can be sown freely as spikelets and do not require deep ploughing of the soil. Millet, peas, vetch and free-threshing wheat, on the other hand, if they can actually be sown freely, are more demanding in terms of turning the soil. It is possible that a basic form of steppe slash-and-burn agriculture could have existed in the Pontic lowland, easing the management of the hard-to-work steppe soils. There may have been insufficient fields for the settlements along the Dnepr because of topographical constraints. In addition, their situation on high terraces with steep slopes above the valley bottom may have made fields less than optimal to work (Gavrilyuk & Pashkevich 1991, 52). Thus, the most suitable areas with sufficient moisture were those near the Ingul and Bug rivers and the steppe region along the left bank of the Dnepr. Fields could have been situated near settlements in those places which were not threatened by flood waters and in the open steppe on flat slopes of hollows, which at that time had continuous water run-off. In so far as the documented list of cultivated plants is the same as for the fourth-century BC Scythian steppe settlements practising shifting field cultivation (Pashkevich & Gavrilyuk 1991, 60), the

Agriculture There is a significant quantity of data which shows the agricultural nature of Sabatinovka culture settlements. These data were obtained as the result of palaeoethnobotanical investigations on settlements in the Northwestern Pontic area and Dnepr regions. Pashkevich conducted an examination of more than 1300 ceramic fragments and more than 100 pieces of plastered clay from both modules or clusters of the Novokievka settlement mentioned above. Impressions of grain and seeds appear on the pottery as 310

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same system could be proposed for the Sabatinovka culture. Archaeological evidence of agriculture is yielded by the discovery of numerous household storage pits, which may suggest such a system. Those pits which are pear-shaped in form, by analogy with pits from classical cities, could have been used to store grain. In most cases the secondary fill of such pits is associated with their secondary use for cult purposes (Gershkovich 1997, 11–13). Many researchers (for example, Kosarev 1984, 57) have remarked that identifying agricultural instruments is sometimes difficult. Nevertheless, there are numerous finds of metal sickles and sickle moulds, which differ from those of the Timber-Grave culture. These sickles were cast not in clay or disposable moulds, but ones made of stone, which suggests their recurrent use and indicates the general demand for these tools. A hearth with charred seed remains of hulled barley was found at the Vinogradnyi Sad-I site. This area may have been a place for drying grain which was intended for sale or exchange (Sharafutdinova & Balushkin 1997, 35). This is, however, only one possible explanation. Clark, writing about similar finds in the Mediterranean area, described the need to dry unripe grains in a hearth and described the typical roasting and drying of grain for storage and as a preparation for grinding (Clark 1953, 118–19).

viduals of more than one year in age, indicating that they would have lived through as least one winter and that, consequently, there must have been a wellestablished base where they were fed. The predominance of females suggests that animals were kept not only for their meat but also for dairy produce. The presence of oxen might serve as an argument for the practice of plough agriculture, in which the oxen were used as draught animals. The practice of castrating oxen was widespread during the Late Bronze Age (Obydennov & Obydennova 1992, 59). It is clear from the Novokievka material, that the cattle were hornless. According Zhuravlev’s investigations, however, this breed was smaller than those found in the Pit-Grave, Catacomb and TimberGrave cultures. Sheep and goat also appear to have been smaller. The presence of different breeds of domestic animals suggests the absence of a single source of origin and the occurrence of fundamentally different ways of using and maintaining them. Such differences are another indication, derived from the archaeological remains, of the different paths of development of the Sabatinovka and Timber-Grave cultures. Sabatinovka horses, on other hand, are larger than those found in the Catacomb and Timber-Grave cultures. It is interesting that the Novokievka material shows the occurrence of different types of horse: thin-legged, moderately thin-legged, and thick-legged. If such an occurrence is not accidental, then it is possible to suggest their deliberate selection for specific purposes: thick-legged horses being used as harnessed draught animals; thin-legged ones for riding. Such a relatively broad spectrum of different sorts of horses could have been the result of links with the East and the West. It should be noted, however, that it coincides in time with the greatest distribution of different types of bone harnesses, in the steppe and forest-steppe belt of Eurasia during the Bronze Age, as well as the appearance of the first reliable metal cheek-pieces. So far, stone moulds for casting cheekpieces have only been found on Sabatinovka culture sites (Chernyakov 1983, 32–47; Gershkovich 1986, 33–5; 1999, 62–4, tab. 41:7, 2 & 5). Finds of domestic pig bones suggest that they were kept for meat. The presence of pigs in an economic package is considered as a reliable indicator of sedentism (Kosarev 1984, 59). A greater number of pigs are found on settlements of the Noua culture in Moldova and of the Timber-Grave culture in the Don area (Tsalkin 1972, 61). This may be because of the presence of forests in those regions, which provide a rich source of nourishment for raising pigs.

The pastoral economy Evidence for animal husbandry is more abundant, as animal bones constitute a major category of finds from the settlement sites. Zhuravlev recently studied the osteological remains from the Vinogradnyi Sad I, Bugskoe II, Tashlyk I and Novokievka sites (Zhuravlev 1990; 1991, 137–8). Typically, the bones studied represented the remains of meals, as demonstrated by the significant crushing of the bones, by cut-marks and incisions, all of which are the result of carcass dismemberment. Tools connected with activities surrounding animal husbandry and with the utilization of its products are also found. These include tools for smoothing and softening skins, made from the mandibles and ribs of animals and those made from horse bones, sometimes with openings in their upper parts (socalled ‘skates’), and hooves with worn-down edges, which are interpreted as tools for working leather (Gershkovich 1999, 66, tabs. 33:12–20 & 34:1–13). On these sites, cattle was the dominant domestic species, followed by sheep, goat and horse. Bones of domestic pig and dog were also encountered. Most of the bones of domesticated cattle were from indi311

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Kirovo (Fig. 20.2). If these are accepted as authentic, they could be interpreted dog as evidence of established connections pig between the population of the North× horse ern Pontic area with eastern regions of × sheep/goat Eurasia, or the result of incursions by cattle populations from the East. This possible interpretation may be supported by the occurrence of ceramics of Alekseevka-Sargara origin, from the Southern Urals and Kazakhstan area, in late Sabatinovka layers of settlements in the Northern Pontic area and in late Timber-Grave culture layers of settlements in the Don–Donets regions (Gershkovich 1998a, 78–84, figs. 5, 6, 11 & 12). camel

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Hunting and fishing The lack of evidence for hunting provides an indication of the high productivity of livestock breeding: wild mammals at Novokievka constituted only eight per cent of the total assemblage. These mammals have been identified as rabbit, lynx, saiga antelope, fox and wild aurochs or bison. At Tashlyk I and Vinogradnyi Sad I wild mammals made up five per cent of the bone assemblage (Zhuravlev 1991, 138). Essentially, hunting played a similar role at other sites of the Late Bronze Age in Eastern Europe (Tsalkin 1966, 61–5) and later during Scythian/Classical and Chernyakhov culture periods (Tsalkin 1966, 63–70; Magomedov 1987, 67–9). Fish bones form an even smaller part of the assemblages at Tashlyk I and Vinogradnyi Sad I. Only a single gill bone of a catfish was found, along with a significant quantity of fish scales. However, at the settlement of Dudchan, also on the Dnepr, a multi-sided stone mould for casting metal objects of the Ingul-Krasnomayak metalworking complex was found. Patterns on this included a gaff and swivel harpoon (Gershkovich 1999, pls. 49, 46 & 47).

Kirovo

Vinog. Sad I

Bugskoe II

Tashluk I

Novokievka

Perun

Matveeka I

0

Figure 20.2. Correlation (in %) of individuals of domestic mammals and camels from the sites of the second millennium BC in the Pontic lowland (Matveevka I, Perun - Catacomb culture; Novokievka, Tashlyk I, Bugskoe II, Vinogradnyi Sad I - Sabatinovka culture; Kirovo (top level) - Belozerka culture). Pigs on the open steppes, however, could have been fed on refuse or the remains of meals. The infrequent occurrence of dog bones may indicate that they were accidental additions to the assemblage and not part of the of meals themselves. The presence of dog endorses the pastoral character of animal husbandry (Masson 1976, 34–5; Obydennov & Odydennova 1992, 61). Nevertheless, despite a series of differences, Sabatinovka animal husbandry (Fig. 20.2) generally appears to have been the same as that in other Bronze Age cultures of the steppes (Antipina 1997, 28). The proportion of cattle, for example at Novokievka (47.5 per cent), although lower than average (Antipina 1997, 27), is still close to the minimum for this zone. If the total cattle and horse individuals are combined they constitute the more typical figure of 76.25 per cent of the individuals recorded. In comparison to the previous Catacomb culture settlements (Matveevka I and Perun), significantly more horse bones are recorded (Fig. 20.2). Later on in the Belozer-Tudorovo period (Kirovo, upper levels), however, more cattle are recorded, although horse bones are present. What’s more, camel bones have been identified from the Belozer-Tudorovo level of the settlement at

The Sabatinovka culture mode of subsistence On the basis of the available data, one can understand how the ancient inhabitants of the modular estates or manors, described above, managed the meat component of their subsistence economy. Thus, in the northern-most ‘estate’ at Novokievka two domesticated steers were identified. They were aged between six and eighteen months and weighed around 215 kg. Twenty adult individuals, each of around 450 kg were also identified. The total weight of domestic cattle was 9430 kg. In the case of sheep and goat, there was one individual, aged three to twelve months, with a 312

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18

weight of 20 kg, two individuals aged 12 to 24 months weighing 40 kg each, and nine sub-adult and adult individuals each weighing 60 kg. Their combined weight was 640 kg. Only a single immature pig weighing roughly 100 kg was identified. Finally, one immature horse, weighing 160 kg, was recorded along with six sub-adult and adult horses. Each weighed, on average, 320 kg (Fig. 20.3). The total weight of the horses represented was 2080 kg. Thus, the total weight of animals, whose bones were found in the same place was 12,250 kg, of which 6125 kg (50 per cent) was usable meat. Meat source percentages broke down as follows: 77 per cent cattle, 5 per cent sheep/goats, 1 per cent pig and 17 per cent horse. Five immature cattle individuals, ranging in age from 18 to 22 months, and eleven sub-adult and adult individuals were found in the southern part of the Novokievka settlement. Their total estimated weight was around 6809 kg. A single immature pig was also discovered, weighing 100 kg, in addition to three immature and five sub-adult and adult horses weighing 2080 kg. The weight of the adult aurochs or bison, identified from this part of the site, was around 800 kg (Fig. 20.4). The weight of the single sub-adult saiga antelope was around 50 kg. Thus, here the total weight of animals was 11,460 kg and that which could be used as meat — 5730 kg. As above, the breakdown of meat sources was: 60 per cent cattle, 6 per cent sheep/goat, 1 per cent pig, 18 per cent horse, 7 per cent aurochs or bison and 1 per cent saiga antelope. These proportions are based on the preliminary calculations of Zhuravlev. Approximate norms for meat consumption have been described, and are based on ethnographic data gathered from Australian Bushmen and from ancient historical documents from the Achaemenid capital of Persepolis (Masson 1976, 105). The daily norm for a single individual of the Djeitun and Tripolye cultures, was calculated as 130 to 150 grams (Masson 1976, 105; Bibikov 1965, 55). Therefore, based on the calculations shown above and assuming that, within each of the modules or estates at the Novokievka settlement not more than eight small families occupied the site simultaneously (based on the number of house structures) (Gershkovich 1999, 30–37), we unexpectedly come to the conclusion that these estates would have been occupied for an extremely short period of time, i.e. not more than three years. Even if the meat protein intake figure is reduced by half and half the buildings are not interpreted as dwellings, the extent of these estates’ existence, in which 5730 and 6125 kg of meat were

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Figure 20.3. Total number of the animals from the northern part (‘manor’) of the Novokievka settlement. 9 8

young

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auroch

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hare

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Figure 20.4. Total number of the animals from the southern part (‘manor’) of the Novokievka settlement. consumed, is increased by only a small amount. These figures are close to the maximum utilization period of economic storage pits, their effectiveness being limited by bacterial activity to around five years (Clark 1962, 47–8). It is, probably, not accidental that these storage pits do not cut each other, within a cluster of dwellings at Novokievka, suggesting that they were in use at the same time. In the light of these data, it could be suggested that similar settlements on the open steppe functioned as bases, or advanced posts, for gathering of related kin-based groups of the Sabatinovka culture 313

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on the open steppe. They changed their habitation approximately every three to five years. Mapping Sabatinovka sites shows high settlement densities in some areas (Figs. 20.1:a–b). However, because of the postulated short occupation of sites, added to a possible shifting field cultivation system, it is suggested that such a number of settlements could not exist simultaneously. Practically all parts of the skeletons of animals, of different ages, are preserved in the Novokievka osteological collection. At least some of these animals were, most probably, dismembered and stored within the area of the settlement or not far from it. One can propose that during hotter seasons animals were driven to pasture and in the winter brought to the settlements so that they could be fed. Therefore, seasonal encampments, forming their own economic circles or micro-regions, should be identifiable in the landscape, situated at some distance from the base settlements described above, with their clusters of multiple dwellings. Mapping of sites in the Lower Dnepr area, both along the Dnepr banks and in the steppe, shows two such micro-regions in the Ingulec area and at least three in the steppe zone between the Dnepr and the Berda rivers (Fig. 20.1c). In addition, Klyushentsev (1997a, 49–51) also defined several micro-regions in the area near the Bug river. Temporary settlements are known on the Lower Dnepr sands and also in the Sivash region, where it was impossible to practise agriculture (Fig. 20.1c). The minimum dimensions of the economic catchment area, or micro-region, at the Novokievka settlement are preliminarily suggested by the discovery of the gill bone of a catfish, which may have come from no less than 10 km away, from the Kalanchak river. The Dnepr river, however, is up to 50 km from the settlement. These data show that the Sabatinovka population practised a transhumant form of animal husbandry, in which parts of the herd were kept for a considerable time on seasonal pastures near temporary settlements on the Lower Dnepr sands and in the Sivash region, under the supervision of stockherders. The remainder were kept on neighbouring bases or in permanent settlements, where part of the human population was engaged in agriculture. Such a territorial division of animal husbandry and agriculture was beneficial for both branches of the economy, in so far as it allowed for rational use of steppe pasture, saved the crops from animal consumption and preserved a region for fodder during the winter (Bunyatyan 1997, 12–13). It should be noted that a similar territorial divi-

sion is observed in the Timber-Grave culture. Many kurgans with Timber-Grave culture graves are present in the steppe zone of the Lower Dnepr area as far as the Ingul river. However, permanent settlements and temporary stations are absent. The nearest settlements of these kinds are concentrated in a southern part of the Middle Dnepr area and in the Northeast Azov area. Hence, mobile stock-herding groups of the Timber-Grave culture population could penetrate far into unknown territory, moving away from their sedentary groups up to a distance of hundreds of kilometres. This phenomenon may have been caused by under-development of agriculture (see above), more mobile forms of pastoral economy, and, finally, by the peaceful character of mutual connections between the Timber-Grave and Sabatinovka cultures. Transhumant forms of animal husbandry are characteristic of semi-nomadic and nomadic ways of life, but according to ethnographic data it is also known for settlements practicing significant amounts of agriculture (Bunyatyan 1994, 74–5, 93). Such a system of animal husbandry assumes the presence of stalls or enclosures for keeping animals (Bunyatyan 1994, 97). These enclosures may be demonstrated archaeologically, for example, in the form of structures which had not been used for human occupation. These structures may have been stalls for cattle or enclosures for sheep and goats. It has been suggested that the first stalls in Europe could be dated only to the Iron Age. They are associated with the development of plough agriculture and the creation of permanent fields which were worked by harnessed cattle (Clark 1953, 133). Structures which can definitively be considered as stalls or enclosures have not yet been found on Sabatinovka sites. However, although some sites have been excavated extensively, none of these sites have been completely excavated. Structures for controlling livestock during the winter have been found on sites near the Bug river (Eliseev 1997, 43). Furthermore, a type of structure has been found in the Azov area, at the site of Obitochnoe 20, which might be associated with containing livestock. These structures consist of a series of differently shaped ditches which, in plan, are reminiscent of circular and rectangular dwellings, sometimes in the form of blocks of two rooms (Gershkovich 1999, 38, Abb. 10). These may have served as constrained areas for keeping livestock as a large quantity of remains of branches, tree trunks, etc. was accumulated in them, rising above the ground surface and forming an enclosure for domestic animals and protection against predators. 314

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tral Europe could not have survived a drought which lasted more than two years, and in Ancient Egypt no more than seven years (Bouzek 1982, 185–6). These may only describe a minimum survival period, as the complex economic systems of Central and Eastern European cultures, particularly the elaborate Near Eastern systems could offset losses for longer, though of course not indefinitely.

Climatic conditions in the Pontic lowland in the Late Bronze Age The phenomenon of an arable/pastoral, mixed economy on the steppes during the fifteenth to twelfth centuries BC, deserves particular attention because, neither before the Bronze Age, nor afterwards, have there been indications of long-standing permanent settlements on the open steppe. The broad distribution of settled agriculturalists in the Zinjar steppe of the Near East in the sixth millennium BC, may form a relatively close historical analogy to this situation. These may have been made possible by damper conditions in the Zinjar steppe, although this period did not last long (Masson 1982, 65; Bader 1989, 262–90 ). During the Late Bronze Age on the steppes of the Pontic lowland the climate was probably damper than at present. The change from the first xerothermic period of the Sub-Boreal, from the first quarter of the second millennium BC, had a damper and more sharply contrasting climate. This is observed in the Don basin (Spiridinova 1991, 55), the Severski Donets area and the Azov area (Gerasimenko 1997, 54–6), the forest-steppe region of the Russian plain and the Lower Don region (Kremenetski 1991, 43, 55, 67 & 126). It has been proposed that the chronological limits of the Sabatinovka culture completely correspond to that period, during which European investigators have postulated a more humid and wetter climate. The culture reached its peak roughly around the twelfth century BC, during the ‘Little Ice Age’. These observations were used by Drews, as evidence that a ‘catastrophe’ in the eastern Mediterranean area, at the end of the Late Bronze Age, around the twelfth century BC, could not have been caused by increased aridity in climate (Drews 1993, 79). A possible explanation for this ‘catastrophe’ could be sought not only in the Mediterranean area, but also in other regions of Europe (Ward & Joukovksy 1989), including the Northern Pontic area. It should be remembered that this aridization of the climate may not have demonstrated desiccation over the course of one or even several years, which is difficult to establish palaeoclimatically, but to a general tendency towards aridity, periodically punctuated by periods of desertification which would have been enough to limit the effectiveness of steppe agriculture. Such a process could have led to a crisis, followed by a more or less simultaneous collapse of many cultures of the Late Bronze Age of Eurasia, including that of the Sabatinovka culture. Bouzek suggested that the Bronze Age populations of Cen-

Conclusions The Sabatinovka culture shows evidence of dairycentred animal husbandry, sheep and goat breeding, the presence of different breeds of horse. This culture occupied the steppe zone and practiced transhumant animal husbandry, together with swidden agriculture, in which fields were periodically shifted. This shows that, during the Late Bronze Age in the Northern Pontic area, efforts were made to change to a more effective form of animal husbandry. Subsequently nomadism was established during the Early Iron Age, which directly followed this period. Kosarev considers these attributes as an indication of the potential readiness of the stock-herding farmers of the steppe zone, for a transition to nomadism (Kosarev 1984, 60). However, the appearance of nomadism in this zone became possible because of a change in climatic conditions which prevented the pursuit of agriculture on the poorly watered steppes. Scythian settlements, which contain numerous indications of a complex mixed arable and livestock raising economy, appear on small streams in the Dnepr basin only during the fifth to fourth centuries BC (Gavrilyuk & Pashkevich 1991, 61). These are connected with different processes which lead to the sedentarization of previously nomadic populations. However, it should be noted that, neither during the fifth to fourth centuries BC, nor during the second century BC to the third century AD (Gavrilyuk 1989, 95), were there any permanent or central settlements on the open steppe, as there had been during the Late Bronze Age. This zone was named the ‘Wild Field’ in the Old Rus annals. A new stage of agricultural development only begins here during the eighteenth century AD. Acknowledgements I would like to extend my gratitude to Dr O.P. Zhuravlev (Institute of Archaeology of NAN, Ukraine) for processing osteological collections from Novokievka and other settlements of the Sabatinovka culture, and to Dr P. Kohl (Wellesley College, USA) for 315

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Drews, R., 1993. The End of the Bronze Age (Changes in Warfare and the Catastrophe c. 1200 BC). Princeton (NJ): Princeton University Press. Eliseev, V.F., 1997. Nekotorye voprosy domostroitelstva epokhi pozdnei bronzy v stepnom Pobyzhe, in Klyushentsev (ed.) 1997b, 42–3. Eliseev, V.F. & V.N. Klyushentsev, 1997. Zhilishcha sabatinovskoi kultury, in Klyushentsev (ed.) 1997b, 43–9. Gavrilyuk, N.A., 1989. Domashnee Proizvodstvo i byt Stepnykh Skifov. Kiev: Naukova dumka. Gavrilyuk, N.A. & G.A. Pashkevich, 1991. Zemledelcheskii komponent v ekonomike stepnykh skifov. Sovetskaya Arkheologiya 2, 51–63. Gerasimenko, N.P., 1997. Prirodnaya sreda obitaniya cheloveka na yugo-vostoke Ukrainy v pozdnelednikove i golocene (po materialam paleogeograficheskogo izucheniya arkheologicheskikh pamyatnikov. Arkheologicheskii Almanakh 6, 3–64. Gershkovich, Y.P., 1986. Novye dannye o metallicheskikh psaliyakh Sabatinovskoi kultury PodneprovyaPriazovya, in Problemu Okhranu i Issledovaniya Arkheologicheskikh Pamyatnikov v Donbasse, eds. V.P. Andrienko & O.R. Dubovskaya. Donetsk: Donetsk District Museum for the Study of Local Lore, 33–5. Gershkovich, Y.P., 1993. On the eastern boundary of the Nova-Sabatinovka-Coslogeni complex. Culture et Civilisation au Bas Danube 10, 15–22. Gershkovich, Y.P., 1997. Sabatinovsko-noicheskie ‘zolniki’, in Doba Bronzy Dono-Donetskogo Regiony (Materialy 3-go Ukrainsko-Rosiyskogo Polevogo Arkheologichnogo Seminaru), eds. Y.M. Brovender, V.V. Otroshchenko & A.D. Pryakhin. Kiev-Voronezh-Perevalsk: Centralno-Donetska Arkheologichna Ekspediciya, 11–15. Gershkovich, Y.P., 1998a. Etnokulturnye svyazi v epokhu pozdnei bronzy v svete khronolgicheskogo sootnosheniya pamyatnikov, in Nizhnee PodneproveSevero-Vostochnoe Priazove - Podoncove, ed. A.V. Kolesnik. (Arkheologicheskii Almanakh 7.) Donetsk: Donetsk District Museum for the Study of Local Lore, 61–93. Gershkovich, Y.P., 1998b. Westliche Impulse bei der Formierung des Kulturkomplexes ‘Noua-Sabatinovka-Coslogeni’, in Das Karpatenbecken und die Osteuropäische steppe. (Prähistorische Archäologue ub Südosteuropa 12.) Munich: Südosteuropa-Gesellschaft und Verlag Marie Leidorf GmbH, 318–24. Gershkovich, Y.P., 1999. Studien zur spätbronzezeitlichen Sabatinovka-Kultur am unteren Dnepr und an der Westküste des Azov‘schen Meers. (Archäologie in Eurasien 7.) Berlin: Verlag Marie Leidorf GmbH. Gershkovich, Y.P., V.I. Klochko & G.L. Evdokimov, 1987. Novokievskaya liteinaya masterskaya i problemy datirovaniya sabatinovskikh pamyatnikov Nizhnego Podneprovya. Sovetskaya Arkheologiya 2, 142–58. Klyushentsev, V.N., 1976. Novye pamyatniki epokhi bronzy Nizhnego Pobuzhya, in Otkrutiya Molodukh Arkheologov Ukrainy, ed. V.D. Baran. Kiev: Naukova dumka, 15–16.

help in translating my paper. Many thanks to Prof. C. Renfrew and Dr M. Levine for inviting me to the Symposium ‘The Late Prehistoric Exploitation of the Eurasian Steppe’. References Antipina, E.E., 1997. Metodu rekonstrukcii osobennostei skotovodstva na yuge Vostochnoi Evropu v epokhu bronzy. Rossiyskaya Arkheologiya 3, 20–32. Bader, N.O., 1989. Drevnegshie Zemledelcu Severnoi Mesopotamii. Moscow: Nauka. Bibikov, S.N., 1965. Khozyaistvenno-ekonomicheskii kompleks razvitovo Tripolya. Sovetskaya Arkheologiya 1, 48–62. Boc&karev, V.S. & A.M. Leskov, 1980. Jung und spätebronzezeitliche Gußformen im nördlichen Schwarzmeergebiet. (Prähistorische Bronzefunde 19.) Munich/ Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag Stuttgart. Bodyanskii, O.V., 1952. Arkheologichni doslidzhennia v mezhakh porozhistoi chastyni Dnipra v 1947–48 rr. Arkheologichni Pamyatki 4, 165–76. Bouzek, J., 1982. Climatic changes and Central European prehistory, in Climatic Change in Later Prehistory, ed. A.F. Harding. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 179–91. Bunyatyan, E.P., 1997. Drevneishie Skotovodu Ukrainskikh Stepei. Nikolaev. Bunyatyan, K.P., 1994. Klasifikaciya ta tipologiya skotarstva, in Teoriya ta Praktika Arkheologichnykh Doslidzhen, ed. V.F. Gening. Kiev: Naukova dumka, 73–101. Cers&kovic&, see Gershkovich. Chernyakov, I.T., 1983. Drevneishie metallicheskie psalii pozdnebronzovogo veka v Severnom Prichernomore, in Materialy po Arkheologii Severnogo Prichernomorya, ed. G.A. Dzis-Rajko. Kiev: Naukova dumka, 32–47. Chernyakov, I.T., 1985. Severo-Zapadnoe Prichernomore vo Vtoroi Polovine II tus.do n.e. Kiev: Naukova dumka. Chernykh, E.N., 1976. Drevnyaya Metalloobrabotka na YugoZapade SSSR. Moscow: Nauka. Chernykh, E.N., E.Y. Lebedeva & S.V. Kuzminykh, 1997. K probleme istokov zemledeliya v Vostochnoi Evrope, in Klyushentsev (ed.) 1997b, 27–8. Chernykh, E.N., E.E. Antipina & E.Y. Lebedeva, 1998. Productionsformen der Urgesellschaft in den Steppen Osteuropas (Ackerbau, Viehzucht, Erzgewinnung und Verhüttung), in Das Karpatenbecken und die Osteuropäische steppe. (Prähistorische Archäologie in Südosteuropa 12.) München: Südosteuropa-Gesellschaft und Verlag Marie Leidorf GmbH, 234–50. Clark, G., 1953. Doistoricheskaya Evropa (Economcheskii Ocherk). Moscow: Inostrannaya literatura. Clark, G., 1962. Prehistoric England. London: B.T. Batsford Ltd. Dobrovolskii, A.V., 1952. Arkheologicheskie issledovaniya na territorii stroitelstva Kakhovskoi GES v 1951 godu. Kratkie Soobshcheniya Instituta Arkheologii AN USSR 1, 8–14.

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Klyushentsev, V.N., 1997a. Sabatinovskaya kultura v Pobuzhe (poseleniya i zhilishcha), in Klyushentsev (ed.) 1997b, 49–53. Klyushentsev, V.N. (ed.), 1997b. Sabatinovskaya i Srubnaya Kultury: Problemy Vzaimosvyazei Vostoka i Zapada v Epokhy Pozdnei Bronzy. Kiev: Nikolaev-Yuzhnuukrainsk. Kosarev, M.F., 1984. Zapadnaya Sibir v Drevnosti. Moscow: Nauka. Kremenetski, K.V., 1991. Paleoekologiya Drevneishih Zemledelcev i Skotovodov Russkoi Ravniny. Moscow: Nauka. Krivtsova-Grakova, O.A., 1955. Stepnoe Povolzhe i Prichernomore v Epokhu Pozdnei Bronzy. Moscow: Izd-vo AN SSSR (MIA-46). Lázslo, A., 1993. Dates radiocarbone et chronologie de la civilisation Nova-Sabatinovka-Coslogeni. Culture et civilisation au Bas Danube 10, 23–42. Leskov, A.M., 1970. Kirovskoe poselenie, in Drevnosti Vostochnogo Kryma, ed. A.M. Leskov. Kiev: Naukova dumka, 7–59. Leskov, A.M., 1981. Jung-spätbronzezeitliche Depotfunde im nördlichen Schwarzmeergebiet (Depots mit einheimischen Formen). (Prähistorische Bronzefunde 20.) Munich/ Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag Stuttgart. Magomedov, B.V., 1987. Chernyakhovskaya Kultura SeveroZapadnogo Prichernomorya. Kiev: Naukova dumka. Masson, V.M., 1976. Ekonomika i Socialnyi Stroi Drevnikh Obshchestv (v Svete Dannykh Arkheologii). Leningrad: Nauka. Masson, V.M., 1982. Drevneiskhii Blizhnii Vostok: Istoriya Zemledelchesko-skotovodcheskoi Ekonomiki, v Arkheologiya Starogo i Novogo Sveta. Moscow: Nauka, 58– 67. Obydennov, M.F. & G.T Obydennova, 1992. SeveroVostochnaya Periferiya Srubnoi Kulturno-istoricheskoi Obshchnosti. Samara: Samarskii Universitet. Otroshchenko, V.V., 1975. Novyi Kurgannyi Mogilnik Belozerskogo Vremeni, v Skifskii Mir. Kiev: Naukova dumka. Pashkevich, G.A., 1991. Paleoetnobotanicheskie Nahodki na Territorii Ukrainy (Neolit–Bronza). Kiev: Institut Arkheologii. Pashkevich, G.A., 1997. Zemledelie y plemen Sabatinovskoi

kultury po dannym paleoetnobotanicheskikh issledovanii, in Klyushentsev (ed.) 1997b, 59–61. Pogrebova, N.N., 1960. Peresadovskoe poselenie na Ingule. Sovetskaya Arkheologiya 4, 76–90. Rybolova, V.D., 1961. O svyazyakh Pravoberezhnoi lesostepnoi Ukrainy s Centralnoi Evropoi v epokhu bronzy i rannego zheleza, in Issledovaniya po Arkheologii SSSR, ed. M.I. Artamonov. Leningrad: Nauka, 80–95. Sharafutdinova, I.N., 1968. K voprosu o Sabatinovskoi kulture. Sovetskaya Arkheologiya 3, 16–34. Sharafutdinova, I.N., 1982. Stepnoe Podneprove v Epokhu Pozdnei Bronzy. Kiev: Naukova dumka. Sharafutdinova, I.N. & A.M. Balushkin, 1997. Poselenie Vinogradnyi Sad i problemy Sabatinovskoi kultury, in Klyushentsev (ed.) 1997b, 35–7. Spiridinova, E.A., 1991. Evolyutsiya Rastitelnogo Pokrova Basseina Dona v Verhnem Pleistocene–Golocene. Moscow: Nauka. Shishkin, K.V., 1964. Pro vykorystannya aerofotozomki v arkheologii. Akrheologiya 17, 199–204. Tsalkin, V.I., 1966. Drevnee Zhivotnovodstvo Plemen Vostochnoi Evropy i Srednei Azii. Moscow: Nauka. Tsalkin, V.I., 1972. Domashnie zhivotnye Vostochnoi Evropy v epokhu pozdnei bronzy, in Byulleten MOIP. (Otdel Biologicheskii 77/1.) Moscow: Nauka, 46–65. Vanchugov, V.P., 1990. Belozerskie Pamyatniki v SeveroZapadnom Prichernomore (Problema Formirovaniya Belozerskoi Kultury). Kiev: Nauka. Ward, W.A. & M.S. Joukovsky, 1989. The Crisis Years: the 12th Century BC (from Beyond the Danube to the Tigris). Kendall: Hunt Publishing Company. Zhuravlev, O.P., 1990. Arkheozoologicheskie issledovaniya poseleniya Bugske II Nikolaevskoi oblasti, in Problemy Izucheniya Katakombnoi Kulturno-istoricheskoi Oblasti, ed. G.N. Toshchev. Zaporezhe: Komunar, 16–18. Zhuravlev, O.P., 1991. Zhivotnovodstvo i ohota u plemen epokhi bronzy na territorii Severnogo Prichernomorya i Priazovya, in Drevneishie Obshchnesti Zemledelcev i Skotovodov Severnogo Prichernomorya (IV tus. do n.e.–V v. n.e.), ed. E.V. Yarovoi. Kiev: Ramus AN USSR, 137–8.

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Chapter 21 The Economic Peculiarities of the Srubnaya Cultural-historical Entity Vitaliy V. Otroshchenko T

he Srubnaya cultural-historical entity (17th–13th century BC) was one of the most grandiose phenomena of the Bronze Age of Eastern Europe. It occupies four natural geographic zones, namely the desert, semi-desert, steppe and forest-steppe. The southern limit of the geographic range of the Srubnaya entity crosses the foot-hills of the Crimea, Caucasus and Kopet-Dag. The eastern border lies in the area between the Aral and Caspian Seas, i.e. along the rivers Emba and Ilek and the upper Ural river. To the northeast the border is defined by of the course of the Belaya and Kama rivers, and to the North by the natural boundary between wood and forest-steppe areas. Finally, to the West the border lies along the upper course of the river Seim, and then along the rivers Sula, Middle Dnepr and Ingulets (Fig. 21.1). The cultural area was restricted by diverse natural borders which could prove difficult to cross: mountains on the south, woods to the north, large rivers on the east (Ural) and west (Dnepr). The Srubnaya cultural-historical entity is regarded by the author as a complex social formation composed of the aggregation of two archaeological cultures, namely the closely intercommunicating Pokrovskaya and Berezhnovsko-Mayivskaya cultures (Otroshchenko 1994). The cultures of the Srubnaya entity also differ in terms of their position in different natural geographic zones. Sites attributable to the Pokrovskaya Srubnaya culture (17th–15th century BC) occurred in the forest-steppe and the northern regions of the steppe where there is significant forest cover. Sites of the Berezhnovsko-Mayivskaya Srubnaya culture (15th–13th century BC) mainly occupy the steppes but appear to penetrate, seasonally, the semi-desert and desert zones. The origins of the Srubnaya entity cultures are connected with military and technological impulses which derived from the South Ural or Volga–Ural

(accordingly to V.S. Bochkarev 1991) centre of culturogenesis and spread in a westerly direction (Otroshchenko 1996). The Sintashta archaeological culture, represented by fortified settlements, burials of charioteers in kurgan cemeteries and wide-scale copper mining (Gening et al. 1992; Arkaim 1995), represents the material embodiment of the Southern Ural centre of culturogenesis. The Sintashta and Arkaim phenomenon (18th–17th century BC) appear to be the most powerful cultural manifestation of the Bronze Age in the Eurasian steppe and forest-steppe. Eastward and southward from the Urals this centre of culturogenesis stimulates the rise and development of the Petrovskaya, Alakul, and Fedorovskaya cultures of the Andronovo entity (Zdanovich 1988; E. Kuzmina 1994). Westwards from the Ural ridge influences of this centre create conditions which promote the formation of the Srubnaya entity cultures. The Sintashta culture spread out westwards from the Urals into forest-steppe areas and is indicated by kurgan burial grounds of warrior-charioteers in the Bashkortostan and Samara, Ulyanovsk, Tambov, Lipetsk and Voronezh regions of Russia (Otroshchenko 1997). The observed line of graves of warrior-charioteers, in large single crypts with four chambers (more than thirty sites), marks the decline of Middle Bronze Age culture development in the forest steppe between the Ural and Don and marks the beginning of the Late Bronze Age. Potapovka records appeared between the Volga and Ural (Vasilev et al. 1994) and Don–Volga Abashevo culture (Pryakhin 1980), serving as a substrate for the further rise of the Pokrovskaya Srubnaya culture. Westward and southward from the region of the Middle Don, the Mnogovalikova pottery culture (Babino-3) was formed on the base of the Catacomb cultures under the influence of battle chariot cultures (Sintashta, Potapovka, Don–Volga Abashevo) 319

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Figure 21.1. Diffusion of cultures of Srubnaya entity: 1) Pokrovskaya Srubnaya culture; 2) Berezhnovsko-Mayivskaya Srubnaya culture; 3) South Ural centre of culture genesis (the ‘Country of Towns’); 4) ‘Caspian Bridge’ (by Galkin 1978); 5) mining-metallurgy centre of Srubnaya entity (1 - Kargalinskiy, 2 - Donetsk). quantity and quality of adornments. Essential distinctions were recorded in the sex-age composition of the dead, i.e. in the correlation of male/female and adult/infant burials. While the cemeteries of the Pokrovskaya culture exhibit approximate equivalence of male and female, adult and child burials, in the case of the Berezhnovsko-Mayivskaya culture we see three times as many burials of male versus females and adults versus infants. The large number of burials involved in statistical calculations means that we should not regard these differences as random. The territory of the Pokrovskaya culture embraces the forest steppe and northern steppe areas of the present-day Russian Federation (namely: the Voronezh, Lipetsk, Tambov, Penza, Ulyanovsk, Samara, Saratov and Orenburg regions) and the forest steppe areas of part of the Russian autonomous republics (e.g. Mordova, Chuvash, Tatar, Bashkir).

(Bratchenko 1977; 1985; Savva 1992). Penetration by groups of Pokrovskaya Srubnaya culture people into the Eastern and Central areas of the Mnogovalikova pottery (Babine-3) culture resulted in the appearance of the Berezhnovsko-Mayivskaya Srubnaya culture in the steppe zone between the Volga and Dnepr. An attempt to elucidate events related to the westward spread of the Sintashta culture and the formation of the Srubnaya entity has been undertaken by Slovak archaeologists (Lichardus & Vladar 1996). Cultural differences within the Srubnaya entity were recognized as a result of analysis of c. 8000 burials from all parts of the Srubnaya entity area. Distinctions came to light in the planning of cemeteries, burial mound construction, types of funeral buildings, orientation of the dead, quantity and peculiarities of pottery, and other components of accompanying assemblages, in particular — in the 320

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Two periods may be recognized in the development of the Pokrovskaya Srubnaya culture in these regions (Fig. 21.2). At the same time the BerezhnovskoMayivskaya culture is represented by a small number of sites located mainly in the southern part of the Voronezh region. The territory of the Berezhnovsko-Mayivskaya culture includes the steppe areas of the Ukraine (Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhya, Kherson, Donetsk, Lugansk regions), the southern part of Left Bank forest steppe (Poltava and Kharkiv regions of the Ukraine and Belgorod region of Russia), and the Rostov and Volgograd steppe regions of Russia. The sites of this culture, which are significantly fewer in number, are reported also in more southern areas: the steppe region of the Crimea, the Kuban area, the Stavropol and Astrakhan regions of Russia, Kalmykia, Western Kazakhstan and Western Turkmenistan. In general, these regions are, geographically, under-populated semi-desert and desert zones. Two periods may also be recognized in the development of the Berezhnovsko-Mayivskaya Srubnaya culture (Fig. 21.3). The zone of active interaction of the Srubnaya entity cultures includes the eastern part of the Lugansk region, the northern territories of the Rostov and Volgograd regions and the Ural domain of Kazakhstan. Working out the cultural differentiation of sites in these regions was an especially complex task although it was mainly possible and completed as a result of the available funerary evidence. Although it is hardly right to take into account present political boundaries when mapping Bronze Age sites, it should be noted that in total 93.7 per cent of Pokrovskaya culture burials are concentrated in Russia, while only 5.2 per cent are reported from the Ukraine, the total number of analyzed burials being 3829. The opposite is the case for BerezhnovskoMayivskaya culture burials, of which 24 per cent are known in Russia and 75.5 per cent in Ukraine (total 4079 burials). These figures clearly illustrate the fact that the Don–Volga forest steppe region served as the primary area for the Pokrovskaya culture, while the Dnepr–Donetsk steppe — including the Lower Don — was the principal area of the BerezhnovskoMayivskaya culture. Thus far the entity traditionally termed ‘Srubnaya’ has been discussed as a whole. It might instead be appropriate to evaluate the frequencies of timber graves and cist constructions for each culture of this entity. One would expect that the forest-steppe zone — taking into account the natural wood resources available — would provide more timber

graves than would the steppe zone, and vice versa. The Pokrovskaya culture cemeteries, however, provide only 49 such constructions, while the Berezhnovsko-Mayivskaya culture yields 184 timber graves, i.e. three times more than the former, although the size of the analyzed series of burial monuments is approximately the same. Another type of funerary construction — semantically identical to the timber graves — is the stone cist which is represented almost exclusively in burial grounds of the Berezhnovsko-Mayivskaya culture in the Ukraine. It should be stressed that the frequency of cist burials of the Berezhnovsko-Mayivskaya culture (c. 12 per cent) is in accordance with the rate of élite burials (8 to 16 per cent). For the Pokrovskaya culture such agreement is not confirmed, cists and burials of élite forming 2 and 12–16 per cent (Otroshchenko 1989) respectively. Evidently, the preparation of wooden and stone funeral cists was primarily destined for the élite of Berezhnovsko-Mayivskaya culture society. For the Pokrovskaya Srubnaya culture timber graves remained the unique type of funerary construction. This type of construction represents the exception rather than the rule of burial in rectangular pits. Considering the history of the study of Srubnaya sites, one can definitely state that the term ‘Srubnaya culture’ appears only as the result of excavations in the Ukraine, where a considerable number of ‘timbers’ (srubs), discovered by V.A. Gorodtsov promoted the idea of a distinct ‘Srubnaya’ people (Gorodtsov 1905; 1907). Among the economic activities practised by the population of the Srubnaya entity cultures mining, metallurgy and metal processing have been studied most intensively. Each of the cultures had its own metallurgical centre. The area of the Pokrovskaya culture was supplied by production from the Kargaly metallurgical centre located in the South Ural region, 50 km northeast from Orenburg (Chernykh 1997, 74–81, fig. 28). The large and complex scale of the Kargaly mining system, where about one million tons of copper ore were obtained by Srubnaya miners, suggests that the large majority of men of the Srubnaya entity must have participated in obtaining this ore, its processing and transportation within the limits of the area (Gorbunov 1996, 16–17). The series of Pokrovskaya culture cemeteries, containing burials of primarily woman and children accompanied by a minimal number of men, have been excavated in the Volga–Ural area. V.S. Gorbunov’s explanation for the lack of men in the burials as a result of male employment in the mining-metallurgical sphere of the economy might principally be taken in consid321

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Figure 21.2. (On left) Periods of development of Pokrovskaya Srubnaya culture. First period (1–50): 1, 6, 8 & 18) Pesochnoye, Samara region, barrow 7, burial 1 (by Zudina & Skarbovenko 1985); 2–4) Borodaevka-2, Saratov region, barrow 1, burial 1 (by Pamaytniki Srubnoy kulturi 1993); 5) Krutenkiy single barrow, Samara region, credence (by Michaylova & Kuzmina 1999); 7) Baranovka-1, Volgograd region, barrow 11, burial 2 (by Sergatskov 1992); 9, 17, 27, 35, 40 & 49) Krutenkiy single barrow, burial 3; 10) Bikovo-1, Volgograd region, barrow 1, burial 5 (by Smirnov 1960); 11) Krutenkiy single barrow, plane; 12, 13, 16, 19, 20 & 25) Berezovka, Saratov region, barrow 3, burial 2 (by Dremov 1996); 14, 39, 45 & 46) Ternovka, Saratov region, barrow 4, burial 21 (by Pamyatniki Srubnoy kulturi 1993); 15) Kanadey-3, Samara region, barrow 1, burial 3 (by Bagautdinov 1991); 21, 30–32 (tail unit of arrows)) Novopavlovka, Samara region, barrow 4, burial 1 (by Skarbovenko 1981); 22, 23 & 28) Oroshaemiy, Saratov region, barrow 1, burial 1 (by Pamyatniki Srubnoy kulturi 1993); 24 & 29) Kanadey-3, barrow 1, burial 5; 26) Usatovo, Saratov region, barrow G-5, burial 8 (by Sinitsin 1947); 30–32 (arrowheads) & 34) Novopavlovka, barrow 5, burial 1; 33, 47 & 48) Krutenkiy single barrow, burial 4; 36) Kanadey-3, barrow 1, plane; 37) Solnechniy-1, Samara region, barrow 2, burial 1 (by Pestrikova 1977); 38) Kanadey, single barrow, burial 3; Kochetnoye, Saratov region, barrow 7, barial 1 (by Yudin 1992); 42) Kanadey-5, barrow 2, burial 9; 43) Kanadey-3, barrow 1, burial 1; 44) Kanadey-3, barrow 1, burial 4; 50) Yablonovka, Saratov region, barrow 1, burial 1 (by Pamyatniki Srubnoy kulturi 1993).Second period (51–97): 51) Yagodnoye, Samara region, barrow 5, plane (by Merpert 1954); 52, 53, 65 & 70) Krasnoselka, Samara region, barrow 1, burial 9 (by Ivanov & Kolev 1993); 54) Ostrogozsk, Voronezh region (by Korenevskiy 1983); 55, 56, 58, 59 & 71) Noviye Yabalakli, Bashkir autonomy, barrow 2, burial 3 (by Gorbunov 1977); 57 & 72) Noviye Yabalakli, barrow 2, burial 1; 60 & 61) Murmanskiy-1, Saratov region, barrow 1, burial 2 (by Lopatin & Malov 1988); 63, 64, 75, 78, 81–91) Osinovskiy-2, Samara region, barrow 18, burial 1 (by Kolev & Mishkin 1999); 66 & 68) Luzanovka, Samara region, barrow 11, burial 3 (by Vasilev & Pyatich 1976); 67, 72, 73 & 79) Stariye Yabalakli, Bashkir autonomy, barrow 106, burial 9 (by Gorbunov & Morozov 1991); 69) Chetirovka, Samara region, barrow 1, burial 1 (by Vasilev & Pyatich 1976); 74) Luzanovka, barrow 15, burial 7; 76) Savelevskiy, Rostov region, barrow 9, burial 2 (Rogudeev 1997); 77 & 92) Kapitanova I, Lugansk region, settlement (by Brovender & Otroshchenko 1996); Khryashchevka, Samara region, barrow 4, plane (by Merpert 1954); 93) Lukyanovka, Belgorod region, settlement (by Kachalova 1974); 94) Podstepkinskiy-3, Samara region, barrow 1, burial 13 (by Zudina 1981); 95) Kamennyi Vrag, Samara region, barrow 2, burial 25 (by Vasilev & Pyatich 1976); 96) Perelyubskiy hoard, Saratov region (by Pamyatniki Srubnoy kulturi 1993); 97) Zolotaya Niva-2, Samara region, barrow 1, burial 16 (by Zudina 1981). 1, 2, 12, 22, 37, 41, 52, 66, 79, 82) plans of burials; 3–6, 13–15, 23, 24, 28, 29, 38, 42–4, 53, 67–9, 72–4, 83–90) pottery; 7, 8, 16, 17, 33, 49, 50, 54, 57, 59, 70, 71, 75, 76, 78, 91, 94 & 97) bronze; 9 & 95) stone; 11, 36, 51 & 80) plans of barials; 10) stone, wood, bone; 18–21, 26, 27, 30, 31, 34, 35, 40, 77, 81 & 92) bone; 25) bronze; 25) bronze, wood; 32) flint, bone; 60–62) bronze, gold; 63 & 64) bone, bronze; 65 & 93) bone, wood. Metallurgists and blacksmiths from different centres possessed special technology for manufacturing bronze products, differing relatively clearly within the frameworks of the Srubnaya tradition. This fact serves as an additional argument when precisely distinguishing between two cultures of the Srubnaya entity. As is traditionally believed, the Srubnaya entity is characterized by a settled nomadic-agricultural type of economy. This assumption, however, has recently been revised somewhat. An intensive search for traces of agricultural activity (grains) was conducted by the Laboratory of the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1989 and 1990. The project involves thirty-four — primarily Srubnaya entity — settlements, spread throughout the wide area from the Dnepr to the Trans-Urals (Chernykh et al. 1998, 234–40). An unexpected result of this project was the lack of grains on settlements regarded by me as belonging to the

eration. A thorough study of economic activity at sites of the Pokrovskaya culture in the Voronezh micro-region leads to the conclusion that one in six settlements was engaged in metallurgy and metal processing (Pryakhin & Savrasov 1996, 39–43, fig. 2). It should also be stressed that this micro-region is situated a long way from the ancient mines. The population of the Berezhnovsko-Mayivskaya culture appears to have been the consumer of the Donetsk mountain-metallurgical centre. Ancient mines have been examined in the Bakhmut basin of the Donetsk Ridge eastward from Artemovsk (Bakhmut); products of Loboiki type were prepared with Donetsk ore (Tatarinov 1993), the products made by the Loboiki metallurgists being widely diffused over the Berezhnovsko-Mayivskaya culture territory (Klochko 1998, 71–3, fig. 1). Signs of metal processing are seen at 13 of the 29 excavated settlements in the middle course of the Severskii Donets river (Brovender 1997, 6–11, map). 323

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Figure 21.3. Periods of development of the Berezhnovsko-Mayivskaya Srubnaya culture. First period (1–50): 1) Lugovoe in Crimea, barrows 1–7 (by Koltuchov et al. 1994); 2–4) Blagivka, Lugansk region, barrow 2, burial 1 (by Posrednikov & Kravets 1992); 5) Stila, Donetsk region, barrow 1, burial 5 (by Litvinenko 1999); 6) Dmuhaylivka-12, Dnipropetrovsk region, barrow 2 (Kovaleva et al. 1981); 7 & 18) Zaplavka-1, Dnipropetrovsk region, barrow 2, burial 15 (by Kovaleva et al. 1983); 8) Verhnya Mayivka-5, barrow 2, burial 1 (by Kovalyova & Volkoboy 1976); 9 & 45) Verhnya Mayivka-2, barrow 5, burial 1; 10–17, 24) Velika Bilozerka, Zaporizzya region, barrow 12, burial 2; 19) Verhnya Mayivka-2, barrow 2, burial 3; 20) Vovnigi, Dnipropetrovsk region, settlement (by Sharafutdinova 1982); 21) Bashmachka, Dnipropetrovsk region, barrow 10 (by Volkoboy et al. 1981); 22 & 27) Bashmachka, barrow 10, burial 4; 23 & 39) Bashmachka, barrow 10, burial 6; 25) Bashmachka, barrow 10, burial 1; 28–9) Verhnya Mayivka-6, barrow 1, burial 1; 30) Novopodkryadg-8, Dnipropetrovsk region, barrow 2, burial 2 (by Kovaleva 1981); 31–7) Rusin Yar, Donetsk region, barrow 1, burial 1 (by Polidovich & Tsimidanov 1996); 38) Verchnya Mayivka-3, barrow 5, burial 1; 40) Bashmachka, barrow 10, burial 3; 41–3) Oktyabrske, Crimea, barrow 1, burial 1 (by Kisliy 1993); 44) Verchnya Mayivka-5, barrow 3, burial 1; 46) Verchnya Mayivka-2, barrow 1, burial 1; 47) Mikolayiv (by KrivtsovaGrakova 1955); 48) Bezymennoe, Donetsk region, barrow 4, burial 2 (by Litvinenko 1999); 49) Terni, Dnipropetrovsk region, barrow 2, burial 2 (Kovalyova et al. 1987); 50) Yuvilane, Kcherson region, barrow 1, burial 11 (by Gershkovich & Evdokimov 1982). Second period (51–101): 51–55 & 66) Verchnya Mayivka, barrow 3, burial 1 (by Volkoboy 1980); 56) Verchnya Mayivka-2, barrow 5, burial 1 (by Kovalyova & Volkoboy 1976); 57) Bezymennoe-2, settlement (by Gorbov & Mimochod 1999); 58–60 & 63) Minkivka, Donetsk region, barrow 6, burial 1(by Kravets & Posrednikov 1990); 61 & 62) Zapovitne, Zaporizzya region barrow 17, burial 2; 64, 65, 72–8) Komsomolskoe, burial (by Boroffka & Sava 1998); 67–9) Mala Bilozerka, Zaporizzya region, barrow 1, burial; 70 & 83) Shirokaya Balka 2, settlement (by Gorbov & Mimochod 1999); 71 & 98) Kabakovskiy hoard, Poltava region (by Cherednichenko 1986); 79–82) Lugovoe, barrow 2, burial 1; 84 & 85) Pavlivka, Dnipropetrovsk region, barrow 3, burial 5 (by Marina et al. 1988); 86–8) Visoke, Zaporizzya region, barrow 5, burial; 89, 90 & 100) Pavlivka, barrow 1, burial 5; 91 & 92) Novokamyanka, Kcherson region, barrow 3, burial 5 (by Gening & Kubishev 1990); 93–7) Ternove, Donetsk region, barrow 1, burial 1 (by Litvinenko & Kosikov 1994); 99) Bogdanivka-2, Dnipropetrovsk region, barrow 5, burial 8 (by Marina et al. 1988); 101) Aktau, Western Kazakhstan region, barrow 1, burial 1 (by Balandina & Astafev 1996). 1) plan of barrows group; 2, 7, 17, 22, 23, 32, 42, 52, 67, 72, 80, 84, 86 & 94) plans of burials; 3, 8, 9, 18, 19, 25–7, 33–5, 38–40, 43–6, 53–9, 68, 70, 81, 83, 85, 87, 89–91, 95 & 99) ceramics; 4, 16, 20, 30, 37, 47, 48, 63, 71, 73, 74, 77, 78, 88, 92 & 97) bronze; 5, 31, 64, 75, 76, 82, 96 & 101) stone; 10–15, 28, 29, 61, 62, 66, 69) bronze, wood; 36) wood; 49 & 100) bone; 60) flint; 65) gold. culture tribes can be assumed. The conclusion about the nomadic orientation of the economy of the Pokrovskaya Srubnaya culture and the nomadic-agricultural orientation of the economy of the Berezhnovsko-Mayivskaya Srubnaya is partly confirmed by results of studying the contents of vessels discovered in burials of the Srubnaya entity. Studying a concentration of mobile phosphorus elements in these vessels, V.A. Demkin worked out methods for revealing their primary contents. In this study it is possible to determine the presence of water, clear meat soup and ‘porridge’ i.e. vegetable food. Inspection of the contents of 61 vessels shows that the Pokrovskaya Srubnaya culture area (Middle Volga, Ural area) provides only evidence of water and clear meat soup. On the other hand, all three, including ‘porridge’, are reported for the Berezhnovsko-Mayivskaya Srubnaya culture zone (Lower Volga in frames of Volgograd region) (Demkin & Demkina 1999, 28–34, table 5–7). Cattle-breeding remained the basic form of economic activity of the East European population dur-

Pokrovskaya Srubnaya culture, which is why E.N. Chernykh now describes the Srubnaya culture as practising ‘settled cattle breeding’ (Chernykh 1997, 79). Such a determination, however, is correct only in respect to the Pokrovskaya Srubnaya culture. Remains of domestic cereals were discovered in materials from two settlements attributed to the Berezhnovsko-Mayivskaya culture and located in the Ukraine, namely Bezymennoe 1 and Shirokaya Balka in the Donetsk region and Pavlograd in the Dnepropetrovsk region (Chernykh et al. 1998, 238, tab. 1); Veseloe-1 and 1 Maya in Kcharkiv region (Janushevich 1986, 36–7, tab. 8). A relatively wide spectrum of domestic cereals and charred grains of millet was discovered at the site of Usovo Ozero in the Donetsk region (Pashkevich 1991, 21). Therefore, there is direct evidence for Berezhnovsko-Mayivskaya familiarity with low terrace agriculture which can be compared with agriculture as practised by the Sabatinovskaya culture population (Pashkevich 1997, 59–61). A settled nomadic-agricultural character of the economy of the Berezhnovsko-Mayivskaya 325

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ing the Late Bronze Age. The presence of large quantities of bones domestic animals in mining zones of both cultures points to the practice of exchanging ore and copper blanks for cattle (Chernykh 1997, 69– 71, fig. 29; 30; Otroshchenko et al. 1997, 100–102, fig. 6). A meat-dairy emphasis in stock-breeding developed and cattle-breeding dominated. Pig breeding is slightly more important in the forest-steppe zone. Pig occupied third place in herd composition after large and small cattle. At the same time, in the steppe zone, as is revealed by the data from sites of the Berezhnovsko-Mayivskaya culture, the third place in herd composition was occupied by horse, whilst pig was driven back into fourth place (Zhuravlev 1997, 15–18). The role of mobile sheepbreeding increases significantly on the Lower Don and the territories to the south and east, i.e. among the less than numerous inhabitants of the semideserts and deserts (Zhuravlev 1997, 17). Climatic factors played a significant role in the development of a stock-breeding economy. In the area of the Pokrovskaya Srubnaya culture snow cover remained for four to five months each year, while in the area of the Berezhnovsko-Mayivskaya culture this period was restricted to one to three months. These data are confirmed by both modern observations and economic calendars of the Srubnaya entity (Safonov 1996, 66–70, fig. 1; 2). Severe and longlasting winters dictate the need for stall maintenance for cattle where the Pokrovskaya culture population is concerned. On the other hand, the southern neighbours of the latter might be able to practise yearround pasturing of animals, since the latter might be able to obtain the required vegetation from under the lighter snow cover. Meat food does not guarantee essential additional produce even under the terms of developed cattle-breeding. Only 2 to 15 per cent of burials assigned to the cultures of the Srubnaya entity yield bones of domestic animals. As a rule these are élite burials. Evidently, cattle were owned and ownership was segregated (shared by families); this is reflected in the practice of animal offerings and meat food found in funeral rituals (Bunyatyan & Otroshchenko 1995). Bone and leather processing/manufacturing is tightly associated with stock-raising. The fact that these kinds of economic activity are noticeably more representative of the Berezhnovsko-Mayivskaya culture can be argued based on the wide assortment and frequency of artefacts (Usachuk 1994, 184–6). Hence, distinguishing two archaeological cultures within the framework of the Srubnaya entity

allows us to define more clearly the specifics of the economic system of the regions concerned, the specifics of the system being determined not only by the natural climatic conditions, but also by the cultural originality of the populations concerned. Summary Certain aspects of the development of the economy of populations of the Pokrovskaya and Berezhnovsko-Mayivskaya cultures of the Srubnaya entity are discussed in this paper. These cultures developed in adjacent but geographically and climatically different regions, resulting in diverse life conditions and economic activities. The cattle-breeding orientation of the economy is revealed for the population of the Pokrovskaya Srubnaya culture which occupied the forest-steppe zone. The Berezhnovsko-Mayivskaya Srubnaya culture population spread across the steppes and semi-deserts zones and engaged in a cattle-breeding/agricultural economy. Bearers of the Srubnaya entity cultures exploited raw materials and finished products from different metallurgialc centres, namely Kargaly (Pokrovskaya culture), and Donetsk (Berezhnovsko-Mayivskaya culture) ones. Acknowledgements This paper was written after receiving an invitation to the seminar ‘Late Prehistoric Exploitation of the Eurasian Steppe’ at Cambridge University. My thanks to Professor Colin Renfrew, Dr Marsha Levine and Dr Katie Boyle for their inspiration, patience and preparation of the seminar and Dr G. Pashkevich for her consultation. References Arkaim, 1995. Arkaim: Issledovaniya. Poiski. Otkrytiya, ed. G.B. Zdanovich. Chelyabinsk: Chelyabinskii Universitet. Bochkarev, V.S., 1991. Volgo-Uralskii ochag kulturogeneza epokhi pozdnei bronzy, in Sociogenez i Kulturogenez v Istoricheskom Aspekte, ed. V.M. Masson. St Petersburg: Institute istorii materialnoi kulturu RAN, 24–7. Boroffka, N. & E. Sava, 1998. Zu den steinernen ‘Zeptern/ Stössel-Zeptern’, ‘Miniatursäulen’ und ‘Phalli’ der Bronzezeit Eurasiens. Archäeologische Mitteilungen aus Iran und Turan 30, 17–113. Bratchenko, S.N., 1977. K voprosu o slozhenii babinskoi kultury (mnogovalikovoi keramiki), in Vilnyanskie Kurgany v Dneprovskom Nadporozhie, ed. D.Y. Telegin. Kiev: Naukova dumka, 21–42. Bratchenko, S.N., 1985. Kultura mnogovalikovoi keramiki, in Arkheologiya Ukrainskoi SSR v Trekh Tomakh, vol.

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Tatarinov, S.I., 1993. Drevniy Metall Vostochnoi Ukrainy. Artemovsk: Gortipografiya. Usachuk, A.N., 1994. K voprosu o razlichii Srubnogo i Sabatinovskogo kostoreznogo proizvodstva, in Problemy Skifo-Sarmatskoi Arkheologii Severnogo Prichernomoria, vol. 2, ed. G.N. Toshchev. Zaporozhe: Zaporozhskii Universitet, 184–6. Vasilev, I.B., P.F. Kuznetsov & A.P. Semenova, 1994. Potapovskiy Kurgannyy Mogilnik Indoiranskikh Plemen na Volge. Samara: Samarskii Universitet. Yanushevich, Z.V., 1986. Kulturnie Rasteniya Severnogo

Prichernomorya: Paleoetnobotanicheskie Issledovania. Kishinev: Shtiintsa. Zdanovich, G.B., 1988. Bronzovyi vek Uralo-Kazakhstanskikh Stepei. Sverdlovsk: Uralskii Universitet. Zhuravlev, O.P., 1997. Zhivotnovodstvo i okhota u plemen srubnoy kultury na Luganshchine, in Doba Bronzy Dono–Donetskogo Regionu (Materialy 3-go UkrainoRosiyskogo Poliovogo Arkheologichnogo Seminaru), eds. Y.M. Brovender, V.V. Otroshchenko & A.D. Pyrakhin. Kiev: Institute of Archaeology of NAN of Ukraine, 15–18.

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Chapter 22 Srubnaya Faunas and Beyond: a Critical Assessment of the Archaeozoological Information from the East European Steppe Arturo Morales Muñiz & Ekaterina Antipina Much has been written on the economy and settle-

there exist additional reasons which determine such a state of affairs. The Late Bronze Age (hereafter LBA) on the EES, the focus of our research, is another case in point. Thus, although a large sector of Russian literature considers the ‘economic model’ of EES tribes, including those from the forest-steppe, as a complex stockbreeding-agricultural subsistence strategy practised by sedentary peoples around their settlements (Kachalova 1974, 16–18; Berezanskaya 1990, 37–47; Kuzmina 1990, 83–5; Sinyuk 1996, 321), other authors variously have labelled this economy as ‘settled nomadic agriculture’, ‘nomadic-agricultural’, ‘settled cattle breeding’, ‘complex pastoral-agricultural’, etc. (Khazanov 1984; Chernykh 1997, 79; Otroshchenko 1999, 129). Recently, Renfrew (1999b, 133) stressed that ‘the whole notion of nomad pastoralism . . . is very much in need of reassessment’. If faunal analyses are to be of any use in the future for settling certain questions, such reassessment should be similarly extended to encompass many other notions, phenomena and data. In the present paper, an attempt has been made to build up a reliable and comparable faunal database from the so-called Srubnaya cultural-historical entity in order to infer the stockbreeding strategy of these people and help throw light on the nature of their settlement patterns on the EES. As work progressed, it became clear that not only were many other issues critical for our purposes but also that our archaeozoological evidence was painfully inadequate to accomplish the goals. Eventually, the work turned into an exploration of those faunal issues which archaeologists need to keep in mind when trying to answer questions about settlement practices in the past through the use of faunal information.

ment practices of the Eurasian steppe and foreststeppe peoples during prehistoric times (Andreeva 1984; Berezenskaya 1990; Chernykh 1994; 1997; Chernykh et al. 1997; 1998; Genito 1994; Hänsel & Machnik 1998; Harris 1996; Kachalova 1974; Kosintzev & Varov 1992; 1994; Kuzmina 1990; 1994; 1996; 1997a,b; Merpert & Pryakhin 1979; Pryakhin 1972; 1976; Renfrew 1996; 1999a; Sinyuk 1996). In almost all instances, archaeozoological data have been, if not pivotal, at least central to the debate. Most of these data have been made available through the long-term research of highly relevant specialists such as Tsalkin (1958; 1964; 1970; 1972a,b,c,d), Bibikova (1963; 1967; 1969; 1975; Bibikova & Sevcenko 1962) or, more recently, Zhuralev (1990; 1991; 1997; Zhuralev & Syceva 1989; Zhuralev & Okhrimenko 1994). Despite all this effort, we judge it strange that so little progress has ensued during the years since, except for the now discredited hypotheses concerning early local domestication of cattle and pig in the region of the Bug–Dnestr culture, on the Crimean Peninsula and in the North Pontic steppe regions, in the context of the emergence of a so-called ‘aceramic’ Neolithic (Danilenko 1969; Benecke 1993; 1994a; 1997), most of the questions which at present constitute the basis of intense debate are pretty much the same that were debated thirty or forty years ago. The debate surrounding the timing and putative domesticated nature of the horses from Dereivka, Botai and Vilovatovskaya could be taken as a paradigmatic case in point (Petrenko 1984; Anthony 1986; Anthony & Brown this volume; Levine 1990; 1996; 1999). We believe that, on top of conceptual limitations and the very complexities of the archaeological record in the East European Steppes (hereafter EES),

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ther not affecting everybody or movements occurring only during a particular time of the year). Trying to define intermediate situations between full nomadism and full sedentism with additional parameters (i.e. altitudinal vs. latitudinal displacements, seasonality, compactness of the travelling group, etc.) leads to a wealth of additional categories (i.e. transhumance, Middle East and Near East pastoralism, etc.) which, in the light of our paper’s aims, are not of concern. Before we shift to more biological matters, four points need to be clarified: 1. Any pastoral economy is historically an offshoot (i.e. a ‘knock-off effect’ to use Sherrat’s (1996) terminology) of farming since it was this economic system that made the main stocks available for pastoralists. As farming, nomadism constitutes an adaptation to a specific set of circumstances, both cultural and environmental. For this reason sedentism and nomadism are not alternatives. They could coexist, both temporally and geographically, and further complement each other. And although farming may indeed benefit from interchange with nomadic economies, its lifestyle may be maintained without those interchanges. When stockbreeding exists as the sole basis of the economy, it needs to be forever nomadic but when interchanges with permanentlysettled communities occur the possibility for nomadism evolving into intermediate, more complex, situations is a very real one. 2. As a corollary of the previous point, one needs to stress that the relationship between sedentary stockbreeding and sedentary life is not always a clear-cut one. Thus, although sedentary stockbreeding is linked with sedentary life and serves as an indicator of sedentary sites, sedentary life can occur in the absence of sedentary stockbreeding and sedentary sites may still be recognized in the absence of such stock. This second alternative might, in fact, better describe the situation recorded at some of the LBA sites we will refer to later. 3. Although certain features of settled life (pottery) do not seem to fit nomadic life, there are others (e.g. permanent buildings) which could equally well be associated with farmers and nomads. Therefore, these relationships may be complementary in some respects, or independent of each individual other, and thus are more complex than those exhibited by the domestic stock. One of the aims of our paper is, in fact, to explore those biological signatures that would allow one to dub a specific assemblage either ‘nomad’ or ‘sedentary’.

Methods: many in theory, few in practice We fully agree that ‘Archaeozoological data . . . has its limitations’ (Rassamakin 1999, 130) and since ‘the baseline is the evidence and how we interpret it’ (Levine 1999, 5) more often than not ‘Archaeozoological data often serve only as a background to the preconceptions of individual researchers’ (Rassamakin 1999, 130). As we will later see, the main limitation that one systematically encounters has to do with the partial nature of the available information which leads one into ambiguous territory where each specialist can ‘strait-jacket’ specific data into his/her theoretical framework without the possibility that others can prove him/her wrong. Given such a scenario, both the definitions one adopts, the materials one selects and the approaches one follows will dictate, to a large extent, the results which one will achieve. If we hope our study to be minimally refutable, we should start by defining what we mean when we use a specific term. Definitions and assumptions The two more relevant definitions in the context of this paper are those of ‘nomadism’ and ‘sedentism’. While many people may not agree, we will consider nomadic any stockbreeding practice which implies that an entire population is always on the move with its stock, much in the same way as Mongolian pastoral nomadism is carried out at present. The species involved could be horses or bovids (i.e. cattle, sheep or goat) or a combination of these. By sedentary we will only consider a population all of whose members stay at the same place throughout the year. Thus, there may be daily herd movements around a site but the herds return everyday to the settlement. Situations intermediate between nomadic and sedentary are much more difficult to characterize and thus different authors use different terminologies. Given the traces which these people leave on the archaeological record, we essentially agree with Khazanov (1984, 16) in that such intermediate situations, whether one distinguishes between semi-nomadic pastoralism (i.e. in which pastoralism is the predominant activity but agriculture is always there in a secondary and supplementary capacity) or semisedentary pastoralism (where agriculture plays the dominant role in the overall economic strategy) the key issues are: a) agriculture (nomadism being characterized by its total absence, even in a ‘supplementary capacity’ (Renfrew 1999b, 135); and b) sector of the population affected by movements and temporal duration of these movements (intermediate cases ei330

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As will be seen, straightforward clues are difficult to find (Bökönyi 1972; Rocek & Bar-Yosef 1998). 4. Finally, although many present-day situations constitute valid analogues of earlier ones, it is possible that certain living strategies existed in the past for which no equivalent appears at present or for which modern equivalents may actually prove to be poor analogues.

cies in nomad/semi-nomad assemblages could be expected to be higher than in sedentary faunal assemblages but nobody has come up with a specific frequency which could be properly labelled ‘high’ or ‘low’ as such. Similarly, some sedentary communities may raise horses for very specific reasons (i.e. for draught purposes) so that the putative correlation of high numbers of horses equals nomadism has not been satisfactorily established as yet. A final line of evidence, grounded in economic and ecological reasoning, suggests that a sedentary community should exhibit a higher diversity of domestic animals given that farming involves many animal-based tasks which nomadic life does not require. Restricting the diversity of available animals, on the other hand, often leads to an emphasis being laid on one or two species which come to monopolize an assemblage. For this reason, although, again, this is far from a mathematical rule, an analysis of diversity and dominance within an assemblage of domestic animals could provide clues as to the kind of life being carried out at a particular place (Magurran 1988; Table 22.1).

Archaeozoological signatures of settlement practices We believe that a key issue on the ongoing debate about the settled vs. nomadic nature of prehistoric people on the EES has to do with the very partial nature of the archaeozoological data brought into the discussion. It is for this reason that we would like to devote some time commenting on some theoretical aspects of this problem. Table 22.1 presents the main parameters which faunal analysts try to take into account when addressing the settled vs. non-settled character of a specific faunal assemblage (more detailed information is provided in general works such as those of Hesse & Wapnish 1985; Davis 1987; and Wing & Reitz 1998). All parameters merit some comment.

Composition of the stocks: Assuming that diminished mobility is associated with sedentism, the precise age composition of the stocks in an assemblage may provide far better clues for determining the sedentary/nomadic character of a specific stockbreeding practice than will the mere taxonomic composition of the stocks. Cohorts which exhibit restricted capacity for movement, as is the case of infantiles, juveniles and seniles, should not account for a significant portion of any nomadic stock. The dominance of prime adults and sub-adults, however, could equally well typify sedentary, nomadic and semi-nomadic practices for, in the case of farming economies, these cohorts are the ones fulfilling many important tasks (ploughing, transport, milk and wool production, etc.). Once again, this is by no means absolute and context does matter. In Mongolian camps after a critical winter, for example, one may find many bones of infantile and juvenile domestic ungulates, the main victims of extreme cold, which are systematically eaten by herders. Such a fact would automatically question the dichotomy specified in Table 22.1. Still, one hopes that such exceptional circumstances would average out in an archaeological sequence owing to the time factor involved. Alternatively, one should look for clues indicating the essentially instantaneous nature of such episodes in the archaeological record. One way or another, it is important to keep the rationale in mind since these same ambiguities

Domestic stocks: Very few domesticates can be considered to be restricted to settled economies, the most important group being that of barnyard stock (O’Connor & Schrubb 1986; Morales 1996). Of these, for the Late Bronze Age of the EES only chicken, first domesticated in the third millennium BC (Benecke 1994b), could be an important reference. Of the secondary stock, only ass (first domesticated in the fourth millennium BC: Benecke 1994b) and pig could possibly qualify as bioindicators (sensu Morales 1996; 1997) of sedentism. Pigs are difficult to herd owing to their loose social structure and habits although some rare cases of pig herding are still known in the Caucasus (P. Kohl pers. comm.). Donkeys, on the other hand, were important beasts of burden throughout Mesopotamia during the third millennium BC but have never been known to associate with nomadic peoples as defined here. In general, the more difficult a species is to move, the higher its chances of being associated with sedentary conditions. The remaining domestic mammals do not qualify as ‘bioindicators’ of any settlement practice for they can be raised under both nomadic and sedentary conditions. This point is one that should be stressed for most discussions about stockbreeding strategies centre on these particular stocks. One could argue that domesticated horses can be readily associated with mobile lifestyles and thus their frequen331

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Table 22.1. Archaeological signatures of nomad and sedentary bone assemblages. PARAMETER

NOMAD

SEDENTARY

1. Domestic Stocks A. Taxonomic diversity B. Taxonomic dominance C. Pig D. Horse E. Ass F. Chicken

Low Higher (more skewed) Absent/very scarce Variable (usually high?) Absent Absent

High Lower (less skewed) Appreciable Variable (usually low?) Potentially present Potentially present

2. Stock Composition (Age) A. Adults B. Sub-adults C. Infantiles D. Juveniles E. Seniles

Dominant throughout Important; often second to adults Absent/very scarce Absent/scarce Absent/very scarce

May dominate but often not all stocks May dominate but often not all stocks Scarce Scarce/appreciable Scarce/appreciable

3. Stock Composition (Sex)

Variable

Females often dominant

4. Stock Features A. Horns B. Size/Robusticity C. Pathologies D. Castrates E. Hybrids

Present; often well developed Smaller Absent/low frequencies Absent/rare Absent

Small/hornless Larger Present/higher frequencies Not uncommon Not uncommon?

Absent Absent Absent

Present? Present Present?

No crop bioindicators No dung bioindicators? No ash bioindicators? No crop bioindicators No synanthropic/synurbanistic taxa Generally only one phenologic group present

Crop bioindicators potentially present Dung bioindicators potentially present Ash bioindicators potentially present Crop bioindicators potentially present Synanthropic/synurbanistic taxa potentially present. Several phenologic groups present

F. Exotic Faunas

No single category dominant? All cohorts potentially present (frequencies shift from site to site) Rare/absent

Certain categories (pelt) dominant? All cohorts potentially present [dominance of certain cohorts (adult?)] Rare/Occasional?

6. Bone Collection A. Skeletal representativity B. Bone densities C. Butchering D. Bone splinters E. Bone tools F. Bone drafts G. Bone residues

Variable (Often skewed) Low Not intensive Less frequent/variable? Scarce Absent? Absent?

Mostly balanced Variable (ocassionally very high) Often intensive More frequent/stereotyped? Not uncommon/ocassionally frequent Present Present

5. Wild Faunas A. Comensals A1. House sparrow A2. House mouse A3. Black rat B. Mites B1. Oribatids B2. Gammasids B3. Uropodina C. Beetles D. Birds

E. Wild Game E1. Taxonomic diversity E2. Age groups

have been based mainly on the biometry of the metapodia which are only measured for adult animals. For adults, then, it would be generally true to state that females dominate in settled conditions but one should keep in mind that, at these same sites, the ratio is inverted when non-adult cohorts are considered (Antipina, unpublished data). Perhaps a simple, overall sex ratio is a poor indicator of mobility if applied only to adults so that one should instead seek sex ratios according to cohorts (an infeasible

apply in the case of sex ratios. Thus, depending on the kind of strategy, settled sites are expected to feature a dominance of males when targetting meat and of females when targetting secondary products. In both cases sex ratios should appear skewed. For nomads, normally carrying out a more polivalent stockbreeding strategy, such skewness should not be so clear. But matters are often more complex in practice. In fact, although Russian sites do exhibit a general dominance of females over males, sex ratios 332

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task in the case of young animals!) (Moreno 1998; 1999a,b).

in that they rest upon absolute (i.e. presence/absence) criteria. The same reasoning applies to certain bone pathologies that seem to be closely associated with specific activities such as draught, ploughing, etc. (Bartosiewicz et al. 1997). Still, as usual, ambiguities emerge. A case in point here refers to small horned or hornless Scythian cattle vs. long horned Greek cattle from the same times — despite the fact that Scythians were far more mobile than Greek farmers. For these reasons, it will only be a combined use of these lines of information that will allow the faunal analyst to reach more meaningful conclusions.

Specific features of the domestic stock: The biological differences existing between animals living within human settlements and those thriving at nomad camps, in an essentially ‘wild’ environment, dictate, in addition to different physiological stresses, differences in stock-breeding practices which can leave traces in the archaeozoological samples. Thus, in the case of most domestic ungulates, castration is a common practice from the Late Neolithic throughout the Middle and Near East but also in western Europe, and is likely to leave traces on the morphology of certain bones — most commonly the pelvis, sacrum and horns (Hatting 1975; 1995). Though not necessarily restricted to sedentary conditions, both the rationale behind such practice and the data at hand confirm that castrated animals appear to be closely associated with complex farming, and thus with settled life (Bartosiewicz et al. 1997). Castration has not been detected unequivocally in faunal assemblages associated with nomadic people although ethnological evidence does confirm that the practice is present with transhumant herds (Moreno 1999a). Hybridization is another practice that can leave osteological traces in certain parts of the equid skeleton, most notably the metapodia and acropodia (phalanges) (J. Peters verb. comm and pers. observ.). Again, while never frequent in a statistical sense, one finds it associated with settled-life conditions (Benecke 1994b; Peters 1998). Other features of the domestic stock are far more circumstantial. Thus, for animals living outside human settlements, one can expect that the ability to fend for themselves should be an important adaptive trait. Viewed from this perspective, any attribute that contributes to this end, such as larger size, robusticity or the presence of horns will have advantages, both physiological (e.g. thermostability) and biological. In the case of many attributes like size or robusticity, differences can only emerge after detailed comparisons which require that the bones be measured. When this is done, however, interesting results emerge. In Russia a correlation has been detected between the mobility inferred from the kind of agriculture being practised at a particular site and the size of cattle themselves, with sedentary sites (i.e., those where practices such as fallowing have been detected) featuring very small animals and larger cattle associating with more mobile, slashand-burn, conditions (Antipina, unpublished data). Other traits, such as horns, are more straightforward

Wild faunas: In the case of non-domestic animals the basic concepts are, again, those of the ‘analogue’ (Baird 1989) and ‘bioindicator’ (Morales 1990a,b; 1996; 1997). The two major problems arising when using wild faunas for palaeoenvironmental inferences are that: a) taxa may not represent local items but, rather, be products of long-distance trade; and b) modern habits and distributions for many species may not represent valid inferential tools in that these might have changed drastically as a result of human activities. A further, operative, problem has to do with the fact that most of the pertinent groups are either microscopic or sub-microscopic thus need careful retrieval techniques (i.e. sieving, flotation). Commensal vertebrates constitute the best bioindicators of sedentism (Tchernov 1984). There are very few populations of black rats and house mice still living permanently ‘in the wild’ and none of house sparrows (Auffray et al. 1988; SummersSmith 1988; Boev 1993). And, although Tchernov’s claims of commensal mice and sparrows in the Natufian of the Levant have rightly raised concern regarding how to detect those earliest shifts in status in the original areas of occurrence, such criticisms are irrelevant for later periods and places outside those original areas (Tangri & Wyncoll 1989; Tchernov 1991; Morales et al. 1995). The LBA on the EES would be included in this latter case. Mites and beetles offer the possibility of providing indirect, though very precise, definition of crops (oribatids, beetles) and of domestic stock (dung gammasids) in a site even in the absence of seeds, pollen or bones (Schelvis 1992; Elias 1994). Uropodina exhibit very precise associations with ashes and burned soils, often a feature of settled life (AthiasBinche 1987). All these groups further characterize vegetal associations and soils so that they can also be of value in defining non-settled lifestyles but, above all, specific landscapes or biotopes (Morales & Sanz 1994; Elias 1994). 333

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Other wild faunas may not prove so operative for solving these questions, although the number of potentially retrievable taxa can be of use in determining complementary features of the settlement strategy. Birds, for example, include many migratory species on the EES, a fact which allows the analyst to explore issues dealing with seasonality (Morales 1998). The rationale in these cases is always the same: in sedentary sites there is a greater chance that different phenologic groups (i.e. residents, migrants, etc.) will be retrieved, whereas in nomad camps the diversity of phenologic groups, owing to the short time-span covered, should be drastically reduced, there only being small chances of ever retrieving ‘antagonic’ groups (e.g. summer vs. winter visitors) (Morales 1996; 1998; Table 22.1). Birds additionally incorporate many species which associate readily with settled communities along a well-defined gradient on which a series of categories, corresponding to specific levels of association (synanthropic, synurbanistic) have been identified (Boev 1993; O’Connor 1993). Wild game, on the other hand, is not that useful for purposes of determining the degree of mobility of peoples in the past. The two critical parameters here are diversity (presumably higher for mobile settlement strategies since nomads have the capability of targetting on a wider spectrum of species) and skewness, the rationale here being that settled people concentrate on particular groups (e.g. pelt providers) and cohorts (e.g. adults) which, for economic reasons (e.g. existence of specialized crafts), prove more valuable. Nomads one could assume to be more eclectic, and thus their potential game spectra need not show such skewness. It is easy to see how weak all these arguments can be at times and also how convergent situations could develop. Still, logic dictates that the higher the number of evidences, the more reliable the typification of a particular wild assemblage as having been produced by a nomad or settled community. Much the same can be applied to exotic faunas (Table 22.1).

very reduced or partial recovery was the method of retrieval. Butchering practices have long been known to relate to carcass use (Binford 1978; 1980) and, although no comparative study has specifically addressed the differences existing between nomad and settled people in terms of butchering, settled sites often feature very intensive butchering of carcasses and fracturing of bones, the reasons for which are numerous (i.e. bone crafts). Butchering and bone fragmentation in settled communities appear to be highly conservative processes, often leading to stereotyped fractures and splinters (Morales 1988). The reason for many of these stereotypes may also have to do with bone crafts. Cultural groups make bone tools following essentially the same criteria. For this reason the bones chosen and the blows applied to them all contribute to create bone collections which resemble each other much in the same way as stone tools or pottery do (Antipina 1999; 2001). Also, as is obviously the case for pottery, nomads do not craft bone tools often or, at least, not in an industrial way (several papers in Rocek & Bar-Yosef 1998). For this reason a better clue to settled life with regard to bone industry concerns the presence of bone drafts and residues that testify to the existence of industrial activities. Although using frequencies to prove this can be misleading, bone tool to bone draft/residue ratios that deviate significantly from 1:1 could provide evidence for the existence of an industrial activity. Obviously, the battery of clues available to the archaeozoologist does not stop at this stage. Even within the strict realm of faunal remains, techniques such as bone stable isotope analysis, in order to evidence the stalling of animals (Moreno 1999b) and trace-element analysis allowing for the chemical identification of specific pastures (Kalkbrenner 1994) could prove vital in the inference of the mobile or settled status of a specific stock or assemblage. The message is always the same: although only very seldom will one kind of archaeozoological data prove sufficient to provide evidence of mobility or sedentism in the archaeological record, the larger the number of ‘smoking guns’ the analyst manages to combine, the higher his/her chances of reaching meaningful results.

The bone collection: Under settled conditions, one assumes skeletal representativity profiles to reflect balanced spectra assuming animals were living, slaughtered and consumed at the site or close to it. Skewed skeletal spectra are to be expected, in theory, when consumption does not take place at the spot where slaughtering occurred. This very same reasoning applies to bone densities (Table 22.1). Again, convergence is a serious problem in these cases and skewed skeletal spectra appear when sample size is

The problem of building a reliable data base Different faunal analysts not only have different approaches and hold different assumptions, they also use different methods for retrieving, studying and presenting data. If one were to take data at face value, one could never be sure to what extent appar334

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ent differences could, in fact, be real or simply the result of alternative options of analysis. Within this context, the case of quantification is paradigmatic. Basically, the two competing methods are the MNI (minimum number of individuals) and the NISP (number of identified specimens or, rather, remains). Study after study shows that, in addition to the subjectivity involved in its calculation, when samples are large, the MNI correlates linearly with the NISP whereas, when samples are small, the MNI systematically distorts the spectra overemphasizing the contribution of infrequent taxa (at the minimum, one bone equals one individual) at the expense of frequent ones (Gautier 1984; Grayson 1984). Thus, while not denying that there may be instances where use of the MNI may prove useful, archaeozoologists now agree that the use of the NISP should be encouraged in most cases. A faunal assemblage whose quantification has been exclusively based on MNIs is not comparable to another where only NISP have been used. One serious problem confronting us when we started this analysis was that a great majority of Russian/Ukrainian faunal studies not only reported contributions exclusively in terms of the MNI but never provided the raw data (i.e. NISPs) on which those MNI were based. For this reason a great number of faunas of potential interest for our study could not be incorporated into the data base. Similar arguments can be invoked in the case of retrieval techniques (sieved/flotated samples not being comparable to manually-picked ones), identification (many studies reporting taxa only down to genus, not species, level) and status assignment. The later parameter is critical when dealing with domestic stocks for domesticated animals and their agrotypes belong to the same species thus are osteologically very difficult to set apart. The matter may not be pressing in the case of taxa alien to the EES (ovicaprines) but is certainly a serious factor in the case of cattle, pig and, above all, horse (Morales 1990a,b; Rowley-Conwy 1995; Levine 1999). As we will later see, at most sites no wild cattle, horses or wild boar have ever been reported and one is left wondering to what extent is this a reflection of a former reality or just a methodological constraint (Table 22.4). Sample size is another important parameter to keep in mind since in very small assemblages (i.e. <100 remains) random events can cause severe distortions of the original data. Applying Davis’ criteria (1987, 46), we settled for sample sizes of around 500 remains, which theoretically allow the analyst to know in what proportion man exploited stocks, and

this, de facto, meant that quite a few interesting faunas dropped out from our data base. It should be stressed that, no matter how large a faunal sample is, one can never be sure ‘in what proportion man exploited stocks’ and, at any rate, one always needs to prove that such has been the case in his/her specific study. Antipina recently elaborated on this question and concluded that inferring the proportion in which man exploits stocks by extrapolating directly on NISPs appears to be essentially correct only for large domestic ungulates and only if no fewer than 50 per cent of each animal’s bones eventually ended up in the taphocenosis (Antipina 1999, 23–5). This same extrapolation may be possible in the case of pigs, the only middle-sized ungulate known to be exploited exclusively for its meat. A final procedure to ensure sample comparability has to do with context. In our case, only fauna retrieved at settlements, from zones of accumulation which apparently were dumpyards, have been considered. By doing so the chances are that a large majority of the remains are taphonomically homogeneous, representing various types of kitchen/food refuse. To what extent food leftovers can be taken as indicators of a former stockbreeding (let alone settlement) practice is a question that must, of necessity, remain open at this stage. Another problem, to be found mainly at the site of Gorny, has to do with the fact that some bone samples appear to have been the products of manufacturing activities (Antipina 1999; 2001). Whether these could be comparable to food remains (or whether food remains were systematically used in bone industries) is another question that cannot be settled at this point but which undoubtedly would have had its consequences in terms of comparability of the samples. Still, the biggest problem facing our data base is the extremely restricted nature of the information it provides. Many archaeozoologists, perhaps in an attempt to avoid problems of interpretation, perhaps judging it more appropriate to remain at the level of strict description, failed to incorporate into their reports precise data concerning age, sex, sizes, pathologies and, in general, any kind of information not strictly pertaining to the overall composition of the domestic stocks. As it turns out, despite all these drawbacks, one is still able to hint a series of patterns in the samples reviewed. The Srubnaya cultural entity: an overview The Srubnaya, also referred to as the Timber-Grave or Srubna culture, is a 500-year-long phenomenon of 335

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the EES which spread over most of the steppe and forest-steppe lands of eastern Europe and also reached semi-desert and desert regions East of the Caspian (Chernykh 1992; Otroshchenko 1999). The Srubna constitutes one of the ‘Steppe Bronze cultures’ for which Khazanov claims that: ‘Although the correlation of pastoralism and agriculture in these areas, and even between local variants within individual cultures varied, the economies of all of them were complex pastoral-agricultural or sometimes even agricultural-pastoral ones. At any rate in no way were they nomadic . . .’ (Khazanov 1984, 92–3). To proceed beyond this point is difficult for there exists at present no consensus on matters regarding the origins, boundaries and subdivisions of this historical development. Since it will be faunas from Srubnaya sites that we will consider in our paper we feel that some comments may still be pertinent at this point. Several authors maintain that historically, the Srubnaya phenomenon constitutes the western development of the Sintashta culture, one of the socalled ‘cultures of battle chariots’ (Savva 1992) that, during the beginning of the second millennium (i.e. eighteenth–seventeenth centuries BC) constitutes, together with Arkaim, one of the ‘material embodiment of the south Ural centre of culturogenesis’ (Otroshchenko 1999, 127) characterized by fortificated settlements, burials of charioteers in kurgan cemeteries, complex social organization and wide-scale copper mining (Gening et al. 1992). The fact remains that there are alternative hypotheses in Russian literature which, while not denying the relationships of those specificities to the Srubnaya, they do not consider them so restrictive or determinant (Chernykh 1982; 1992). Equally debatable are the divisions within the Timber-Grave Culture. Starting with the now classic schemes subdividing the LBA into three horizons, many regional, cultural and chronological groups have been proposed for the Srubnaya cultural entity by archaeologists in the Donetsk, Voronezh, Chuvash, Tatar, Bashkir, etc. regions during the past 20 years. The latest proposal is that of Otroshchenko (1999) which considers two chrono-geographical units into which all Srubnaya sites could be allocated. His descriptions of both groups are as follows: 1. The Pokrovskaya group (PG from here onwards) would be the earliest manifestation of Srubnaya (i.e. seventeenth–fifteenth centuries BC) spreading over the northern sector of the EES (i.e. Orenburg steppe, forest steppe areas of the Russian Federation plus the Russian autonomies of

Mordova, Chuvash, Tatar and Bashkir). Many lands of the PG exhibited ‘perceptible fractions of woods’ its core area being hypothesized to be the Don–Volga forest steppe. Presumable cultural differences with the Berezhnovsko-Mayivskaya group, in addition to pottery, claim to refer mainly to funerary traits (e.g. planimetry of cemeteries, types of burial mound constructions and funerary buildings, adornments, orientation of the dead, 1:1 male–female and adult–infant ratios, etc.) (Otroshchenko 1999). All PG sites from our case study feature metallurgical activities though none yields evidence of agriculture. In fact, after an extensive flotation program, traces of this activity are almost non existent in PG sites (only very few grains at Bezbozhnik and Lipovy Ovrag and a few grain imprints in pottery from Shipobskoe: Chernykh et al. 1997, 98). The presumably metallurgical centre of the PG was postulated to lie in the Kargaly region and one out every six sites of this cultural group was apparently devoted to mining (Otroshchenko 1999). 2. The Berezhnovsko-Mayivskaya group (BMG from here onwards) would be a later manifestation of Srubnaya, coincident with the Sabatinovka phenomenon further south (i.e. fifteenth–twelfth centuries BC). Its core area presumably was the Dnepr–Donetsk steppe, including the lower Don, but apparently BMG sites likewise spread over other steppe lands of the Ukraine, southern part of the left bank of the forest steppe (i.e. Poltava and Kharkov regions in Ukraine plus Belgorod region in Russia), steppe of Rostov and Volvograd regions in Russia and also the southern territories of the steppe in Crimea as well as the eastern territories of Kalmykhia, Stavropol and Astrakan in Russia (we will not consider here its easternmost regions since not only do they fall outside the EES but, also, no single fauna from these areas could be incorporated into our data base). Otroshchenko claims that the Donetsk mountains were the metallurgical centre of the BMG. Three of the BMG sites from our data base left no traces of metallurgy. Agriculture, on the other hand, seems to have been more prevalent in this region than further north, with three sites (Bezymennoe I & II, Shirokaya Balka) featuring appreciable quantities of grain and a further three (i.e. Veseloe, Ilichevka and Usovo Ozero) exhibiting imprints of grain and carbonized grains occasionally in important quantities (Chernykh et al. 1997, 98; Lebedeva pers. comm.). The fact that many data testify to the importance of agriculture in the 336

Srubnaya Faunas and Beyond

Sabatinovka culture (Pashkevich 1991; 1997; Gerschkovich 1999) does seem to support the claim that agriculture became progressively more important as one moved southwards. Obviously, there are climatological reasons for this being so (e.g. data based on both modern observations and economic calendars of the Srubnaya (Safonov 1996, 66–70) show significant differences, for example, in the number of months with snow cover in PG (4–5) vs. BMG (1–3) territories) though, with the data at hand, one cannot dismiss the role time could have played in shaping such differences. Many Russian archaeologists, such as those excavating Bezymennoe I, II, Shirokaya Balka, Gorny, Maksjutovo and Uspenskoe, do not agree over the subdivision of the Srubnaya world into these PG and BMG units. Their claim is that many of the parameters which served as the basis for such arrangement, such as pottery, have no clear borders and, although territorially and temporally marginal sites of the Timber-Grave Culture do exhibit partial sets of features, more complete sets always appear on core regions, often in slightly different versions. As is the case with other subdivisions of the Srubnaya, any definitive taxonomy will only be possible after the archaeological evidence is straightened out. Why, then, have we taken the trouble to describe the PG and BMG in such detail? It so happens that Otroshchenko’s groups grant us the opportunity to test

their validity with a set of data which is essentially different from those taken into account until now. Briefly, we would like to ascertain whether, faunistically speaking, one is able to detect some kind of consistency in this system. Srubnaya domestic stocks: an overview based on NISP contributions Table 22.2 presents an overview of the selected assemblages, including their allocation into one of the four steppe zones into which the EES was subdivided (Fig. 22.1). Figure 22.1 further plots the location of the sites. As can be seen, Srubnaya faunas do not occupy the Black Sea coast steppe where the Sabatinovka culture developed. Of those 21 assemblages, eight (i.e. numbers 1–3 & 14–18) presumably belong to the BMG and the remaining 13 to the PG although, culturally speaking, five of these (i.e. numbers 4–8) are members of the Abashevo culture, related to the Srubnaya, and only eight to the PG proper. Figure 22.2 plots the contribution of the main domestic stocks for ‘Srubnaya proper’ whereas Figure 22.3 plots this same information in the case of the Abashevo faunas. Although samples are far from homogeneous, the site of Gorny accounting for some 75 per cent of the combined NISP, two general features are evident: 1. The almost nil contribution of wild faunas to the assemblages, with only two of the northernmost

Table 22.2. Late Bronze Age (LBA) faunas from the Azov (2), Orenburg (4) and West Caspian (3) steppe zones. NISP values refer to number of identified bone/ bone fragments. Suskanskoe I and Moecnoe ozero I are forest sites. Except for sites 4–8 (Abashevo culture) all sites belong to the Srubnaya (i.e. Timber Grave) culture. Code 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

Site Bezymennoe I Bezymennoe II Shirokaya Balka Levoberezhnoe Shilovskoe Maslovskoe Chizhovskoe 2 Chizhovskoe 4 Gorny Toksoe Kuzminkovskoe Uspenskoe Maksyutovo Ekazhevo Kapitanovo I Zheltoe Stepanovka Liman Mosolovka Moeknoe Ozero I Suskanskoe I

Steppe NISP 2 741 2 13,458 2 971 2 879 2 9108 2 4292 2 465 2 587 4 220,241 4 2000 4 2000 3 537 3 764 2–3 459 2 9617 2 670 2 3306 2 3745 2 9000 – 4652 – 1770

%Wild 0.0 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.8 0.8 0.0 0.0 0.13 2.0 2.0 0.7 0.8 0.5 0.5 0.4 0.1 0.3 5.8 0.1 5.5

%Domestic 100 99.8 99.8 99.8 99.2 99.2 100 100 99.87 98 98 99.3 99.2 99.5 99.5 99.6 99.9 99.7 94.2 99.9 94.5

337

%Bos 66.0 71.4 66.8 75.0 75.7 67.6 71.4 77.8 83.0 60.0 65.0 63.4 66.4 64.3 74.3 73.6 66.3 66.1 77.0 53.7 50.0

%O/C 11.0 9.1 27.0 3.4 4.9 7.1 5.0 4.2 15.0 18.0 14.0 29.4 26.6 21.8 17.7 17.8 17.4 16.1 8.0 24.0 17.0

%Equus 23.0 19.3 6.0 16.6 11.7 18.0 17.8 10.0 1.7 20.9 29.9 6.8 5.1 8.2 2.3 1.1 1.8 3.4 10.5 15.6 30.0

%Sus 0.0 0.1 0.1 5.0 7.4 7.1 5.8 8.0 0.2 1.0 1.0 0.0 0.4 5.5 5.1 7.5 14.3 13.7 4.5 6.7 2.6

%Canis 0.0 0.1 0.1 0.0 0.3 + 0.0 0.0 + 0.1 0.1 0.4 1.5 0.2 0.6 0.0 0.2 0.7 – – –

Chapter 22

21 20 10

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ne

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Aral Sea

Azov Sea Kub a

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dak del

Figure 22.1. The East European Steppe zone. Sites are identified by code numbers specified in Table 22.2. Steppe zones are: 1) Black Sea coast; 2) Azov sea coast; 3) West Caspian/Kalmykh; 4) Orenburg. 1. There does seem to be a correlation between geographical proximity and faunal similarities. The homogeneity exhibited by the Abashevo cluster (Fig. 22.3) is also seen in the cluster of the Donetsk (i.e. sites 15–18) where the rank order of each of the four stocks is identical in all cases conferring a remarkable degree of similarity on the faunal samples and, by inference, on the putative stockbreeding (slaughtering!) strategy. That this is not a phenomenon restricted to the EES one can see when a different cluster (i.e. that of the Kazan culture) is considered (Fig. 22.4). Translating such spectra into specific stockbreeding practices, however, is impossible at this stage for one would first need to determine the extent to which cultural and environmental agents are critical in shaping any particular assemblage. 2. Except for Gorny, cattle decreases as one moves north and eastwards. This seems to be partially due to the increase of horse remains in northern sites both Srubnaya (e.g. Suskanskoe I, Toksoe, Kuzminkovskoe) or Kazan (Fig. 22.4) but the matter needs to be explored further since, for exam-

Table 22.3. Age ranges, expressed in years, for the conventional cohorts of domestic mammals. Cohort Juvenile Sub-adult Adult Senile

Large domesticates 0–0.5 0.5–2.5 2.5-10 +10

Medium-size domesticates 0–0.5 0.5–1.5 1.5–5 +5

sites located in forested areas (Molosovka and Suskanskoe I) deviating slightly from this trend. 2. An overall dominance of cattle whose contribution ranges from 50–83 per cent of the identified NISP. Given that cattle is the bulkiest of the domesticated ungulates, such dominance would be overwhelming were weights to be taken into account. Similarly, even though it is only food (i.e. meat) to which we are referring here, one should not forget that the importance of cattle needs to be evaluated in view of the wide range of products which the species can provide (Antipina 1999; 2001). Several additional patterns emerge when data are analyzed in detail. Thus: 338

Srubnaya Faunas and Beyond

ther to the south, still quite heterogeneous (60– ple, we do not know whether some, or even a 78 per cent) where one can set along a gradimajority, of these horses were wild and also since ent the higher contributions of Abashevo sites the contributions of ‘pig’ (wild boar?) similarly (67.5–78 per cent) and those from West Casincrease in these assemblages. pian/Kalmykh and Orenburg sites (60–66 per 3. If our samples were now to be interpreted from cent). the standpoint of Otroshchenko’s groups, the fol3b. Ovicaprines: Although at a far lower level of lowing comments can be made: 3a. Cattle: The contribu100% tions of this stock in BMG sites are rather homogeneous (66–74 80% per cent; mean value: 68.5 per cent) indicating a more pervasive situation than that re60% corded at PG sites. In this last case, on top of the extreme situation 40% seen at Gorny (i.e. 83 per cent), two different ‘worlds’ emerge. One 20% is that of the more forested sites to the north of the EES (con0% 1 2 3 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 tributions here ranging from 50–53 per cent; in Sus Equus Ovicaprine Bos Kazan sites these values further decrease to Figure 22.2. Faunal spectra, expressed as percentage of the NISP, for the main 34–37 per cent) and the domestic stocks from Srubnaya culture sites of the East European Steppe. (Site other is the world fur- codes follow Table 22.2.) 80

60

70 50

60

40

50 40

30

30 20

20 10

10

0 4 Sus

5

6 Equus

7 Ovicaprine

8

0

Balymskaya

Atabaevskaya

Gul’kinskaya

Bos Ovicaprine

Figure 22.3. Faunal spectra expressed as percentage of the NISP, for the main domestic stocks from Abashevo culture sites of the East European Steppe. (Site codes follow Table 22.2.)

Sus

Bos

Equus

Figure 22.4. Faunal spectra expressed as percentage of the NISP, for the main domestic stocks from Kazan culture sites. (From Chernykh et al. 1998.) 339

Chapter 22

abundance, BMG sites appear, once again, to be slightly more homogeneous (9–22 per cent; mean value: 17 per cent) than PG sites (3–30 per cent; mean value: 13.5 per cent). Similarly, there seems to exist 2–3 groups within this PG unit, namely, those of the West Caspian/ Kalmykh plus forest sites, which feature no metallurgy along with the highest contributions of ovicaprines (26–30 per cent for the West Caspian/Kalmykh; 17–24 per cent for the forest sites), and the metallurgical Abashevo sites featuring very low contributions of ovicaprines (3.5–7 per cent). Sites from the Orenburg steppe exhibit intermediate values (14–18 per cent) with means almost identical to those recorded at BMG sites (i.e. 16 per cent). 3c. Pig: In contrast to what was the situation for the previous stocks, pig contributions at BMG sites are very variable (0–14 per cent) rendering mean values (5.80 per cent) meaningless. For this stock, two situations appear in the Ukrainian steppes: a) the Azov sea coast, almost devoid of pig; and b) the Donetsk sites plus Ekazhevo where pig contributions, while far from dominant, are, nevertheless, appreciable (5–14 per cent, mean value: 9 per cent). Much the same can be said of the pig stocks from PG sites where their overall contributions (0–8 per cent; mean value: 4 per cent) are negligible and where the Abashevo sites (2.50– 8 per cent) stand in contrast to the northeastern world of the Orenburg plus West Caspian/ Kalmykh steppes essentially devoid of pigs (0–1 per cent). 3d.Horse: As with pigs, horse contributions are heterogeneous at both PG and BMG sites. For the PG, where contributions oscillate to an extent (e.g. 1.5–30 per cent) that renders mean values (15 per cent) meaningless, the site of Gorny (1.70 per cent) and, secondarily, those without metallurgy in the West Caspian/ Kalmykh steppe (5–7 per cent), contrast sharply with all the others (i.e. Abashevo plus Orenburg and northern sites: 10–30 per cent; mean value:18 per cent). In BMG sites, on the other hand, horse contributions appear complementary to those of pigs so that one must distinguish between Azov sea coast sites, with significant contributions of horse (6–23 per cent; mean value: 16 per cent) and Ekazhevo plus the Donetsk sites where horse contributions drop markedly (1–8 per cent; mean value:

2.50 per cent) to the benefit of pig. Ignoring cattle, for it always occupies the first position of the rank, six possibilities, in terms of contributions, remain for the other stocks. Since there is no case in which pigs rank second, the situation of the four remaining alternatives has been as follows: 1. Ovicaprine-horse-pig: Six sites (Shirokaya Balka, Gorny, Uspenskoe, Maksyutovo, Ekazhevo and Moeknoe Ozero I); 2. Horse-Ovicaprine-pig: Six sites (Bezymennoe I & II, Toksoe, Kuzminkovskoe, Mosolovka & Suskanskoe I); 3. Ovicaprine-pig-horse: Four sites (i.e. the Donetsk cluster, no. 15–18); 4. Horse-pig-ovicaprine: Five sites, namely the Abashevo cluster (i.e. no. 4–8). If one assumes ovicaprines to be most mobile of stocks and pig the least mobile, our arrangement can be loosely taken to define a ‘mobility’ gradient from top to bottom. Perhaps more interesting is the fact that the two clusters exhibit the least ‘mobile’ conditions, the more mobile situations spreading over the whole territory of the Srubnaya with independence of subcultural units (i.e. PG/BMG). Although these differences may merely reflect shifts in diets of animal origin that can not be automatically translated into stockbreeding practices, such a degree of heterogeneity warns us to refrain from excessive typological thinking and about the dangers on too readily allocating items into preconceived taxonomies. If anything seems evident after our analysis, it is a loose correlation observed between geographical proximity and faunal similarity, a correlation whose translation or relationship to cultural attributes is far from clear at this moment. Archaeozoological data, as they stand now, do not seem to grant any vindication to Otroshchenko’s system which might need to be reconsidered for future work. One way or another these data represent a non-quantified bias of the archaeozoological evidence that, as was previously mentioned, may not prove satisfactory in terms of exploring those aspects which could eventually throw light into the kinds of settlement strategies followed by LBA tribesmen. In order to address this last issue other kinds of data are required. The question is: do we have them? Discussion: an archaeozoological insight into EES settlement practices In order to question the possibility of the archaeozoological data at hand solving issues dealing with stockbreeding and settlement practices, we need to 340

Srubnaya Faunas and Beyond

take a closer look at Table 22.1. We will now review the available information following the scheme exposed there.

80 70 60

Domestic stocks Of the relevant ‘bioindicators’ for sedentism, no single site features barnyard stock, while from the second most relevant taxa pigs only make up a relevant portion of the sample at Stepanovka and Liman, on the Donetsk, the remaining sites being divided between either low (i.e. 2.5–8 per cent; 11 sites) or negligible to nil contributions (i.e. 0–1 per cent, 8 sites) (Table 22.2). As for ass, only three bones from this species are recorded in the latest phase of the occupation at Gorny (i.e. 1525–1410 Cal. BC) within a sample of 2748 equid bones (Antipina 1999, 104). Although these finds lend support to the existence of a settled population, their scarcity and uniqueness within the EES greatly limit their inferential value. In terms of taxonomic diversity, only Bezymennoe I and Uspenskoe rank lower due to the absence of pigs (Table 22.2). Dominance values are very similar throughout the sample due to the leading position of cattle. Still, sites outside the steppe (Moeknoe Ozero I and Suskanskoe I), along with sites where other stocks become significant elements, could allow one to postulate a less mobile lifestyle. In fact, the opposite holds when ovicaprines take second position as is recorded for Shirokaya Balka and the non metallurgical sites of the West Caspian/Kalmykh steppe (Uspenskoe, Maksyutovo and Ekazhevo) or Moeknoe Ozero I. The available evidence is much too poor to be of any help.

50 40 30 20 10 0 Gorny UUUU

Bezymennoe I Bezymennoe II

Shirokaya Balka

Ekazhevo

Cattle Juvenile

Sub-adult

Adult

Senile

Figure 22.5. Cohort frequencies of cattle for selected sites. 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

Composition of the stocks Only five of the 21 sites provide detailed information on age structure of the domestic stocks. Figures 22.5–22.8 plot these data for the cohorts as defined in Table 22.3. Two very different situations emerge: a. Cattle, ovicaprines and pig are dominated by adults, followed by sub-adults, at four of the sites — contrasting with the spectra recorded at Ekazhevo where either juveniles or sub-adults dominate. The clear dominance of piglets (Fig. 22.8) and sub-adult ovicaprines (Fig. 22.6) in the latter site not only provide evidence of meat targetting, as seems also to be the case for cattle (Fig. 22.5), but appear to be more congruent with a farming (i.e. settled) economy. b. Horses, on the other hand, yield the same age mortality profiles in all cases. Perhaps this may be a reflection of the fact that horse meat keeps its

Gorny UUUU

Bezymennoe I Bezymennoe II

Shirokaya Balka

Ekazhevo

Ovicaprines Juvenile

Sub-adult

Adult

Senile

Figure 22.6. Cohort frequencies of ovicaprines for selected sites. tenderness until a rather old age (Levine 1999, 25). Equally, however, it is possible that such homogeneity reflects a similar use for horses throughout the Srubnaya territory which may not be strictly comparable to those of the remaining stocks. The data, unfortunately, are much too restricted to proceed beyond these speculations but the coincidence of Ekazhevo’s horse age mortality profiles is worth mentioning in view of this site’s contrasts when other stocks are considered. 341

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tions a systematic dominance of females at places such as Vinogradnyi Sad I, Bugskoe, Tashlyk and Novokievka which is taken to indicate an emphasis on dairy products (Zhuralev 1990, 137–8; 1991). This fits well with the farming economy which seems to be characteristic of the Sabatinovka world in view of the importance of agriculture in this territory but we are unable to extrapolate Zhuralev’s results to our Srubnaya samples with the data at hand and, at any rate, one needs to consider that such dominance of females refers to adult individuals. Perhaps the situation was different for non-adult cohorts.

80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 Gorny UUUU

Bezymennoe I Bezymennoe II

Shirokaya Balka

Stock features Very few of the surveyed faunal assemblages provide detailed data on these aspects. At the site of Gorny, for example, only two horncores, out of a sample of more than 180,000 bones, were identified and this contrasts with more than sixty crania without horns (Antipina 1999, 105). The presence of a largely hornless population of cattle in the EES during LBA times was noted by Tsalkin based on the low frequencies (i.e. <1 per cent) of horncores at different sites but without ever actually specifying the number of hornless skulls (Tsalkin 1972a, 51–3). Zhuralev (1991) reports that all cattle at Novokievka were hornless and also of smaller size to the Srubnaya specimens so, in fact, the prevalence of a hornless population seems to be a pervasive theme in the LBA archaeozoological record of the EES. Since most of the cattle recorded at Novokievka are females one wonders if hornlessness is an indication of sex for LBA bovine populations. If this were so, the case for a settled stockbreeding economy would gain support (Zhuralev 1991; Smith 1992; Gershkovich 1999). Castration, an apparently widespread practice during the LBA (Obydennov & Obydennova 1992, 59) has been documented by one of us (AMM) in both sheep and cattle at the site of Velikent in Daghestan (Gadzhiev et al. 1997, 209–10) already by Middle Bronze Age times (3100–2600 Cal. BC). As far as we had been able to record, no castration has been reported in any of our 21 samples. The case is shocking at Gorny in view of the huge bone collection from cattle there and this situation for Srubnaya sites, again, contrasts with that reported for the Sabatinovka culture (Zhuralev 1990; 1991). Except for a cursory comment on the extremely low frequencies of bone pathologies for horses at Gorny (Antipina 1999, 108), no mention of bone pathologies is ever made in any of the faunal reports under consideration. Finally, although no hybrids have been ever

Ekazhevo

Horse Juvenile

Sub-adult

Adult

Senile

Figure 22.7. Cohort frequencies of horse for selected sites.

110 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 Gorny UUUU

Bezymennoe I Bezymennoe II

Shirokaya Balka

Ekazhevo

Pig Juvenile

Sub-adult

Adult

Senile

Figure 22.8. Cohort frequencies of pig for selected sites. In general, a dominance of prime adults and, secondarily, of sub-adults, fits equally well a nomadic herd (these animals being more capable of moving without restrictions) and a settled husbandry strategy where secondary products, rather than meat, are the focus of interest. As for sex, no report specifies the sex ratio of any of the stocks in detail. Only Zhuralev, when studying faunas of the Sabatinovka culture, men342

Srubnaya Faunas and Beyond

recorded at Srubnaya sites, the presence of ass at Gorny warns us to be on the watch. From this standpoint one should also stress the reports from Zhuralev (1990) on the equids of Novokievka which this author classifies into ‘thinlegged’, ‘partly thin-legged’ and ‘thick-legged’. This he interprets as horse breeds with specific purposes but we wonder if Zhuralev might not be inadvertently reporting on the presence of either mules or hinnies which do make a lot of sense in the agricultural world of the Sabatinovka.

Table 22.4. Wild mammals from the four steppe zones under consideration (A: Steppe no. 1; B: Steppe no. 2; C: Steppe no. 3; D: Steppe no. 4; see Fig. 22.1) and wild mammals identified at LBA sites (site codes as in Table 22.2). Steppe bioindicator taxa are identified by a (*) sign. SPECIES Lepus europaeus *? Ochotona pusilla *? Citellus suslicus * Citellus citellus * Citellus pygmaeus * Citellus fulvus * Citellus major * Marmota bobac *? Castor fiber Allactaga jaculus * Allactagulus pygmaeus * Dipus sagitta * Scirtopoda telum * Spalax microphtalmus * Spalax giganteus Apodemus sylvaticus Apodemus agrarius Apodemus sp. Mus hortulanus Ellobius talpinus * Cricetulus migratorius * Cricetus cricetus * Allocricetulus eversmanni * Meriones meridianus * Meriones tamariscinus * Lagurus lagurus * Microtus socialis Microtus arvalis Microtus oeconomus Microtus agrestis Microtus socialis-arvalis Canis lupus Canis aureus Vulpes vulpes Vulpes corsac *? Ursus arctos Mustela nivalis Mustela eversmanni * Vormela peregusna * Meles meles Lutra lutra Felis chaus * Sus scrofa Capreolus capreolus Alces alces Cervus elaphus Saiga tatarica * Gacella subgutturosa * Bos primigenius Equus hemionus *

Wild faunas Wild taxa constitute marginal items in all our LBA faunal assemblages. Barely half of the 21 sites in our data base record wild mammals (Table 22.4). Except for wild ungulates, most of the sites report very few taxa, the exceptions being the common fox (Vulpes vulpes), the hare (Lepus europaeus) and the site of Gorny. At this last site, with 22 wild mammals on record, the peculiar feature is the almost total absence of wild ungulates. Although the presence of micromammals at Gorny links with the flotation program carried out there, this scarcity of wild ungulates is difficult to explain but indicates that hunting of wild game was virtually non-existent (three remains of elk (Alces alces), two from wild boar (Sus scrofa) and twelve from roe deer (Capreolus capreolus)) (Antipina 1999, table 1). At Gorny, the presence of Mus hortulanus is noteworthy (Table 22.4). This rodent is actually a subspecies of the house mouse (Mus musculus) which constitutes the only species from this genus in the central Palaeoarctic region. Although M.m. hortulanus maintains populations ‘in the wild’ these are never

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permanent, moving into human habitations during the cold part of the year (Corbert 1978, 141–2). For this reason, even though the mouse was found in very modest quantities, its presence at Gorny probably constitutes the best indication that, at least at some point of its prolonged occupation (1690–1410 BC), the site featured a settled population. 343

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As expected, not a single assemblage in our data base, nor for that matter, any published LBA faunas from the EES, ever reports on arthropods, whether mites or beetles, and very few occasionally specify birds or other vertebrates. The data on bioindicators of sedentism, seasonality, crops, ashes, etc. are essentially unknown for this period and area.

Abashevo sites and some types, like tupies from cattle mandibles and polishers from ungulate ribs, seem to have been widely distributed throughout the EES and forest steppe (Pryakhin & Kileinikov 1989, 150; Kovaleva 1990; Lyashko 1994, 154; Usachuk 1994, 64; 1997, 177–8; Antipina 1999, 115; Berezanskaya 1990, 47–51). Still, only at Gorny has the analysis of these implements been carried out in The bone collections a detailed way evidencing the industrial nature of Although most of the analyses do not address this this production. Although a survey of these data is point specifically, it appears that whole skeletal specwell beyond the scope of our paper, three points tra, and thus complete animals, were present at all merit comment: sites. This certainly seems to be the case at both a. Barely a tenth of the processed bones correspond Gorny and Bezymennoe II, our two largest samples. to tools, the remaining ones being rough drafts The problem of interpreting these data at other sites (bony blanks) and residues from the tool-making is that NISP values are occasionally so low that one activity. This proves the existence of a local manuis not sure whether to attribute differences to ranfacturing process and, indirectly, of a regular supdom processes or to human activity. Much the same ply of bones. can be said about bone densities. For this reason, b. A detailed experimental study (Antipina 2001) neither of these two parameters can be of use in evidenced that some tools for which no function arguing, either in favour or against, the presence of could be postulated until now (i.e. bony shanks) settled life at Srubnaya sites. were apparently used as discardable chisels for Butchering has been also noted, but very selcopper-ore extraction. These tools made from dom quantified at either Srubnaya or Sabatinovka metapodial shafts of cattle, were very fragile in sites despite the fact that almost all authors mention comparison to their metallic equivalents, lasting that ‘many’ bones had evident traces of manipulaonly for a work session of a few hours, but were tion. The bones from Gorny do exhibit cut-marks, much cheaper. The prevalence of discarded bone saw-marks and intentional fracturing in fully 70 per shanks in the mining galleries at Gorny indicates cent of the identified NISP (Antipina 1999, 103; 2001). that they were produced locally, again an indicaAs a result of these analyses, butchering of carcasses tion that bone supplies were not much of a proband fracturing of bones could be reconstructed, evilem. dencing a very intensive and stereotyped process c. Though the ratio of manufactured bone tools to leading to the production of thousands of similarthat of rough drafts and residues normally oscillooking bone splinters (Fig. 22.9). lates from 1:1 to 1:10, this ratio shifts to 1:1000 in Processed animal bones, including household the case of arrows and spearheads (Table 22.5) equipment, tools, weapons, clothing accessories and indicating a high demand on these items or, alsacral items have been found at most Srubnaya and ternatively, an evidence of their trade as was apparently also the case for divinatory bones Table 22.5. Number of manufactured items, rough drafts and residues (percentages over total for each column in brackets) and bone types (J = mandible; C = rib; V = vertebra; S = scapula; H = (Chernykh et al. 1999). humerus; R = radius; U = ulna; M = metapodial; P = pelvis; F = femur; T = tibia) for bone tools Summarizing, the archaeoidentified at Gorny. zoological record of the Srubnaya world: a) essenInstrument Bone Manufactured Rough draft Residues tially leaves data at the Chisels, spatulas C, V, S, R, U, M, T 968 (85%) 1966 (36.5%) 582 (14.5%) rather uninformative level Wedges C, V, S 18 (1.6%) – – Tupis J 35 (3.1%) 40 (0.74%) 526 (13%) of contributions of the stocks; Arrow + spearheads J, R, M,T 3 (0.25%) 2387 (44.5%) 820 (20.4%) b) evidences an overall Handles + cylinders H, R, M, F, T 15 (1.3%) 448 (8.3%) 20 (0.5%) dominance of cattle; c) feaAwls C, S, R, U, M, P, T 69 (6.1%) 456 (8.5%) 966 (24%) tures only a few sites where Shovels S 5 (0.4%) 3 (0.06%) – Buttons J, C, V, S, H, P 6 (0.4%) 16 (0.3%) 666 (16.5%) sample size could be conDivinatory bones R 14 (1.2%) 50 (0.9%) 426 (10.6%) sidered truly significant; Unclassified ? 5 (0.4%) 15 (0.3%) 20 (0.5%) and d) is essentially mute Total 8 Types 1140 (100%) 5382 (100%) 4026 (100%) on faunal information that 344

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could help one address most of the issues relating to stockbreeding and settlement practices in general. Since most of these data come from samples retrieved by hand, without specifying what percentage of a site was actually excavated and what criteria were used to determine the domestic status of taxa, one is similarly unable to determine the extent to which collections are comparable. This state of affairs would not improve if one were to add those dozens of faunas which were rejected from this study due to their small size, failure to provide raw data, etc. To proceed further, one needs to incorporate other elements into the discussion the first of these being agriculture. Given that agriculture proved virtually non-existent after extensive flotation programmes and chemical analyses of pottery in the northernmost territories of the EES (Chernykh et al. 1997; Demkin & Demkina 1999), one is immediately forced to dismiss any labelling of these economies as variously ‘complex-pastoral-agricultural’/’agricultural-pastoral’ (Khazanov 1984), ‘settled-nomadic-agricultural’ (Otroshchenko 1999, 129), etc. Use of such terms, as the claim for the existence of a complex short-range stockbreeding-agricultural economy in the LBA for the EES tribes (e.g. Kachalova 1974, 16– 18; Berezenskaya 1990, 37–47; Kuzmina 1990, 83–5; 1997b, 23; Sinyuk 1996, 321, etc.) gives the impression that authors may at times be more concerned with general ideas than with devising ways of making these refutable! In this way, the latter claim rests upon two rather debatable bodies of evidence concerning: a) the presumably agricultural connotations of certain tools (e.g. Berezenskaya 1990, 38–9); and b) the existence of short-range husbandry as implied by ‘significant’ amounts of pig in some small assemblages, a significance which seems to be due to systematic use of the MNI values that automatically inflated swine contributions (Tsalkin 1958; 1972a,b,c,d; Zhuralev 1997; Kosintzev & Varov 1992). Much the same applies to ox-carts being taken as indicators of mobile life when these have also been recorded in the fully agricultural world west of the Dnepr, even prior to LBA times (Merpert 1974; Smirnov 1980; Pryakhin 1972; Andreeva 1984; Sinyuk 1996; Gey 1999). Eventually, all these questions become interconnected to such a degree that the whole logical building becomes incomprehensible, in particular when more issues are incorporated into the discussion. Before proceeding any further with faunal data, therefore, two previously mentioned ideas should be worth considering again: 1. Sedentism as a way of life need not be linked to

Figure 22.9. Fracturation patterns of cattle metatarsals from Gorny: A) complete bone with indication of the main (larger arrows) and secondary (smaller arrows) blows. The fracturation sequences are highly stereotyped and, depending on the specific blows delivered and their sequential order, result in two very distinct patterns of bone debris (B & C). From here onwards, different splinters may be used for the construction of particular tools (D; see also Table 22.5). any kind of stockbreeding. The indians of the Pacific northwest, for example, became sedentary thanks to an abundant and regular supply of fishes. This consumption has, in fact, been proved more prevalent in the prehistoric EES than previously imagined (O’Connell et al. 1999; this volume) and fishing has been recently considered as another possibility for settling people there (Renfrew 1999b, 138). Mining and metallurgy have 345

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repeatedly been invoked by other authors (e.g. Chernykh 1982) as alternative triggers in the same context. 2. Since bone remains merely reflect certain peculiarities about human diets, unless one can demonstrate that the people at a particular site raised the animals they consumed afterwards, the whole issue about nomadism vs. sedentism might prove useless, when not downright misleading if based only on archaeozoological data. Implicit in this second idea, but also in the previous one, is the existence of a well-developed system of interchange of goods that allows, for example, modern city dwellers to depend on meat they do not produce. These two ideas are essential in the context of our discussion since, according to several authors, Srubnaya appears to be a development of such ‘apparent tokens of sedentism’ as Arkaim and Sintashta (Renfrew 1999b, 134). The triggers for sedentism at those two sites as well as in many Timber-Grave sites are baffling in view of the harsh environment and apparent absence of agriculture. It is in this context that mining and metallurgy become meaningful. Minerals, being both abundant and ‘predictable’ on the EES could have provided the impetus for sedentary life once the technology for extracting and processing them became available to EES tribesmen. Still, mining and metallurgy did not improve the conditions for agriculture which remained environmental, and probably required too many people and resources for town villagers to devote a substantial part of their work to stockbreeding (Antipina 1999, 106–7). Given such a scenario, sedentism could only be maintained through external inputs of meat and these could only be insured once alternative goods became available for exchange. The main problem with this logical hypothesis, for which one can find many analogues in the contemporary world, lies in the fact that we would be confronted here with a dual system of non-productive sedentary centres and productive (mobile?) communities the archaeozoological record only providing evidence for the former. True, the evidence for sedentism in many places seems to be compelling and might help to explain such biological oddities as donkeys and house mice at Gorny as well as the presence of permanent constructions, abundant pottery and bone crafts at other Srubnaya sites. Some other faunal evidence, such as the high contributions of ovicaprines at Maksyutovo and Uspenskoe or the high contributions of juvenile specimens at Ekazhevo, re-

spectively suggesting more mobile or more residential stockbreeding, is interesting since these three sites are the only places which lack hints of mining and metallurgy. But this evidence still stresses the fact that, if mining centres were not the units of production of meat, we have a very unclear idea on how the productive sites behaved. Thus, even though our comparative analysis hinted at certain trends or patterns, if one assumes the dual nature of the Srubnaya world’s sites, one needs to realize that the bias of the archaeological record does not allow one to get a glimpse, let alone a complete picture, of putative stockbreeding practices. No wonder, with this presumably biased faunal record, one is often forced to argue by default — well aware that absence of evidence need not imply evidence of absence. Nor should one be surprised at the proliferation of ad hoc hypothesis, whether sound and well constructed (i.e. swine contributions correlating with vegetal cover, thus evidencing a semi-wild stockbreeding practice: Gershkovich 1999) or more imaginative that robust (i.e. the ‘ice-breaker’ theory for horse use and domestication: Shishlina 1999). In fact, if one were to single out a prominent feature of our faunal data base, this would concern its sheer variability since, even when considering four to five parameters out of a potential thirty-five (Table 22.1), the differences exhibited by most of the 21 sites, were of such a degree so as to render each site a world of its own. Only after a clear picture on the stockbreeding strategies carried out at each particular site emerges (and we are still a long way from reaching that stage) could one try to combine data into a more consistent framework in order to explore settlement practices as well. To proceed the other way around, from top to bottom (i.e. from ideas to data), is not only epistemologically dangerous and methodologically inadequate at this point, but we fear it might only contribute to keep a sterile debate for another thirty or forty years. Conclusions The highly biased nature of the available archaeozoological information dictates that most of the questions concerning stockbreeding practices in the EES during LBA times remain open at this moment. To obtain some of the data required in order to address certain palaeoeconomic questions, one could just go back to the bone collections and measure, check morphologies for sex, castrates and hybrids or simply record data in terms of NISPs. Other kinds of data, in particular those dealing with microfaunas, 346

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will require appropriate retrieval programs — either sieving or flotation, and thus new excavations. Some further data (stable isotopes, palaeo-DNA, etc.), finally, will need to be pursued through other kinds of analyses. The problem here is not so much one of quantity/quality of data as a conceptual one. It should be realized that the kinds of faunal data that have been used in the debate up until now are probably the least useful; we also need to become aware of the full potential the archaeozoological evidence offers. In the future, determining stockbreeding strategies might not be so much a question about how much cattle there was as a question of how many cow dung mites have been retrieved and where. Settlement practices, similarly, require a systematic analysis of sediments in order to check for commensals, seasonality indicators and butchering practices among other things. Improving archaeozoological information will not solve all problems but, obviously, we cannot suggest ways in which other disciplines should proceed in order to get more satisfactory results. On account of the complexities of the issues at stake and of the necessarily partial nature of the archaeological record, the ultimate answers to the questions will require a truly interdisciplinary approach. As we have seen with recent studies on stable isotopes evidencing the importance of fish in the diet of EES peoples (O’Connell et al. 1999), we are positive that such interdisciplinarity will help us finally debunk, if not all, at least ‘many of the old safe verities’ (Levine 1999, 5).

from a series of sites of our concern. M. Levine (U. Cambridge) read several versions of this manuscript. The final version was read by E. Roselló (UAM Madrid). Prof. Dr P. Kohl (Wellesley College) and Dr. R. Meadow (Harvard) supplied vital bibliography. The researchers from this paper have been sponsored by grants no. 97/06/80139 of the Russian Fond for Fundamental Research (RFFI) and PB97-0048 of the Spanish National Research Council (DGICYT). References Andreeva, M.V., 1984. Glinyanaya model povozki iz pogrebeniya katakombnogo vremeni. Sovetskaya Arkheologiya 3, 201–5. Anthony, D.W., 1986. The ‘kurgan culture’, Indo-European origins and the domestication of the horse: a reconsideration. Current Anthropology 27, 291–313. Antipina, Y.Y., 1999. Kostnye ostatki zhivotnikh s poseleniya Gorny. Rossiiskaya arkheologiya 1, 106–16. Antipina, Y.Y., 2001. Bone tools and ware from the site of Gorny (1690–1410 BC) in the Kargaly mining complex in the South-Ural part of the East European Steppe, in Crafting Bone: Skeletal Technologies through Time and Space: Proceedings of the Second Meeting of the ICAZ Worked Bone Research Group, Budapest, 31 August–5 September 1999. (British Archaeological Report International Series 937.) Oxford: BAR, 171– 8. Athias-Binche, F., 1987. Modalites de la cicatrisation des ecosystèmes mediterraneens apres incendies: cas de certains arthropodes du sol. 3. Les acariens Uropodides. Vie et Milieu 37(1), 39–52. Auffray, J.C., E. Tchernov & E. Nevo, 1988. Origin of the commensalism in the house mouse (Mus musculus domesticus) in relation to man. Comptes Rendus Academie Sciences Paris (Série III) 307, 517–22. Baird, R.F., 1989. Fossil bird assemblages from Australian caves: precise indicators of Late Quaternary environments? Paleogeography, Paleoclimatology, Paleoecology 69, 241–4. Bartosiewicz, L., W. van Neer & A. Lentacker, 1997. Draught cattle: their osteological identification and history. Museé Royale de l’Afrique Centrale. Tervuren. Annales Sciences Zoologiques 281, whole volume. Benecke, N., 1993. The exploitation of Sus scrofa (L. 1758) on the Crimean Peninsula and in southern Scandinavia in the Early and Middle Holocene. Two regions, two strategies, in Exploitation des animaux sauvages a travers le temps, eds. J. Desse & F. AudoinRouzeau. Juan-les-Pins: Editions APDCA, 233–45. Benecke, N., 1994a. Archëozoologische Studien zur Entwicklung des Haustierhaltung in Mitteleuropa und Südskandinavien von den Anfängen zum ausgehenden mittel alter. Berlin: Akademie Verlag Benecke, N., 1994b. Der Mensch und seine Haustiere: Die Geschichte einer Jahrtausendealten Beziehung. Stuttgart: Thesis.

Acknowledgements Many people have helped us in this research. First, and foremost, the members of the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, in particular Prof. Dr Y.N. Chernykh and Y.Y. Lebedeva who excavated and sorted the materials from Gorny and provided useful insights. Also, A.N. Usachuk and V.N. Gorbov, archaeologists from Donetz who helped one of us (Y.A.) to collect the animal remains from Bezymennoe. M. Martínez Navarrete and J. Vicent (CSIC, Madrid), provided a lot of complementary data and discussions, as members of the research project PS95-0031 (‘El inicio de la economía productiva en la gran estepa euriasiática y su impacto en el medio ambiente: ¿catástrofes ecológicas en la estepa?’) undertaken in conjunction with the team of Prof. Dr Y.N. Chernykh in Moscow. Special thanks are given to Antonio López Sáez (CSIC, Madrid) who provided unpublished data on plant remains 347

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Eurasian Steppe, Levine et al. 1999, 5–58. Levine, M., Y.Y. Rassamakin, A.M. Kislenko & N.S. Tatarintseva, 1999. Late Prehistoric Exploitation of the Eurasian Steppe. (McDonald Institute Monographs.) Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research. Lyashko, S.N., 1994. Kostoresnoe proizvodstvo v epokhu bronzy, in Remeslo Epokhi Neolita–Bronzy na Ukraine, ed. I.T. Chernyakov. Kiev: Naukova Dumka, 152– 66. Magurran, A.E., 1988. Ecological Diversity and its Measurement. London: Croom & Helm. Merpert, N.Y., 1974. Drevneyshie Skotovody VolzhskoUralskovo Mezhdurechya. Moscow: Nauka. Merpert, N.Y. & A.D. Pryakhin, 1979. Srubnaya kulturnoistoricheskaya obshchnost epokhi bronzy Vostochnoi Evropy i lesostep, in Arkheologiya Vostochno-Evropeyskoi Lesostepi. Voronezh: Voronezhskiy Universitet, 7–24. Morales, A., 1988. On the use of butchering as a palaeocultural index: proposal of a new methodology for the study of bone fractures from archaeological sites. Archaeozoologia II(1.2), 111–50. Morales, A., 1990a. Multiple hypotheses, unrefutable theories: a case sample from the policultive theory, in Beiträge zur Archäozoologie, Archäologie, Anthropologie, Geologie und Paläontologie, eds. J. Schibler et al. Basel: Helbig and Lichtenhahn, 131–40. Morales, A., 1990b. Arqueología teórica: usos y abusos reflejados en la interpretación de las asociaciones de fauna en yacimientos antrópicos. Trabajos de Prehistoria 47, 251–90. Morales, A., 1996. Algunas consideraciones teóricas en torno a la fauna como indicadora de espacios agrarios en la Prehistoria. Trabajos de Prehistoria 53(2), 5–17. Morales, A., 1997. Fauna arqueológica y bioindicadora: apuntes para una reflexión. Revista de Ciencias Históricas XII, 7–16. Morales, A., 1998. The mobile faunas: reliable seasonal indicators for archaeozoologists?, in Seasonality and Sedentism: Archaeological Perspectives from Old and New World Sites, eds. T.R. Rocek & O. Bar-Yosef. (Peabody Museum Bulletin 6.) Cambridge (MA): Peabody Museum, 25–39. Morales, A. & J.L. Sanz, 1994. Arqueoacarología: potencialidades y limitaciones de un prácticamente inédita subdisciplina arqueozoológica. Pyrenae 25, 17–29. Morales, A., M.A. Cereijo, F. Hernandez & C. Liesau, 1995. Of mice and sparrows: commensal faunas from the Iberian Iron Age in the Duero Valley (Central Spain). International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 5(2), 127–38. Moreno, M., 1998. The zooarchaeological evidence for transhumance in medieval Spain, in Medieval Europe Brugge 1997, vol. 9, 45–54. Moreno, M., 1999a. Ethnographic observations of transhumant husbandry practices in Spain and their applicability to the archaeological record, in Transhumant Pastoralism in Southern Europe, eds. L.

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Bartosiewicz & H.J. Greenfield. Budapest: Archaeolingua, 159–77. Moreno, M., 1999b. The Archaeozoology of Transhumance in Medieval Spain. Unpublished PhD Thesis, University of Cambridge. Obydennov, M.F. & G.T. Obydennova, 1992. SeveroVostochnaya Periferiya Srubnoi Kulturno-istoricheskoi Obshchnosti. Samara: Samarskii Universitet. O’Connell, T.C., M.A. Levine & R.E.M. Hedges, 1999. The importance of fish in the diet of Central Eurasian peoples from the Mesolithic to the Early Iron Age, in Papers Presented for the Symposium Late Prehistoric Exploitation of the Eurasian Steppe, vol. 2. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, 303–12. [Printed in this volume as Chapter 16.] O’Connor, R.J. & M. Schrubb, 1986. Farming and Birds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. O’Connor, T.P., 1993. Birds and the scavenger niche. Archaeofauna 2, 155–62. Otroshchenko, V.V., 1999. The peculiarities of the economy of cultures of the Srubnaya entity, in Papers Presented for the Symposium Late Prehistoric Exploitation of the Eurasian Steppe, vol. III. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, 127–31. [Printed in this volume as Chapter 21.] Otroshchenko, V.V., A.D. Pryakhin, V.I. Besedin, Y.M. Brpovender & A.S. Savrasov, 1997. UkrainskoRusskaya expeditsiya po izucheniyu pamyatnikov epokhi bronzy Donetskogo basseina. Arkheologiya Vostochnoevropeiskoi Lesostepi 10, 90–103. Pashkevich, G.A., 1991. Paleoetnobotanicheskie Nahodki na Territorii Ukrainy (Neolit–Bronza). Kiev: Institut Arkheologii. Pashkevich, G.A., 1997. Zemledelie y plemen sabatinovskoi kultury po dannym palaeoetnobotanicheskikh issledovanii, in Sabatinovskaya i Srubnaya Kultury: Problemi Uzaimosvyazeg Vostoka Izapada v Epokhy Pozdnei Bronzy, ed. V.N. Klushintsev. Kiev: NikolaevYuzhnoukrainsk, 59–61. Peters, J., 1998. Römische Tierhaltung und Tierzucht: Eine Synthese aus archäozoologischer und Schriftbildlicher Uberlieferung. Rahden/Westfalen: Verlag Marie Leidorf. Petrenko, A.G., 1984. Drevnee i Srednevekovoe Zivotnovodstvo Srednego Povolzhya i Preduralya. Moscow: Nauka. Pryakhin, A.D., 1972. Poseleniya Katakombnogo Vremeni Lesostepnogo Podonya. Voronezh: Voronezhskiy Universitet. Pryakhin, A.D., 1976. Poseleniya Abashevskoi Obshnosti. Voronezh: Voronezhskiy Universitet. Pryakhin, A.D. & V.V. Kileinikov, 1989. Khozyaistvo zhitelei Mosolovskogo poselka epokhi pozdnei bronzy (danniye eksperimentalno — trasologicheskogo analiza orudii truda), in Arkheologiya Vostochnoevropeiskoi Stepi, ed. V.G. Mironov. Saratov: Saratovskii Gosudarstvennyi Universitet, 148–50. Rassamakin, Y., 1999. The Eneolithic of the Black Sea Steppe: dynamics of cultural and economic development 4500–2300 BC, in Levine et al. 1999, 59–182.

Renfrew, C., 1996. Language families and the spread of farming, in Harris (ed.), 70–92. Renfrew, C., 1999a. Introduction, in Levine et al. 1999, 1–4. Renfrew, C., 1999b. Pastoral nomadism and social questions: some introductory queries, in Papers Presented for the Symposium Late Prehistoric Exploitation of the Eurasian Steppe, vol. III. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, 133–40. [Printed as Renfrew, C., 2002. Pastoralism and interaction: some introductory questions, in Ancient Interactions: East and West in Eurasia, eds. K. Boyle, C. Renfrew & M. Levine. (McDonald Institute Monographs.) Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, 1–10.] Rocek, T.R. & O. Bar-Yosef (eds.), 1998. Seasonality and Sedentism: Archaeological Perspectives from Old and New World Sites. (Peabody Museum Bulletin 6.) Cambridge (MA): Peabody Museum. Rowley-Conwy, P., 1995. Wild or domestic? On the evidence for the earliest domestic cattle and pigs in southern Scandinavia and Iberia. International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 5(2), 115–26. Safonov, I.E., 1996. Osobennosti khozyaistvennogo kalendarya srubnoi kultury. Dono-Donetskiy Region v Sisteme Drevnostei Epokhi Bronzy Vostochnoevropeskoi Stepi i Lesostepi 2, 66–70. Savva, E.N., 1992. Kultura Mnogovalikovoi Keramiki Dnestrovsko–Prutskogo Mezhdurechiya. Kishinev: Shtiintsa. Schelvis, J., 1992. Mites and Archaeology. General Methods: Application to Dutch Sites. Unpublished PhD Thesis, University of Groningen. Sherrat, A., 1996. Plate tectonics and imaginary prehistories: structure and contingency in agricultural origins, in Harris (ed.), 130–40. Shishlina, N., 1999. Yamnaya culture pastoral exploitation: a local sequence, in Papers Presented for the Symposium Late Prehistoric Exploitation of the Eurasian Steppe, vol. II. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, 359–68. [Printed in this volume as Chapter 23.] Sinyuk, A.T., 1996. Bronzovyi vek Basseyna Dona. Voronezh: Voronezhskiy Pedagogicheskiy Universitet. Smirnov, Y.A., 1980. Pogrebenie s bychimi cherepami v Nizhnem Podonye. Sovetskaya Arkheologiya 4, 173– 80. Smith, A.B., 1992. Pastoralism in Africa. London: Hurst & Co. Summers-Smith, J.D., 1988. The Sparrows: a Study of the Genus Passer. Calton: T. & A.D. Poyser. Tangri, D. & G. Wyncoll, 1989. Of mice and men. Is the presence of commensal animals in archaeological sites a positive correlate of sedentism? Paléorient 15, 85–94. Tchernov, E., 1984. Commensal animals and human sedentism in the Middle East, in Animals and Archaeology, vol. 3: Early Herders and their Flocks, eds. J. Clutton-Brock & C. Grigson. (British Archaeological Reports International Series 202.) Oxford: BAR, 91– 115.

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Tchernov, E., 1991. Of mice and men. Biological markers of long term sedentism: a reply. Paléorient 17, 153– 60. Tsalkin, V.I., 1958. Fauna iz raskopok arkheologiceskikh pamyatnikov Srednego Povolzhya. Materiali i Issledovania po Archeologii Sovetskogo Sousa 61, 221– 81. Tsalkin, V.I., 1964. Nekotorye itogi izucheniya kostnykh ostatkov zhivotnykh iz raskopok arkheologiceskikh pamyantikov pozdnego bronzovogo veka. Kratkie Soobscheniya Instituta Archeologii 101, 24–30. Tsalkin, V.I., 1970. Drevneyshie Domashnie Zhivotnye Vostochnoi Evropy. Moscow: Nauka. Tsalkin, V.I., 1972a. Domashnie zhivotnye Vostochnoiy Evropy v epokhu pozdnei bronzy. Soobshchenie 1, in Bulleten Moskovskogo Obshchestva Ispytatelei prirody. Otdel Biologicheskiy, ed. B.S. Matveev. (Vupusk 1.) Moscow: Akademia Nauk, 46–65. Tsalkin, V.I., 1972b. Domashnie zhivotnye Vostochnoiy Evropy v epokhu pozdnei bronzy. Soobshchenie 1. Bulleten Moskovskogo Obshchestva Ispytateley Prirody. Otdel Biologicheskiy, ed. B.S. Matveev. (Vupusk 2.) Moscow: Akademia Nauk, 42–50. Tsalkin, V.I., 1972c. Domashnie zhivotnye Vostochnoiy Evropy v epokhu pozdnei bronzy. Soobshchenie 1. Bulleten Moskovskogo Obshchestva Ispytateley Prirody. Otdel Biologicheskiy, ed. B.S. Matveev. (Vupusk 3.) Moscow: Akademia Nauk, 61–72. Tsalkin, V.I., 1972d. Domashnie zhivotnye Vostochnoiy Evropy v epokhu pozdnei bronzy. Soobshchenie 1. Bulleten Moskovskogo Obshchestva Ispytateley Prirody. Otdel Biologicheskiy, ed. B.S. Matveev. (Vupusk 4.) Moscow: Akademia Nauk, 60–73. Usachuk, A.N., 1997. Kostyanoi inventar poselenii Srubnoi

kultury u ch. Krasnyi Yar na Donu. Arkheologicheskii Almanakh 6, 173–80. Usachuk, A.N., 1998. Rezultaty trasologicheskogo izucheniya kostyanykh pryazhek kultury mnogovalikovoi keramiki, in Problemy Izucheniya Katakombnoi Kulturnoistoricheskoi Obchshnosti, ed. S.T. Pustovalov. Zaporozhe: Zaporozhskii Gosudarstvennyi Universitet, 125–35. Wing, E. & E. Reitz, 1998. Zooarchaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Zhuralev, O.P., 1990. Arkheozoologicheskie issledovaniya poseleniya Bugskoe-II Nikolaevskoy oblasti, in Problemy Izucheniya Katakombnoy Kulturno-istoriceskoi Obscnosti (Zaporoze 1990), ed. S.T. Pustovalov. Zaporozhe: Zaporozhskii Gosudarstvennyi Universitet, 16–18. Zhuralev, O.P., 1991. Zhivotnovodstvo i ohota u plemen epokhi bronzy na territorii Severnogo Prichernomorya, in Priazovya Drevneishie Obshchnosti Zemledelcev i Skotovodov Severnogo Prichernomorya (IV tus. Do n.e.–V v.n.e.), ed. P.P. Tolochko. Kiev: Ramus AN USSR, 137–8. Zhuralev, O.P., 1997. Zhivotnovodstvo i okhota u plemen Srubnoi kultury na Luganshchine, in Epokha Bronzy Dono-Donetzkogo regiona, ed. Insitut Arkheologii Ukrainskoi Akademii. Kiev: Nauk, 15–18. Zhuralev, O.P. & L.V. Syceva, 1989. Paleozoologicheskie issledovaniya poseleniya katakombnoi kultury Matveevka I. Sovetskaya Arkheologiya 2, 150–52. Zhuralev, O. & G. Okhrimenko, 1994. Paleozoologichni dani z pamyatok kultury liniino-strichkovoi keramiky, in Arkheologichni Pamyatky ta Istoriya Starodavnogo Naselennya Ukrainy, vol. 1, ed. P.P. Tolochko. Kiev: Kostopil-Veza, 144–67.

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Chapter 23 Yamnaya Culture Pastoral Exploitation: a Local Sequence Natalia I. Shishlina The earliest Eneolithic and Bronze Age cultures in

Studies conducted in the Kuban river region (Trifonov 1996), in the area of the North Caspian Sea steppes (Shishlina 1997a) or the Don region (Kiyashko 1994) over the past decade have shown that there are a series of new sites that are not related to the Yamnaya cultural groups present in these regions. Diagnostic cultural indicators of proto-Catacomb cultures, for example the Novotitarovka culture (Gey 1991), have been determined. The chronology of the Eneolithic and Bronze Age has been defined and is now based on a significant number of calibrated radiocarbon dates (Alexandrovsky et al. 1997; Chichagova et al. 1999; Trifonov 1996; 2001; Shishlina et al. 2001). Identifying the cultural and historical characteristics of the groups described and their periodization is one of the attempts to review steppe artefacts using modern techniques and to resolve the problematic situation that has arisen in studies of the Eneolithic and Bronze Age of southern Eastern Europe. The detailed periodization of cultures and cultural groups, offered by Rassamakin for the North Black Sea maritime steppe, forms a new historical and cultural scheme of the Eneolithic and Early Bronze Age (Rassamakin 1999). This periodization should be looked upon as part of a process aimed at achieving a better understanding of the North Eurasian Bronze Age. Local studies, conducted in separate regions, that provide an entire set of regional characteristics, go beyond traditional archaeological classification. They are a successful way out of the problematic situation which has developed in studies of the steppe region Bronze Age. Rassamakin has put forward a classification, based on four burial traditions, for the division of cultural communities, which used to be seen as uniform, into a mosaic of isolated cultures (Rassamakin 1999, 73). He describes these funerary rituals for the Skelya and Kvityana cultures; however, he separates out the Dereivka culture on the basis of a different set of classification indicators, for example a typo-

the Western Eurasian steppe were grouped together as several macro-cultures. These large ethno-cultural communities and regions occupied their place on the map of historical cultures of ancient Eurasia and among them the Yamnaya culture occupied a distinct position. The geographical distribution of Yamnaya culture sites stretch from the Danube as far as Siberia, allowing many scholars to construct ethno-cultural reconstructions related to issues of Yamnaya culture origin and chronology (for example, Merpert 1974). Migrations of Yamnaya culture groups have also formed a focus of research and have been credited as the earliest movements of IndoEuropeans (Gimbutas 1970; 1991; Mallory 1989). Available data have allowed us to reconstruct several types of pastoral economies (for example, Shilov 1975) which were important and relevant in the Yamnaya culture period. Yamnaya culture sites occupied a key position among steppe cultures dating of the Eneolithic to Early Bronze Age. On the one hand, the Yamnaya culture consistently closed the preceding stratum of steppe Eneolithic groups, and on the other, it was a generator of new cultural and historical innovations. Thus, it determined, to a great extent, the further development of the Eurasian steppe during the Bronze Age. Advances in ‘kurgan archaeology’ over the past decade, however, have resulted in a review of many reconstructions made at the macro-level. These reconstructions have been replaced by ‘micro-level’ research, concerning specific cultural groups and types, within communities that used to be seen as uniform (Gey 1999). Now the group of Yamnaya cultures may be viewed as adaptations to local environments and ecology across the steppe. While at one level these adaptations often appear similar, on a smaller scale, each can be seen as specific adaptations to the local environment. Different phenomena are observable in every local ecological niche. 353

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logically distinctive pottery (Rassamakin 1999, 87). Thus the unity of a single diagnostic classification system is destroyed. Rassamakin’s classification is not based only on the characteristics which were proclaimed as classificationary and diagnostic: i.e. funerary rituals. The funerary ritual for the Dereivka culture was not even identified, illustrating the weakest point in Rassamakin’s classification. All the cultures he describes are consistent with other ‘nonYamnaya groups’ that Gey united into a ‘distinctive ethnic and cultural community that lived from the second half of the fourth to the first half of third millennium BC’ (Gey 1999, 38). This ‘distinctive ethnic and cultural community’ was identified by Gey as being oriented towards contacts with neighbouring agricultural cultures, i.e. the Tripolye and the Maikop cultures. This cultural grouping was a ‘herding culture’ showing that the development of pastoral exploitation was taking place within this unity. Using the cultures which he identified, Rassamakin proposes a new cultural and historical periodization of the region described. He, correctly, discusses the system of interrelated events, in order to present the dynamics of steppe society development. The author’s main objective, however, is to review the whole system of interaction of steppe cultural groups, including latitudinal and meridional links. Rassamakin (1999, 87–129) describes two forms of migration, based on the typology of funeral offerings, in particular ceramics, which raises critical objections. The second migration described by Rassamakin concerns the Repin culture, and describes its expansion and the manifestation of Repin culture elements in the steppe (Rassamakin 1999, 125). Serious objections arise, however, in connection with his statements (Gey 1999, 42). For example, Sinyuk believes the Repin culture formed in the forest-steppe, Don region and then spread southward into the steppe. I, however, share the point of view put forward by Gey, suggesting that Repin sites are sites of ‘specific groups of the sedentary population, that lived in the valleys of major rivers surrounded by mobile herding Yamnaya culture groups, but that were related with similar cultures of the forest-steppe by common origin’ (Gey 1999, 42). If this is the case, similarities in the artefacts found at Repin culture settlements and in Yamnaya culture graves would suggest an interaction of sedentary and mobile societies, that differed from each other in their nature. Today Repin sites are found in a region consisting of three natural areas, from the Lower Volga and the Don as far as the Desna region.

Problems of economic systems reconstruction One of the problems currently under discussion is the origin and development of the pastoral economy (Renfrew 1999, 9). It has become clear that the development of a pastoral economy is a complex process. Pastoralism must be viewed as a distinctive adaptive type of human activity, in a region that includes areas of steppe, located between the northern maritime area of the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. Historical and theoretical research on the Bronze Age palaeoeconomy of steppe cultures has been undertaken successfully for many years and is based on the analysis of general tendencies in the development of the climate. Archaeological cultures have been described, as have bone remains of animals found on archaeological sites. Identification of archaeological markers of mobility such as wagons (Shilov 1975; Kozhin 1997a) was studied along with the characterization of short-term pasture corrals as opposed to long-term settlements (Merpert 1974; Shilov 1975). Several reconstructions of economy types have been offered, for example, daily uninterrupted migrations of large social groups (Gryaznov 1955); seasonal migrations of separate small groups within the territory being exploited (Shilov 1975) and range herding within a settled agricultural and pastoral economy (Rassamakin 1994). A modern, ecological approach to traditional archaeological materials identifies specific ecological niches for palaeo-reconstruction. The use of ethnographic data on pastoralism from similar environments allows us to channel our research into the study of the earliest pastoral economies. These were based on a principally new system, which exploited available resources, i.e. the seasonal use of grasslands, and evolved in response to ecological adaptation to the steppe niche. A seasonal economic cycle with an alternating use of different forms of grassland gradually became a part of the complex pastoral technology and, therefore, turned into one of the markers of a pastoral economy (Barfield 1992; Shnirelman 1995). Pastoralism is understood to be ‘a specific form of economy and domestic life that is based on extensive herding with seasonal migrations of the population and cattle’ (Bromley & Shtrobach 1989, 72). Pastoralism implies regular seasonal migrations of the whole community of people together with their productive base (property and animals) within a specific ecological niche. This marks out migrations of nomads to be different from those of hunters, as the latter exploit various ecological niches and use vari354

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required economic balance. We imagine that the development of the new economic model in the steppe, i.e. the pastoral economy, took place in parallel with the establishment of technological and social constructs to manage such an economy. Among the conditions that determined the type of pastoral economy was the systematic use of seasonal grasslands. The grassland environment of Kalmykia is dry steppe (Fig. 23.1). It is divided in the north by ravine forests, and gives way to semi-desert in the south. Although various tribes were already living in this region as early as the fifth-fourth millennium BC (Koltsov 1984; 1985), the greater part of the steppe and semi-steppe, nevertheless, remained free of settlements. During the Neolithic period, the northern Caspian Sea population was not numerous, living primarily in camps with thick occupation levels, located along the banks of the ancient delta (Koltsov 1984; Barynkin 1986; 1989). These Neolithic cultures exploited aquatic resources, and several aquatic micro-landscapes were totally occupied, especially in the Volga region (Vasilev & Vybornov 1986; Yudin 1991). The abundance of flint tools and ceramics provides good evidence for what can be described as a foraging economy. They were hunters and fishers. However the appearance of domestic animals, for example, cattle, sheep and horse, demonstrates the transitional nature of this Neolithic economy. Although herding continues to develop towards evergreater complexity, there is no evidence for agriculture in the region during this period. It is likely that the environment was simply not suitable given the primitive agricultural technologies available. The inhabitants of adjacent regions, for example in the Volga region (Yudin 1991; Barynkin 1989) and in the Caspian Sea region (Barynkin 1986), developed along similar lines. Thus, in general, the Neolithic economy of the region under discussion developed slowly, but successfully, in the direction of herding intensification (Koltsov 1984). The potential of the combined ecological conditions and technological pre-adaptation result in the rise of possible early pastoralists amongst the hunter-fisher-gatherers. As we can see in the Rassamakin’s scheme (Rassamakin 1999, 132–51), Eneolithic steppe tribes were ‘hunting and fishing units with elements of animal husbandry’ (Rassamakin 1999, 132). It seems that most of the steppe population was sedentary (Rassamakin 1999, 142) and there was no evidence of migrations at that time (Shishlina 1998). As early as the beginning of the third millen-

ous productive sources. It also differentiates pastoralists from agriculturalists, as the latter exploit a specific ecological niche but do not move to a new place with all their production means (Cribb 1991). We regard such an economy as a particular adaptive system. Its major components are as follows: 1. humans; 2. environment, including landscape, climate and hydrological network; 3. domesticated animals; 4. settlements and dwellings; 5. technological base — aggregate knowledge that includes separate production, food acquisition system, system of grassland seasonal use, exchange with neighbouring cultures, etc.; 6. social relationships; 7. ideological structures — aggregate ideological concepts of the surrounding world. Each component of this system is interrelated with the other components. An example of steppe pastoral adaptation: the Kalmykia steppe case In this paper I am going to focus attention on particular relevant qualitative natural characteristics, for example, the knowledge of different grassland’s productivity, the location of water sources, the ability to use horses and cows to break ice cover for smaller animals. These resulted in the gradual development of a seasonal cycle of migrations within the ecological niche exploited at the beginning of the Early Bronze Age (2900–2500 Cal. BC). In addition, they resulted in the establishment of new systems of economic and, most likely, political links, trade and cultural exchange. By highlighting our own model of the seasonal system of grassland usage by the Yamnaya groups that settled in a specific region, i.e. the Kalmykia steppes, during the first half to the middle of third millennium BC (based on calibrated dates) (Shishlina et al. 2001) the aim is to re-open the discussion of the problem of the development of a pastoral economy as a principally new economic phenomenon. It is impossible to imagine a pastoral economy in the steppe without the use of different forms of grasslands, for example winter and summer. Ethnographically, those animals which predominate in the herd are of great importance in understanding the use of seasonal grasslands. The search for productive grazing areas and water sources is the herders’ main concern. They must foresee which grasslands could be used in the future in order to maintain a 355

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Possibilities provided by the ecological niche in Kalmykia to engage in a pastoral economy Firstly, it is necessary to review the possibilities that the local landscape provided for the proto-pastoralists and the demands it made on them (Fig. 23.1). The depth of snow cover is one of the key landscape characteristics that provide evidence as to whether it was possible to use various areas as a winter migration area. Sheep and cattle can not obtain fodder from under deep snow. Traditionally, herds of horses were put out to pasture first, as horses can break the snow with their hoofs in search of fodder (Fig. 23.2). Conversely, if the snow cover is shallow, or if there is no snow cover at all, the temperature drops significantly below zero and the soils becomes thoroughly frozen. In this situation the fodder also becomes inaccessible for cattle. The analysis of ethnographic records shows that, under modern landscape conditions, the greater part of the Kalmykia territory can be used as summer grasslands (Bulatov 2000). These grasslands, however, can only be used as a winter migration area under certain conditions: 1. if the occurrence of a warm winter does not allow a stable or deep snow cover to develop; 2. an insignificant amount of precipitation prevents the formation of a stable or deep snow cover; 3. tall grasses, for example, cats-tail and reed, stand high over the snow cover surface (Fig. 23.3). Over the past twenty years several papers written by palaeogeographers, palaeoclimatologists and palaeoecologists (Spiridonova 1991; Kremenetsky 1997; Alexandrovsky 1997) have made it possible to reconstruct the climate prevailing in the Caspian Sea maritime steppes during the Yamnaya culture. Dur-

Figure 23.1. Kalmykia steppe environment. nium BC, the bearers of the local Yamnaya culture gradually began to develop previously uninhabited lands. It is apparent that the local Yamnaya culture relates to the preceding Neolithic groups (Agapov et al. 1990), and that these connections were initially maintained not only genetically, but also through both trade and other social and cultural linkages (Merpert 1980). The main difference between these incipient herders of the local Yamnaya culture and their contemporary hunter and fisher cousins was the continuous exploitation of the same basic resource, i.e. pasture, in different seasons. 356

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ing this period, winter temperatures exceeded the current temperature by 1°C and the level of the annual precipitation was at least 100 mm higher than today. Many riverbeds that are now dry were full of water; a considerable part of the alkaline soils was covered by lakes or marsh lowlands. During the Yamnaya culture the whole territory of Kalmykia could be used as a winter migration area. An archaeological model of the seasonal use of grasslands by Yamnaya culture groups during Figure 23.2. Horses breaking snow in search of fodder (Kalmykia, January 2000). the first half of the third millennium BC As the data presented above show, climate and landscape conditions during the Yamnaya culture age were favourable and, at first glance, the people of this culture had abundant rich migration areas which could be used all year round. The spatial location of the sites, however, is not consistent with the potential optimal pattern of grassland use (Fig. 23.4). As of today, more than 550 Yamnaya culture burials have been recorded from ten burial grounds. Thirty-eight burial grounds dating to the Bronze Age have been exca- Figure 23.3. Kalmykia steppe winter environment: tall grasses (reed) stand high vated. The majority of over the surface snow cover. Yamnaya sites are located in the low-lying flood-prone areas of rivers, along the ground. Work has begun to determine the season of edges of lakes and in the plateau of watersheds next Yamnaya burial construction in the region under to rivers. No large permanent Yamnaya culture setinvestigation (Kirillova et al. 2000; Klevezal & tlements have been found in the Kalmyk steppes. Shishlina 2001). The available data have been colOnly individual finds of ceramic fragments, animal lected for a pilot study area of about 50 km2, which bones and flint debitage were discovered in Yergueni includes the Zunda-Tolga burial ground, located in and in the Manych valley. the low-lying flood-prone plain of the Eastern The season during which Yamnaya burials were Manych river and the Mandjikiny and Shupta burial constructed and Yamnaya kurgans (Fig. 23.5) were grounds, 40–50 km to the Northeast. Mandjikiny is built is believed to be correlated with that of the located on the top of the watershed plateau; Shupta Yamnaya group migrations around the burial is located on the slope of the watershed and is open 357

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N

lg Vo

a

Don

E ast

Kuban

M a n ych

Kuma

Caspian Sea 0

75 km

Figure 23.4. Kalmykia main Yamnaya culture sites and the neighbouring territories. preceding Yamnaya age. Therefore, the spatial analysis of Yamnaya culture site locations, the palaeo-reconstruction of the local environment and, in particular, the identification of the season of the Yamnaya period burials allow us to reach the following conclusions. The Yamnaya culture groups moved predominately along the rivers during winter. At the same time they did not go into areas far-removed from them in summer, a fact which also provided the possibility of burying their relatives in the winter migration areas during the summer. It seems likely that this is the main reason why kurgan mounds, erected over the Yamnaya burials, are significantly lower than those of a later period, scarcely attaining one metre in height and a diameter of 15 to 20 metres. Overgrazing could have occurred in some areas for the same reason, while the economic potential of wide spaces of dry steppes located in the Northwest and eastern parts of modern Kalmykia were not exploited. No sites of the Yamnaya culture age have been found in these areas.

steppe. In order to identify the season of burial, we thin-sectioned animal teeth, analyzing cementum and dentine, in addition to analyzing pollen from the burial pit base and palaeozoological determinations of animal bones. Therefore, based on the analyses undertaken, the season during which Yamnaya burials were performed in the low-lying flood-prone burial ground Zunda-Tolga is autumn or early spring. We may thus suggest that herders migrated throughout the flood-prone plain of the river during that period. The season of Yamnaya burials in the upper plateau watershed is summer and late autumn to early winter. One of the most significant results of comparative biomorphic analysis of buried soils from the kurgans of the Yamnaya and Catacomb period burial ground at Zunda-Tolga, is the recording of increased grazing of cattle. Overgrazing may even have taken place where Catacomb kurgans were erected, i.e. in the grasslands that are adjacent to the valley of the river Manych (Golyeva 1999b). In our view, this is indicative of an active use of the given area in the 358

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Movements took place a across a small area, only a few kilometres from the river near which the Yamnaya culture people lived in winter, to the nearest watersheds where the people moved in summer and autumn. Winter base-camps could be located on the lowlying flood-prone plains near rivers and on the shores of lakes. It was not necessary to build special defences against the wind as reed and cats-tail thickets could serve as natural shelter. The latter could also be used for animal fodder. Reed is an astonishingly good construction material, which could be used to build temporary shelters for herders and has traditionally been b used by nomads throughout various periods. Wooden wagons or carts could also have been used as dwellings, as the use of such wagons began around this period in the steppe. This may explain why there are no stone or clay dwellings in the places that are defined by many scholars as winter base-camps. So far no data have been collected on the use of dismantleable yurts. Fragments of thick plaited mats, made of reed, cats tail and kuga, were discovered at the bottom of Yamnaya tombs Figure 23.5. Kalmykia. Yamnaya culture sites: a) Yamnaya culture kurgan, (Shishlina 1999a; Golyeva Zunda-Tolga burial mound; b) Yamnaya culture grave, KVCH burial ground. 1999a). These findings may provide indirect evidence that dismantleable yurts herd would have solved the problem of breaking the or dwellings, similar to Kyrgyz sod dwellings, did snow cover as, during snowy winters, horses could exist. Individual fragments of ceramics, animal bone break the snow, exposing suitable grass for sheep and open hearths were found at a scattering of sites and cattle. along river valleys which have indistinct occupation It is necessary to bear in mind that the nomadic layers. Flint scatters and small animal bones found pattern that the Yamnaya culture people followed, in the old valley of the river Manych, now the Chograi i.e. from river to upper watershed, is limited in its reservoir, could be interpreted as the remnants of mobility. Analysis of Yamnaya burials from differwinter base-camps. ent burial grounds in Kalmykia, has shown signifiThe distribution of water resources in South cant differences, both in funeral rite and in grave Kalmykia did not require the construction of artifiofferings of the Yamnaya groups which exploited cial watering places. The presence of horses in the different landscape zones. For example, series of ob359

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jects including distinctive types of bone hammershaped pins, bronze jewellery of the North Caucasus type and small clay amphorae, were not found in the northern areas, where ceramics of the early Poltavka type were widespread. This provides indirect evidence that there were no southern movements of Yamnaya culture groups within Kalmykia. Of 550 recorded burials, dating to the Kalmykia Yamnaya culture, 83 per cent were found in the valley of the Eastern Manych, 10 per cent to the north of the Eastern Manych (Arkhara cemetery - 3.7 per cent, Lola cemetery - 2.6 per cent and Kermen-Tolga - 3.7 per cent). The central part of the region, covering the area of the Elista burial ground, accounts for 0.4 per cent of recorded burials and the northern part of Sarpin Lakes, 0.9 per cent. Meanwhile 4.7 per cent of known burials were uncovered near Lake Yashkul. Yamnaya kurgans of the Eastern Manych are notable, not so much because of the number of kurgans uncovered in this area (325 in total), but most likely, because the Manych river valley and adjacent regions were most fully exploited during the Yamnaya culture age. Comparison with artefacts from other burial grounds, where the number of excavated kurgans is roughly the same (around 30 to 40), shows that the smallest number of Yamnaya type complexes were found in the central and northern parts of the Yergueni Hills. More Yamnaya burials are found near Lake Yashkul, in the Yergueni depression, than in the burial grounds of the southern Yergueni. Comparison of Yamnaya graves, from the burial grounds in Eastern Manych and ZundaTolga, with Yamnaya graves from Chograi, in the Arzguir district of the Stavropol region, several kilometres from the modern Chograi reservoir, also helped to identify differences, both in the funeral rite and in the grave offerings of the two Yamnaya groups. These data are believed to confirm the hypothesis that Yamnaya groups migrated only within small local grassland areas. The absence of large permanent settlements seems to indicate that such migrations, even within such regions, were undertaken on a regular basis. No direct evidence is available of large-scale migrations of Yamnaya groups. Reconstruction of migration patterns is based on the clustering of kurgans near river valleys and on shores of lakes. Kurgan groups appear to form islands of exploited grassland, within limitless semidesert steppe spaces. Some such islands in the ‘steppe ocean’ may have begun to function as political and/ or economic centres. We believe the basin of the river Manych to have become such a centre during

the Yamnaya culture period. The exceptional diversity of landscapes which we find in Kalmykia supports this hypothesis. Valleys of the Kuma-Manych depression river system border the southern spurs of the Yergueni Hills and the northern slope of the Stavropol highlands. In the east they border the bay of the Caspian Sea lowlands. The role played by the neighbouring Caucasus from where metal, ochre, flint, rare timber (box-tree) and rare stones (serpentine) were imported should not be underestimated (Alexandrovsky et al. 2000). Results Comparison of archaeological and palaeogeographical records, taking into account available ethnographic data, allows us to suggest that migrations of Yamnaya culture groups, within the Kalmyk steppes, occurred within a small area, located near river valleys and lake shores. Small local migrations were based on a system of alternating summer and winter grasslands which allowed herders to exploit the economic potential of this relatively small area. The spatial location of Yamnaya sites within some areas of the ecological niche under investigation provides direct evidence of this exploitation. Climatic conditions, in particular mild and almost snow-free winters, favoured a repetitive migration pattern. This system can be compared with the possible migrations of other Yamnaya groups (Fig. 23.6), for example the Volga Yamnaya group migrated along the Volga riverbed, the Urals Yamnaya group, along the Belaya and Ural rivers and tributaries (Turetsky 1999; Morgunova & Kravtsov 1994). These migrations provided a higher economic potential for the Yamnaya culture people as they were able to develop a diverse exchange network with neighbouring peoples. It resulted in a gradual increase in social differentiation. This system, however, had a negative impact. Given that the land-use system did not change, an increase in the cattle population, triggered heavy degradation of the grasslands used. The aridization, which started in the middle of the third millennium BC and reached its climax several centuries later, aggravated the economic crisis from which people could recover only through making changes in their economic strategy. It is important to note that in the economy of the local Yamnaya culture population there is evidence for neither cereal farming nor fishing, and only apparently insignificant levels of hunting. Phytolith and pollen data indicate the collection and exploitation of wild grasses, for example Hordeum and Helictotrichon (Shishlina 2001). 360

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cover in the winter pastures, form the basis of this system. All-year-round feeding of cattle on green fodder is a main feature of nomadic economy. In this system the horse plays the key role especially during the winter (Masanov 1995). The presence of horses among the domesticated animals in Yamnaya culture kurgans suggests they were used to break the snow cover to reveal grass during winters when snow cover was deep. The role which horses began to play in the everyday life of local pastoralists began to be reflected in the funeral ritual. For example, a horse skull was put into the one of the Yamnaya grave of the Tsatsa burial ground (Shilov 1985a, 143). During the Yamnaya culture period the horse harness system may have been very simple. A rigid snaffle bit was not necessary if the horse were to be ridden in steppe pasture. In addition, if riders broke

Horse in the steppe Bronze Age cultures Levine’s theory, discussed in her most recent paper (Levine 1999), states that throughout the fourth and early third millennium BC, steppe populations continued hunting wild horse as their only food resource, suggesting that these cultures were primarily hunters (Levine 1999, 14). The model of seasonal use of grasslands described above, however, provides new directions in estimating the role of horses in the steppe cultures during the Eneolithic and Bronze Age. Data for the fourth millennium BC are poor; however, the role of horses can be discussed based on the recent investigation of Kalmykia Yamnaya culture sites of the early third millennium BC. It was noted above that during the first half of the third millennium BC the climate was warmer and more humid. During a the winter some areas were covered by snow. The degree of humidity that was the factor determining the height of the snow cover is a key climatic feature of the local environment of the third millennium BC. It should be noted that it is typical for traditional nomads to divide al grasslands into those used in winter Ur and summer. Seasonal productivity of grasslands, availability of water sources and the thickness of snow

kurgans

c

b

Vo lg a

Caspian Sea

Black Sea

dak del

Figure 23.6. Localization of the Yamnaya culture sites: a) Ural Yamnaya culture (Morgunova & Kravtsov 1994); b) Volga Yamnaya culture (Merpert 1974); c) Ukraine Yamnaya culture (Shaposhnikova 1985). 361

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This may explain the exploitation of areas where the Yamnaya culture kurgans are situated, which could have been covered by snow during the winter. During this time people probably began to develop new milk products. Analysis of the contents of clay vessels had been undertaken and results show the presence of water, clear meat soup, milk and a drink based on plants inside them (Shishlina 1999b). Kumys, made of fermented mare’s milk, which played an important role, compared to numerous other milk drinks, in all pastoral and nomadic societies, may have been developed during this time. The economic cycle of the subsequent Catacomb cultures, which definitively represent full-time mobile pastoralism, is characterized by change in the seasonal type of grassland usage (Shishlina 2000a). In accordance with studies conducted by Kremenetski, the level of precipitation in Kalmykia during the period from 2200 to 1700 BC was 50 mm less than the norm (Kremenetsky 1997). Compared with today, the level of precipitation decreased by 140–160 mm and must have significantly decreased the depth of snow cover. Therefore, the scope of winter grasslands is likely to have increased in this region and contributed to the expansion of seasonal migration routes. During the Middle Bronze Age, the Kalmyk steppes formed a distinctive ecological niche whose population managed to exploit all its biological resources to the full. Favourable environmental conditions and the economic potential of the Catacomb culture people to make use of resources enabled this thorough exploitation. In ddition, changes in the pattern of seasonal migrations across the whole ecological niche using better defined routes and permanent winter base-camps without permanent dwellings helped them achieve this objective. Catacomb culture populations began to use areas which we have identified as winter pastures, characterized by the absence of snow, for example, the Black land where no sites attributable to the Yamnaya culture have been identified. In this case horse, which continued to form the smallest proportion of the herd, could be used for long-distance transport (Bökönyi 1974). Horses must have played a key role in long-distance movements of pastoralists, the routes of which, according to recent investigations, could cover large distances. These routes went as far as the East Caspian maritime steppes or the Donets river basin in the Ukraine, where the Catacomb population took ochre (Aleksandrovsky et al. 2000), or to the Caucasus from where they brought rare types of wood (such as box-tree) or stones (such a serpentine).

Figure 23.7. A modern Kalmyk shepherd on a horse, summer 1999. horses from a young age, for their sole use, the horse would be accustomed to the rider, thereby making a snaffle bit entirely unnecessary. In this point I agree with Brown and Anthony when they speak about simple rope and leather bridles, which ancient steppe populations could use to control horses (Anthony & Brown 1991). To control a horse for riding or for breaking snow cover, a soft harness or bit made of rope and leather would be sufficient. Wood may also have been used in the construction of these simple harnesses. A simple halter can be constructed from a nose-band, divided into a front and back part. A rope is attached to the back strand, with which the horse can be led. The halter is held in place by a third strap passing over the horse’s head, just behind the ears (Bökönyi 1974). This bridle system was sufficient to control a horse. In the modern Kalmykia steppe, the area of classic pastoralism, local pastoralists have returned to the traditional form of economy because of economic difficulties in Russia (Fig. 23.7). Children of these pastoralist groups seldom use any harness system when herding cattle and sheep. They ride horses without any harness devises (personal interviews 1998–99). Therefore, I suggest that, during the Yamnaya culture period, horses played only a minimal role in the pastoral exploitation of the Eurasian steppe. Herders could use them as draught animals and for riding. Long-distance migrations were unnecessary. Pastoral routes were small. In this economic cycle, the horse played a key role among the other domesticated animals, because it could be used to break snow cover. 362

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different groups of people, and their impact upon each other and on the lands to the east, to the west and to the south’ (Renfrew 1999, 1) must be viewed against the background of local environment and local models of pastoral adaptation. Each discussion (Levine 1999; Rassamakin 1999; Kislenko & Tatarintseva 1999; Shishlina & Bulatov 2000; Gey 1991) will, in the future, help us to identify a general model of steppe exploitation in the past.

Increased mobility, based on use of the horse, led to three great achievements which date back only to the Middle Bronze Age: 1. The appearance of the composite bow. Successful use of the horse for economic purposes resulted in the horse becoming a part of a warrior’s weaponry. The main proof of this is the appearance of a new type of bow and mounted archery. The composite type of bow was adopted for use on horseback. Such kinds of composite bow are found from the beginning of the Catacomb culture period (Shishlina 1997b). 2. The appearance of a new horse harness system. At the turn of the Middle Bronze Age, disc-shaped and shield-like cheek-pieces were used to control horses. This resulted in increased control over the horse, which was a prerequisite when for use by an archer on horseback. 3. The use of the horse as a draft animal harnessed to a chariot. Tombs from the Late Bronze age burial grounds at Sintashta and Petrovka are indicative of this (Gening et al. 1992). Before the Middle Bronze Age there is no evidence for the use of the horse in any sphere other than the economic one. In some regions, such as the Ukraine (Dereivka) or in Kazakhstan (Botai) during the fourth millennium BC, horses were probably also a food resource (Levine 1999). This was reflected in the absence of a firm harness system during the Eneolithic and Early Bronze Age, which developed only in the later periods. Thus, I am in agreement with Levine: at present we do not have any archaeological evidence to prove the existence of warrior horse-riders from the fourth and the first half of third millennium BC (Levine 1999). Furthermore, I am in agreement with Rassamakin that ‘we cannot interpret the Early Eneolithic as a period of nomadic horse-riding, or even of developed pastoralism’ (Rassamakin 1999, 139). I think, however, that the beginning of open steppe exploitation in the Early Bronze Age would not have been started without the horse as the key animal in the herd’s composition.

Acknowledgements I would like to thank Galina Klevezal, Alexandra Golyeva, Irina Kirillova and Vladimir Bulatov who participated in the program and who helped me with this paper. This work was supported by the Russian Fund of Fundamental Research and National Geographical Society. References Agapov, S.A., I.B. Vasilev & V.I. Pestrikova, 1990. Khvalynsky Eneolitichesky Mogilnik [Khvalynsk Eneolithic Ground]. Saratov: Izdatelstvo Saratovskogo Universiteta. Aleksandrovsky, A.L., 1997. Stepi Severnogo Kavkaza v golotsene po dannym paleopochvennykh issledovany [North Caucasus steppe in Holocene: soil studies], in Kozhin (ed.), 22–9. Aleksandrovsky, A.L., O.A. Chichagova, K.E. Pustovoitov & N.I. Shishlina, 1997. Metodika i metodologia radiouglerodnykh issledovaniy arkheologicheskikh obyektov stepnykh regionov Rossii [Method and approaches of the 14C investigation of the archaeological sites of the steppe region of Russia], in Kozhin (ed.), 9–21. Aleksandrovsky, A.L., E.A. Aleksandrovskaya & N.I. Shishlina, 2000. Ochre pigments from burial grounds of Kalmykia and North Caucasus, in Seasonality Studies of the Bronze Age Northwest Caspian Steppe, ed. N. Shishlina. (Papers of the State Historical Museum 120.) Moscow: Poltex, 140–52. Anthony, D.W. & D.R. Brown, 1991. The origins of horseback riding. Antiquity 65, 22–38. Barfield, T.J., 1992. The Perilous Frontier. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Barynkin, P.P., 1986. Kyzyl-Chak 1: novy pamyatnik pozdnego eneolita Severnogo Prikaspiya [KyzylChak 1: a new site of the Late Eneolithic of the North Caspian Sea maritime steppe], in Drevnii Kultury Severnogo Prikaspiya, ed. N.Y. Merpert. Kuibyshev: Izdatelstvo Kuibyshevskogo Gosudarstvennogo Universiteta, 80–93. Barynkin, P.P., 1989, Eneolitichesky pamaytnik Kair-Shak VI iz yuzznoi chasti Volgo-Uralskogo mezhdurechya [Eneolithic site Kair-Shak VI from the South part of the Volgo-Ural region], in Neolit i Eneolit Severnogo

Conclusion Thus, the material discussed in the new monograph Late Prehistoric Exploitation of the Eurasian Steppe (Levine et al. 1999) and the local model of Yamnaya culture pastoral economic development, presented in this paper, show that the origin and spread of steppe cultures from this period was a complex and controversial process. Each case gives us new evidence that the ‘use of the Eurasian steppe lands by 363

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Prikaspiya, ed. N.Y. Merpert. Kuibyshev: Izdatelstvo Kuibyshevskogo Gosudarstvennogo Universiteta, 106–17. Bökönyi, S., 1974. History of Domestic Animals in Central and Eastern Europe. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 15–21. Bromley, Y.V. & G. Shtrobach (eds.), 1989. Nomenclature of Archaeological Terms [Svod Etnograficheskikh Ponyatiy i Terminov: Materialnaya Kultura], vol. 3. Moscow: Nauka. Bulatov, V.E., 2000. The system of seasonal migration of the Kalmyks in the nineteenth century, in Shishlina (ed.) 2000b, 178–95. Chichagova, O.A., A.L. Aleksandrovsky, M.A. Anisimova & N.I. Shishlina, 1999. Rezultaty 14C analiza kurgannykh pogrebeniy epokhy bronzy mogilnika Mandjikiny-1 [14C dating of the graves from the Mandjikiny burial ground], in Tsutskin & Shishlina (eds.), 44–52. Cribb, R.L.D., 1991. Mobile villagers: the structure and organisation of nomadic pastoral campsites in the Near East, in Ethnoarchaeological Approaches to Mobile Campsites: Hunter-Gatherers and Pastoral Case Study, ed. C.S. Gamble & W.A. Boismier. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 371–93. Gening, V.F., G.B. Zdanovich & V.V. Gening, 1992. Sintashta. Chelyabinsk: Yuzhno-Uralskoe knizhnoe izdatelstvo. Gey, A.N., 1991. Novotitarovskaya kultura (predvaritelnaya kharakteristika) [Novotitarovka culture (preliminary characteristic]. Soviet Archaeology 1, 54–71. Gey, A.N., 1999. O nekotorykh problemakh izucheniya bronzovogo veka na yuge Evropeiskoi Rossii [Some problems in the investigation of the Bronze Age in the South of European Russia]. Rossiyskaya Arkheologiya 1, 34–50. Gimbutas, M., 1970. Proto-Indo-European culture: the Kurgan culture during the fifth, fourth and third millennia BC, in Indo-European and Indo-Europeans, eds. B. Cordona, H.M. Heonigswald & A. Senn. Philadelphia (PA): University of Pennsylvania Press, 155–97. Gimbutas, M., 1991. The Civilization of the Goddess. San Francisco (CA): Harper. Golyeva, A.A., 1999a. Rastitelniye podstilki epokhi bronzy Kalmykii [Plant mats of the Kalmykia Bronze Age], in Shishlina (ed.) 1999c, 185–203. Golyeva, A.A., 1999b. Biomorphic analyses of the soil samples from Mandjikiny-1 burial ground, in Tsutskin & Shishlina (eds.), 62–89. Gryaznov, M.P., 1955. Nekotorye voprosy istorii slozheniya i razvitiya rannikh kochevykh obshestv Kazakhstana i Yuzhnoi Sibiri [Some questions concerning the history of origin and development of early nomadic societies of Kazakhstan and South Russia]. Kratkie Soobshcheniya Instituta Etnografii 24, 19–29. Kirillova, I.V., A.A. Golyeva, G.A. Klevezal, Y.E. Trunova, K.E. Michailov & N.I. Shishlina, 2000. Complex method of a season determination of the Bronze Age graves from Kalmykia, in Shishlina (ed.) 2000b, 27–38. Kislenko, A. & N. Tatarintseva, 1999. The Eastern Ural

steppe at the end of the Stone Age, in Levine et al. 1999, 183–216. Kiyashko, V.Y., 1994. Mezhdu Kamnem i Bronzoi (Nizhneye Podonye v V–III Tysyacheletiyakh do n.e.) [Between the Stone Age and the Bronze Age (The Low Don River Region during the Fifth to Third Millennia BC)]. (Donskie Drevnosti 3.) Azov: Azov Local Museum. Klevezal, G.A. & N.I. Shishlina, 2001. Assessment of the season of death of ancient human from cementum annual layers. Journal of Archaeological Science 28, 481–6. Kolev, Y.I. (ed.), 2001. Bronze Age of the East Europe: Culture Characteristics, Chronology and Periodization. Samara: OOO ‘NTTS’. Koltsov, P.M., 1984. Poselenie Dzangr v Sarpinskoi nizmennosti [Dzangr Settlements in the Sarpa region], in Epokha Medi Yuga Vostochnoi Evropy, ed. N.Y. Merpert. Kuibyshev: Izdatelstvo Kuibyshevskogo Gosudarstvennogo Universiteta, 79–90. Koltsov, P.M., 1985. Novie pamyatniki neolita i eneolita Chernikh zemel [New site of the Neolithic–Eneolithic Black Lands], in Shilov (ed.) 1985b, 34–42. Kozhin, P.M., 1997a. Pokazateli kochevogo byta kultur Prichernomorsko-Prikaspiiskikh stepei epokhi bronzy [Nomadic life of Bronze Age Black Sea maritime and Caspian Sea maritime steppe cultures], in Kozhin (ed.), 47–61. Kozhin, P.M. (ed.), 1997b. Steppe and the Caucasus (Cultural Tradition). (Papers of the State Historical Museum 97.) Moscow: Poltex. Kremenetsky, K.V., 1997. Prirodnaya obstanovka golotsena na Nizhnem Donu i v Kalmykii [The Holocene environment of the Low Don and the Kalmyk area], in Kozhin (ed.), 30–46. Levine, M., 1999. The origins of horse husbandry on the Eurasian steppe, in Levine et al. 1999, 5–58. Levine, M., Y. Rassamakin, A. Kislenko & N. Tatarintseva, 1999. Late Prehistoric Exploitation of the Eurasian Steppe. (McDonald Institute Monographs.) Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research. Mallory, J.P., 1989. In Search of the Indo-Europeans. London: Thames & Hudson. Masanov, N.E., 1995. Kochevaya Tsivilizatsiya Kazakhov (Osnova Zhiznedeyatelnosti Nomadnogo Obshchestva) [Nomadic Civilizations of the Kazakh]. Almaty-Moscow: Sotcinvest & Gorizont. Merpert, N.Y., 1974. Drevneyshie Skotovody VolzhskoUralskogo Mezhdurechya [Ancient Pastoralists of the Volga–Ural region]. Moscow: Nauka. Merpert, N.Y., 1980. Problemy eneolita stepi i lesostepy Vostochnoi Evropy [Problems of the Eneolithic of the steppe and forest-steppe zone of Eastern Europe], in Eneolit Vostochnoi Evropy, vol. 235, ed. N.Y. Merpert. Kuibyshev: Kuibishevsky Gosudarstvenny Pedagogichesky Institut, 3–26. Morgunova, N.L. & A.Y. Kravtsov, 1994. Pamyatniki drevneyamnoy kultury na Ileke [Ancient Yamnaya Sites from the Ilek River Region]. Ekaterinburg: UIF Nauka. Rassamakin, Y., 1994. The main directions of the develop-

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ment of early pastoral societies of Northern Pontic zone: 4500–2450 BC (Pre-Yamnaya cultures and Yamnaya cultures), in Baltic-Pontic Studies, vol. 2, ed. A. Kosko. Poznan@: Adam Mickiewicz University Eastern Institute of Prehistory, 29–70. Rassamakin, Y., 1999. The Eneolithic of the Black Sea steppe: dynamics of cultural and economic development 4500–2300 BC, in Levine et al. 1999, 59–182. Renfrew, C., 1999. Introduction, in Levine et al. 1999, 1–4. Shaposhnikova, O.A., 1985. Yamnaya cultural-historical unity, in Ukraine SSR Archaeology, vol. 1, ed. I.I. Artemenko. Kiev: Naukova Dumka, 336–53. Shilov, V.P., 1975. Ocherki Istorii Drevnikh Plemyen Nizhnego Povolzhya. [Papers of the Ancient Population of the Low Volga Region History.] Leningrad: Nauka. Shilov, V.P., 1985a. Kurganny mogilnik u sela Tsatsa [Kurgan burial ground Tsatsa], in Shilov (ed.) 1985b, 95–157. Shilov, V.P. (ed.), 1985b. Drevnosti Kalmykii. Elista: Elistinskoe Knizhnoe Izdatelstvo. Shishlina, N.I., 1993. Wechselwirkungen und Transformationen der Grab- und Bestattungssitten des Kalmuckengebietes gegen Ende des 3 Jahrtausends v.Chr. Zeitschrift für Archäologie 27, 273–86. Shishlina, N.I., 1997a. Stratigrafiya, khronologiya i kulturnaya prinadlezhnost kurgana 1 mogilnika Zunda-Tolga [Stratigraphy, chronology and culture of kurgan 1 from the burial ground Zunda-Tolga], in Kozhin (ed.), 81–91. Shishlina, N.I., 1997b, Bow and arrow of the Eurasian steppe Bronze Age nomads. Journal of European Archaeology 5(2), 53–66. Shishlina, N.I., 1998. Bronze Age Eurasian nomads: migrations or seasonal movements. EAA 4th Annual Meeting, Abstracts, 91. Shishlina, N.I., 1999a. Tekstil epokhi bronzy Prikaspiyskikh stepei [Textiles of the Bronze Age Caspian Sea maritime steppes], in Shishlina (ed.) 1999c, 7–57. Shishlina, N.I., 1999b. Pastoral drinks in the Bronze Age Eurasian steppe: habits and rituals. EAA 5th Annual meeting, Abstract, Bournemouth, 170. Shishlina, N.I. (ed.), 1999c. Textiles of the Bronze Age Eurasian Steppe. (Papers of the State Historical Museum 109.) Moscow: Poltex. Shishlina, N.I., 2000a. Potentsialni sezonno-khozyastvenny tsikl nositelei katakombnoi kultury Severo-Zapadnogo Prikaspiya: problema rekonstruktsii [The potential seasonal-economical cycle of the Catacomb culture of the Northwest Caspian maritime steppe zone bearers: problem of reconstruction], in Shishlina (ed.) 2000b, 70–94. Shishlina, N.I. (ed.), 2000b. Seasonality of Bronze Age Cultures of the North-west Caspian Sea Steppe during the Bronze Age. (Papers of the State Historical Museum 120.) Moscow: Poltex. Shishlina, N.I., 2001. Sistema pitaniya kochevnikov epochy bronzy po dannym etnografii i archeologii [Diet systems of the Bronze Age nomads: ethnographical and archaeological case study], in The State Historial Museum is the Encyclopedia of Russian History and Cul-

ture, ed. V.L. Epokov. (Papers of the State Historical Museum 126.) Moscow: Poltex, 273–90. Shishlina, N.I. & V.E. Bulatov, 2000. The Yama culture system of seasonal grassland use in the Caspian Sea littoral steppe during the third millennium BC, in Shishlina (ed.) 2000b, 58–69. Shishlina, N.I., A.L. Alexandrovsky, O.A. Chichagova & J. van der Plicht, 2001. Chronological position of the Yama culture of the northwest Caspian steppe, in Kolev (ed.), 117–23. Shnirelman, V.A., 1995. Model ili modeli: nekotorie aspekty stanovleniya kochevogo khozyaistva v PrikaspiyskoPrichernomorskikh stepyakh [One model or many models?: some aspects of the nomadic economy development in the Caspian-Black Seas maritime steppes], in Ancient Agriculturalists and Pastoralists of the North Black Sea Region in 5000 BC–500 BC, ed. E.V. Yarovoy. Kishinev: IPP Tipar, 79–81. Spiridonova, E.A., 1991. Evolutsiya Rastitelnogo Pokrova Basseyna Dona v Verchnem Pleistotsene–Golotsene [Evolution of the Grass Cover during the Pleistocene and Holocene.] Moscow: Nauka. Trifonov, V.A., 1996. Popravka k absolutnoi khronologii kultur epokhi eneolita–bronzy Severnogo Kavkaza. [The correction to absolute chronology of the Eneolithic and Bronze Age cultures in the North Caucasus region], in Mezhdu Asiey i Evropoi: Kavkaz v 4000–1000 do n. e. [Between Asia and Europe: Caucasus in 4000–1000 BC ], ed. Y.Y. Piotrovsky. St Petersburg: Hermitage, 90–95. Trifonov, V.A., 2001. Popravky k absolutnoi chronologii kultur epokhi eneolita–Sredney bronzy Kavkaza, stepnoi i lesostepnoi zon Vostochnoi Evropy (po dannym 14C datirovaniya) [The correction to absolute chronology of the Eneolithic and Bronze Age cultures of the Caucasus, steppe and the foreststeppe zone of the East Europe (based on the 14C chronology)], in Kolev (ed.), 71–82. Tsutskin, E. & N. Shishlina (eds.), 1999. Mandjikiny-1: the Site of the Bronze Age–Early Iron Age of Kalmykia (Experience of the Interdisciplinary Investigation). Moscow: Poltex. Turetsky, M.A., 1999. Problemy slozheniya srednevolzhsko-priuralskogo varianta yamnoy kultury [Problem of origin of the Middle Volga-Ural Yamnaya culture variant], in Archaeological Sites of Orenbyrg Region, ed. N.L. Morgunova. Orenburg: Dimur, 6–11. Vasilev, I.B. & A.A. Vybornov, 1986. Nizhnee Povolzhye v epokhu kamnya i bronzy [The Low Volga river region during the Stone and the Bronze Age], in Drevnyaya i Srednevekovaya Istoriya Nizhnego Povolzhya, ed. A.S. Skripkin. Saratov: Izdatelstvo Saratovskogo Universiteta, 3–20. Yudin, A.I., 1991. Neoliticheskie pogrebeniya Varfolomeyevskoi stoyanki [Neolithic graves from the Varfolomeyevka site], in Arkheologiya VostochnoEvropeyskoi Stepi, ed. V.G. Mironov. Saratov: Izdatelstvo Saratovskogo Universiteta, 3–14.

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Chapter 24 Problems of Inhabiting Central Eurasia: Mesolithic– Eneolithic Exploitation of the Central Eurasian Steppes Gerald Matyushin1 Natural conditions in the Holocene did not develop

long-term Stone Age settlements here. Even in the territories of Kazakhstan adjacent to the mountains and in the areas surrounding the Urals, we only find short-term settlements in the Mesolithic and Neolithic, which do not allow us to trace the development of cultures; whereas on the slopes of the southern Urals we can trace a more or less continuous development of cultures in this period. Only in the Eneolithic is it possible to trace a sequential development of culture on the steppes of eastern Eurasia (Matyushin 1982). In contrast to other territories, there are hardly any transitional areas between woods and steppes in the territories below the southern Urals or behind the Urals; such areas become more extensive further away from the mountains to the west and to the east. In other regions the steppes occupy the same amount of territory along the whole length of the belt of wood/steppes, but here this is not the case, and the steppe comes close to the woods. This clearly could not but influence the migration of the ancient populations. In arid periods the territories below the South Urals were relatively overpopulated, and when the climate became more humid, the population moved away to the steppes. The constantly developing population in the territories below the mountains was continuously injecting various cultures into the steppes surrounding them. Sometimes there was a full-scale migration of the population from the territories below the mountains to the steppes; sometimes the migration was only partial. Full migration of the population from the territories below the mountains to the steppes can be observed in the Eneolithic. It can be observed distinctly in the areas behind the South Urals if we take as an example the Surtanda culture. Partial migration is more typical of the Mesolithic and Neolithic. Thus in order to understand the development of cultures it is important to know in which periods the climate became

gradually from a moist to an arid climate but, as the latest research shows, unevenly. Periods of increasing moisture in the atmosphere gave way rather suddenly to periods of increasing aridity. We have traced no fewer than five such great ecological crises (Matyushin 1994). Naturally, sudden climatic change, especially prolonged droughts, led to catastrophe in the arid regions. When unexpected drought occurred, the population of the vast territory of steppe and semi-desert was doomed to death if it did not have time to migrate to the mountains. The populations of regions near mountains suffered less from the catastrophic consequences of drought because they did not have to migrate as far. The steppes of eastern Eurasia, in contrast to others, are divided by the wedge of forest in the South Urals (Fig. 24.1), which enables us to see most clearly the interaction of the cultures of the Mesolithic and Neolithic in the adjacent territories of both the Asian and eastern European parts of Eurasia. It is well known that the edges of mountains have always been particularly conducive to the development of primitive cultures. In the central areas of great deserts and on the steppes, if the climate becomes drastically more arid, the population is destroyed. At a time of sudden ecological crisis the only population which was safe was that which had time to migrate to the edges of mountains, where it was easy to avoid drought by making small-scale migrations to higher areas. This is why, in contrast to the vast steppe and desert zones, the territories on the edges of mountains in the South Urals were continuously inhabited. The steppes around the South Urals were inhabited from time to time, during periods of atmospheric humidity; in the Mesolithic and Neolithic they were mostly transit territories between the Urals and the Middle East. We do not find any 367

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34 ✦

N

series of cultures following each other in succession, whereas in steppe and semi-desert areas Mesolithic and Neolithic sites are virtually absent. Manufacturing of geometric microliths of asymmetrical form and stretched proportions is characteristic of the population of the mountains of southern Caspian area.

35

Aral Sea

Caspian Sea

37

33 31

32

36

✦ 11 ✦8 ✦3 ✦2

12 ✦

✦9

23

✪ Cheliabinsk

24 6

✦1

4✦

✦ ✦ ✪

5

30

22

Tog u sa

Ufa

k

West er

10 ✦

13 ✦ 14 ✦ 15 ✦

n Ur

als st

eppe

✦7

✪ Magnitogorsk 21 20 19

a

r nU

ter

Eas

18

16

pe

tep ls s

17

To b

ol

26 28

29

27

25

0

200 km

dak del

Figure 24.1. The main sites and settlements of the southern Urals: 1) Mullino; 2) Syun II; 3) Kholdnyi Klynch (Syun I); 4) Ilmursino; 5) Romanovka II–VIII; 6) Milovka; 7) Davlekanovo; 8) Staraya Mushta; 9) Aydos; 10) Starotokskaya; 11) Ust-Yuryuzanskaya; 12) Kosirbakovo; 13) Asopkino; 14) Kapovaya Peshchera (Cave); 15) Akbuta; 16) Talcas lake sites; 17) Yangelka; 18) Yakty-Kul; 19) Kusimovskoe; 20) Murat; 21) Mindiak sites; 22) Dolgii Einik; 23) Mys Bezymyanni; 24) Chebarkul; 25) Sintashta sites; 26) Eugenievka; 27) Solenoe Ozero sites, Tersek; 28) Amangeldi; 29) Alkau; 30) Shikaevka II; 31) Poludenka I– II; 32) Penki; 33) Krutiaki, Vyyka etc.; 34) Ogurdino; 35) Novozhilovskaya; 36) Shurnkovskaya; 37) Mizhnee Adishchevo.

The Mesolithic flint industries of the former region stem from the local Advanced Palaeolithic tradition, well represented at the cave Zarzi near Sulaimaniyyah, Kurdistan, the flint industry of which comprised backed blades and scrapers, with in the upper level an addition of microlithic triangles crescents and rods. In the rockshelter of Pawli-Gawra between Zarzi and Sulaimaniyyh, this microlithic element is further developed and now includes trapezes. Flint industries of this kind, in which the ‘microburin’ technique is freely used, extend as far afield as the Iranian plateau, the Caspian shore and Turkmenistan and span the transition from a hunting and gathering to a stock-raising and cereal-growing economy (Clark 1965, 51).

When Clark came to this conclusion, work on the Mesolithic of the southern Urals was not yet published; it was introduced into scholarship later (Matyushin 1976). There can be no doubt, however, that the whole territory from the southern coast of the Caspian Sea (Belt-Gari Kamarkand, Hotu, etc.) up to and including the southern Urals belongs to the zone of cultures with geometric microliths. The chain of sites with microliths stretches along the eastern coast of the Caspian Sea to the Urals. They were probably left by a related, perhaps Indo-European (Renfrew 1987), population (Fig. 24.2). The population with geometric microliths, however, played another part in the development of a

very dry, and we shall call these ecological crises. The steppes of eastern Eurasia as transit territory, 8000–6000 BC In the Mesolithic the centre of Eurasia was inhabited unevenly. In mountainous regions we can observe a 368

Problems of Inhabiting Central Eurasia

3000

4000

50 00

400

0

3000

00 40

60

00

7000

4000 0

3000

500

60

00

500

0

4000 0

300

3000

Routes and timing of the spread of village farming according to Braidwood

Additions by Matyushin dak del

Figure 24.2. The spread of geometrical microliths (village farming). (After Braidwood 1967; Matyushin 1972.) of Kazakhstan, were transit territories. The main longterm sites with microliths were situated in the mountains of Zagros-Taurus or the southern Urals. In the southern Urals themselves and in adjacent territories, two different cultures were formed during the Mesolithic. On the territories below the Urals and on their western slopes, the RomanovskoIlmurzinskaya culture developed; on their eastern slopes — the Yangelka culture. Both industries are of blade type, but arrow-points on blades are more typical of the culture on the western slopes, whereas geometrical microliths are more typical of the eastern (Yangelka). Sudden ecological changes at the end of the Pleistocene led to the penetration of the southern Urals by southern Caspian populations, with the result that a unique culture (Yangelka), characterized by obliquely blunted points including some with concave bases, developed in the area. At the same time, in the southwest Urals, the RomanovskoIlmursinkaya culture, characterized by arrowheads

productive economy; its southern parts (Zagros-Taurus) were undoubtedly the creators of a productive economy, whereas the northern part, including the population of the southern Urals in the Mesolithic continued to hunt and fish. It is important to note the distribution of sites with microliths: most of them are concentrated on the eastern coast of the Caspian Sea (Dam-Dam Chashme, Djebel, Kailyu). The further from the sea, the fewer the number of microliths. Thus in the site of Tutkaul in Tadjikistan there are only a few (Ranov 1965), whereas in the Belt Cave (Gari Kamarkand), Djebel (Okladnikov 1956), DamDam Chashme (Markov 1966) they are much more numerous, though these sites are of much shorter duration than Tutkaul. There are many sites with microliths on the plateau of Ust-Urt (Bizhanov 1982) and on the southern coast of the Aral Sea. But they are all short-term sites with small inventories. Trapezes of early types seldom occur. Most are the symmetrical trapezes of post-Djeitun type. It is likely that the deserts of Central Asia, as well as the steppes 369

Chapter 24

Shahir, Palegawra, Jarmo and other sites of the Middle East (Braidwood 1967; Braidwood et al. 1983; Smith 1986). The surprising element is the similarity in the angles of the microliths, which together form the cutting edge of the bent blade of reaping knives (sickles). On one of the sites of the early Yangelka-type they were found together with mammoth bones (Shikaevka II). We can posit that microliths of this type were brought to the Urals from the southern coast of the Caspian Sea. This is proved by findings of microliths of this type on the border territory of the eastern coast of the Caspian Sea. The majority of these microliths are concentrated closer to the coast, in Turkmenia (Jebel, Djeitun). Further from it (in Tadjikistan) they occur more rarely, but at the site of Tutkaul Figure 24.3. Microliths of a) the Iran Belt, and b) the southern Urals (Yangelka they are still found (Ranov 1982). Probably, production of microculture). liths of this type came from the Middle East and spread north to the Urals. Microliths made on blades, emerged. There is evidence of fishvery similar in form were found on many sites on ing with large nets (up to 45 m long), which probthe coast of the Mediterranean Sea and in western ably played a role in the development of a more Europe, including the site of Star Carr (Clark 1936– permanent settlement. 80). It is not impossible that the manufacture of Mesolithic sites (Matyushin 1976) are usually microliths of this type was finally brought here as situated on the high or the very low terraces of rivers well from the Near East, as a result of the appearand lakes, such as for example the site of Yakty-Kul ance there of food-production and its dissemination (Bannoe 5). On the eastern slope quaternary deposacross Europe, which finally led to the formation of its are scarce. The sites were cut straight into bedthe Indo-European community. No other similar rock. The findings are mostly cores, prismatic and forms of material culture can be observed on the pencil-like, narrow bladelets and the tools made from territory of the Indo-Europeans except the geometrithem. Attention should be drawn to geometrical cal forms of the Belt type. Possibly an ecological microliths. crisis was also one of the reasons for such a wide The most revealing is the eponymous site dissemination of microlithic culture; but possibly the Yangelka, situated 22 metres higher than the modconnection should be reversed. Looking through the ern surface level of lake Syvarkul, through which materials from the Zarzi cave in the British Museum runs the river Yangelka, a tributary of the river Ural. and Cambridge, I found tools made from southernThe site occupies the whole cape on the rock. Most Ural jasper, mainly from brown and brown-green of the findings consist of cores and bladelets. The jasper. It is possible that the expansion of the geomaterial used here, as well as in all of the other 300 metrical microlith culture along the Mediterranean sites on the eastern slope of the southern Urals, is and Atlantic coasts of Europe (Star Carr) led to the jasper. From a thousand blades we can distinguish appearance of the Indo-European family. geometrical microliths, trapezes and triangles analoUnfortunately, none of the Mesolithic sites in gous to the material of 22–8 layers (Fig. 24.3) of the the Urals provides a sufficient number of animal Belt Cave (Coon 1951), Zarzi (Garrod 1930) Karim

a

b

370

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remains to enable us to recon- a struct the economy with any precision. However, on the basis of the material found in neighbouring territories, we can hypothesize that the population also engaged in hunting. Deukovo II, Barinka (Petrenko 1984), Veretie (Oshibkina 1983) and other Mesolithic sites of the surrounding regions yielded animal bones, emphasizing the economic importance of elk, wild boar, bear, beaver and other fauna typical of the temperate and boreal forests of Eurasia. The well-preserved Mesolithic burial in Davlekanovo is still unique. A reconstruction of a man’s face from the burc ied skull was made by M.M. b Gerasimov, who regarded it as of Near-Asian type. This is additional proof that the southern population reached the Urals in the Mesolithic (Fig. 24.4). Thus the spreading of southern-Ural jasper to the south, as far as the Near East (Zarzi), can testify not only to the dissemination of cultures with geometric microliths from the Near East to the Urals and further, to the basin of the Volga River and Europe, but also to connections in the opposite direction, from the South Urals to the Middle East, which led finally to the early appearFigure 24.4. Davlekanovo man: a) burial; b & c) reconstruction. ance of a system of food production and other elements of economics and culThis would explain why both elk and horse are found ture — and indeed probably to the presence of a at the sites of the southern Urals and the piedmont. Near Eastern (possibly Indo-European) population It is possible that, owing to this unusual mixture of in the South Urals and in the south of the forestfauna, it was here that early horse breeding began. steppe zone, in the basin between the rivers Volga The domestic horse (Levine 1982–98) appeared in and Ural. this area as early as the end of the seventh millenElk, beaver and horse are the most abundant nium bp at Mullino II (Table 24.1). animal remains of the Early Neolithic in the southThe assumption that various elements of stock ern Urals. The mosaic of forest and steppe ecozones breeding were known in the southern Urals as early in the area seems to be responsible for the odd conas the Late Mesolithic is supported indirectly by the currence of various types of forest and steppe fauna. fact that the bones of the animals which have evi371

Chapter 24

Table 24.1. Animal remains of the Eneolithic and Neolithic in the South Urals and Central Aisa. Animal species

Mullino II Neolithic layers No. %

Domestic Cattle indiv. animals 3 bones 10 Sheep/goat indiv. animals 3 bones 4 Horse indiv. animals 19 bones 52 Dog indiv. animals 1 bones 1 Wild Beaver indiv. animals 13 bones 93 Hare indiv. animals 1 bones 1 European vole indiv. animals 3 bones 17 Gopher indiv. animals 1 bones 1 Marmot indiv. animals – bones – Badger indiv. animals 1 bones 2 Marten indiv. animals 1 bones 1 Fox indiv. animals 1 bones 2 Bear indiv. animals 5 bones 16 Elk indiv. animals 30 bones 768 Reindeer indiv. animals 2 bones 4 Roe deer indiv. animals 1 bones 2 Turtle bones 6 Bird bones 60 Fish bones 4 Totals indiv. animals 85 bones 1074 Total domesticates indiv. animals 26 bones 97 Total wild indiv. animals 59 bones 977

Mullino IIII Eneolithic layers No. %

Davlekanovo II Neolithic layers No. %

Davlekanovo III Eneolithic layers No. %

No.

3.53 0.93

11 118

15.00 8.36

12 52

20.00 16.00

7 43

15.20 12.39

4 20

3.53 0.37

6 17

8.21 1.20

6 17

10.00 5.44

9 30

19.50 8.64

– –

22.35 7.63

10 50

13.69 3.54

15 132

25.00 42.30

9 130

19.50 37.40

2 16

1 1

2.17 0.28

– –

– –

1.17 0.093

15.29 8.65

– –

12 50

– –

– –

16.40 3.54

– –

Belskaya II %

27.00 36.00 – – 13.00 25.00

8 15

13.30 4.80

4 12

8.69 3.45

– –

– –

1.17 0.093

– –

– –

1 1

1.66 0.32

3 3

6.52 0.86

– –

– –

3.53 1.53

1 1

1.36 0.07

– –

– –

– –

– –

– –

– –

1.17 0.09

1 1

1.36 0.07

– –

– –

– –

– –

– –

– –

– –

– –

– –

2 2

3.30 0.64

– –

– –

– –

– –

1.17 0.18

1 7

1.36 0.49

– –

– –

1 1

2.17 0.28

– –

– –

1.17 0.09

1 1

1.36 0.07

– –

– –

1 1

2.17 0.28

– –

– –

1.17 0.18

– –

– –

– –

– –

– –

– –

– –

– –

5.88 1.48

2 3

2.73 0.21

– –

– –

1 1

2.17 0.28

– –

– –

35.29 71.50

27 1153

36.98 81.77

15 79

9 120

19.50 34.50

2 3

13.00 5.00

2.35 0.37

– –

– –

– –

– –

– –

– –

7 16

47.00 29.00

1.17 0.18 0.55 5.58 0.37

1 2 – 5 2

1.36 0.14 – 0.35 0.14

1 1 – 5 8

1.66 0.32 – 1.6 2.56

1 1 – 1 3

2.17 0.28 – 0.28 0.86

– – – – –

– – – – –

100.00 100.00

73 1410

100.00 100.00

60 312

100.00 100.00

46 347

100.00 100.00

15 55

100.00 99.00

30.60 9.03

27 185

37.00 13.12

33 201

55.00 64.40

26 204

56.50 58.80

6 36

40.00 65.00

69.40 90.97

46 1225

63.00 86.87

27 111

45.00 35.60

20 143

43.50 41.20

9 19

60.00 35.00

372

25.00 25.30

Problems of Inhabiting Central Eurasia

dently long been domesticated, such as horse, sheep, goat and cow, can be found in early Neolithic layers at Mullino II. The presence of a complete set of domesticated animals (with the exception of the pig), dating to the very beginning of the Neolithic, suggests their earlier gradual domestication in the southern Urals. The alternative explanation, that domesticated animals were introduced all together from outside the region, may be rejected because of the local cultural continuity and the absence of new traits in material culture excluding pottery: the Mesolithic– Neolithic transition is mainly one of subsistence. Thus it seems that there is good reason to associate the beginning of food production with the Late Mesolithic. Many sites containing geometric microliths and extending over a large area between the southern Urals and southern shores of the Caspian Sea have been uncovered in the last few years. They were especially numerous on the Ust–Urt plateau (Bizhanov 1982) and along the banks of the Ural and Emba rivers (Melentev 1977; 1981). They have also been located in the southern part of Central Asia (Masson 1964; 1971; 1981). Virtually the entire territory from Ali Kosh and Shanidar to the Urals is very rich in obliquely blunted points with concave bases (the Belt type: Matyushin 1972; 1976). Nevertheless, of the many microlithic sites found along the eastern shores of the Caspian and in the inland regions of Central Asia, only three multi-layered settlements showing clear stratification have been investigated: Dam-Dam Chashme II in the east Caspian region (Markov 1966), Tutkaul in Tadjikistan (Ranov 1982) and Djebel (Okladnikov 1956). All three sites revealed similar typological developments in the microlithic industry. Microlithic forms in the earliest layers are characterized by the abundance of obliquely blunted points with concave bases. In the later layers, a tendency towards diminution in size and elongation of forms can be observed, so that in the late Mesolithic layers very narrow and extended points or high and symmetrical trapezes predominate. For instance, Tutkaul layer III, characterized by triangles reminiscent of the Shanidar microliths, has been dated to the tenth or eleventh millennium bp. The succeeding layer IIA, which contained narrow trapezoidal and triangular forms, was dated to the eighth to seventh millennium bp. Finally, a more definite date was provided by C-14 from layer II, which contained a variety of trapezoidal forms (A8, B8, C8). The layer has been dated to 6070±170 bp (Le-772) (Ranov 1982).

Similar tendencies can be observed in the southern Urals in the late Yangelka culture. Microliths develop either into pointed rods (Dolgii Elnik II) or into small symmetrical trapezes (Dolgii Elnik II, Yakty-Kul I, Kusimovskoe). The similarity is apparent not only in the form, but also in the method of manufacture. The highly standardized shape of the microliths, and the uniform way in which they were processed throughout the area under discussion, is of great interest. The geometric microliths found in the region of the Urals and in the Caspian basin are the most standardized. This applies not only to individual items but to the whole series of artefacts, whether found on the same site or in a group of sites which are often located far from each other. The sides of the trapezes and triangles, whether found on one site or over a wider area, show strictly standardized edge angles. The precision and limited variability suggest that there had been an intentional effort towards standardization, a fact that suggests certain links among various communities. The polygonal objects found at early sites show two varieties of edge angles. Although each side of the microlith, as a rule, has a different angle, both sides show a minimal range of variation. The blunter side of the microlith is almost always at an angle of between 20° and 30°, and the steeper within the range of 45° to 55°. It seems that the existence of such overwhelming standardization could be explained only functionally. Assuming that the microliths served as insets for harvesting knives, the effort to increase the sharpness of the knives would result in the reduction of the size of the insets and the introduction of more of them into each tool. The more numerous the insets became, the more difficult it would have been to fix them into the handle. This problem could have been solved only by standardization. A strict standardization of the edge angle allowed them to be inserted securely into the holder, the edge of one insert overlapping with another, thus preventing them from slipping out during use. The effectiveness of these tools could be ensured only by a strict correspondence of the angles of individual insets. A similar precision in adjusting the insets was not necessary for the tools used in fishing and hunting. There is no sign of it in the production of arrowheads, nor in the fixing of inset blades into daggers, where the insets were often only unprocessed blades, flakes or bifaces. Only the need for short-term intensification could have required such a high level of standardization. Such maximization of labour output must have been 373

Chapter 24

remains found in Belt Cave, Hotu, Shanidar B, Zarzi, Karim Shahir, Zawi Chemi, Jarmo and other sites in southwestern Asia, the area in which domestication began between the Mullino tenth and the eighth millennia. The changes in climatic conditions can perhaps be held responsible for the northward drift of the population. Assuming that the bearers of the microlithic cultures of Belt Cave, Zawi Chemi, Shanidar and Jarmo types already had domesticated animals, it may perhaps be the case that they introduced some form of aniFigure 24.5. Disposition of the multi-layered settlement Mullino in a water mal husbandry to the north. meadow, river Ik. At this early date (ninth to eighth millennium bp), however, the severe and alconditioned by the growing importance of seasonal ien climatic conditions in the northern Caspian rework; such as the harvesting of cereals and other gion and in the southern Urals were hardly conducive grasses. It may be more than an accident that standto the assimilation of domesticated animals to a new ardized geometric forms occurred mostly in socieenvironment. According to the pollen diagrams from ties on the threshold of food production. Romanovka II and other similar sites, the plains of At other later sites, where plants and animals the southern Urals were covered by a cold steppe of changed morphologically as a result of continuing a peri-glacial type (Yakhimovitch 1978, 81). domestication, flat, low forms of microliths do not The Mesolithic communities shared another feaappear; in general, only microliths with ‘steep’ sides ture usually associated with an agricultural way of retained their significance. Even so, in the majority life. Owing to the development of lake and river of cases the angle remains within the range of 45– fishing, settled communities in the southern Ural 55°. As examples, one may quote Jarmo, Mergara settlements such as Yangelka or Romanovka II and Djeitun. At the end of the Neolithic and in the yielded remains of large dwellings and thousands of Eneolithic, geometrical forms can still be found, but blades and other artefacts. Smaller sites, such only as individual types, rather than as a series of Romanovka III, VIII, Milovka I, III, which surrounded forms. They too tend to be symmetrical, with steep the larger sites, could be seen as temporary hunting sides (45–55°). It would seem that after the introducand fishing localities or dwelling sites of individual tion of the sickle, standardization became less comfamilies. The character of their artefacts, identical to pelling. those found in the base camps, suggests a link beThe earliest culture with geometric microliths tween them. According to the present-day fisherto appear in the southern Urals and the northeastern men, the large sinkers found at Mesolithic sites of Caspian basin was the Yangelka, dated to 9000 to the southern Urals belonged to nets whose length 6000 years bp. The shape, angles and retouching of was as great as 45 metres. Obviously intensive fishthe Yangelka microliths are virtually identical to the ing of this kind played an important role in facilitatsouth Caspian microliths from the lower layers of ing a settled way of life. Belt Cave (Coon 1951), both areas being characterized by the prevalence of obliquely blunted points The beginning of the appearance of the elements with concave bases. Towards the end of this period, of domestication 6000–4000 BC the number of high, steep symmetrical forms increased throughout the area (Fig. 24.6). It must further be noted that the geometrical We arrived at the idea of ecological crises during the microliths and points found in the mesolithic sites of excavations in 1976–89 of the multi-layered settlethe southern Urals are identical to the inventory of ment Mullino (Matyushin 1996). Mullino is situated 374

Problems of Inhabiting Central Eurasia

in the lower basin of the Kama river, on the floodplain (Fig. 24.5) of the river Ik, the lower tributary of the Kama. Stratigraphically it is easy to trace four cultural layers. In each cultural layer hearths, industrial-social complexes, wells and similar remains were discovered. In each layer there is a distinctive combination of finds. In the lower layer of clay (M1) tools of a Mesolithic type are concentrated, as well as a variety of tools of a mustier type; higher there are three strata of Neolithic (layer MII), covered by two layers of late Neolithic–Eneolithic (MIII–

layer 4 layer 3 layer 2

layer 1

Figure 24.6. Excavations at Mullino: a) section showing layers; b) cultural sequence from Mullino artefacts. 375

8.2%

15.0% Ovicaprids 3.5%

37%

13.6% Cattle 3.5%

Domestic fauna 30.6%

Horse 22.4%

Mullino IIA

Wild fauna 69.4%

Mullino IIB Mullino IIC

Mullino III

63%

Mullino IV

Layers

Mullino I

b

a

Chapter 24

IV). In all layers, the fauna and the bone tools are well preserved. In the lower layers (MI–II) there are harpoons, ‘owls’, pendants made from the fangs of beasts of prey, muffs for inserted tools, parts of a bow and arrowheads. In the higher layers harpoons almost disappear, and the number of various pointed tools, figures, stamps from shells and decorations increases (Fig. 24.6). In MI–II, the tools made from flint are chiefly blades (except the mustier type). Arrowheads are found there. There is one trapeze of the Yangelka-type. In the MIII–IV layers, blades become less numerous, and bifacial tools, big sinkers and corn-graters are found. Pottery appears in layer MII. Its form is egg-like and the ornament is carved with a pearl stamp. In layer MIII, a different kind of pottery appears which is called ‘collar-like’. Pottery of this kind was found in graves of the early Neolithic regions of the Volga River (Syezzheye, Khvalynsk Mogilnik etc.). From layer M1 three dates were obtained through radiocarbon: 8500±110 bp, 8460±150 bp and 8320±180 bp; from layer MII, 8050±160 bp; from layer MIII, 6450±80 bp; and from layer MIV, 4900±50 bp, 4719±50 bp, and 4500±50 bp. This supposition can be further proved by the dwelling which has a floor laid with stone plates on the site Karabalakty 9 and, finally, by the burials: the man buried in Davlekanovo (Mesolithic), reconstructed by Mikhail Gerasimov, is of a Near-Eastern type. At Mullino the burials are partitioned, but the rich burial of the beaver possibly testifies to the growing role of ideology connected with the appearance of food-production. This is well-known in settlements like Çatalhöyük and others. Even in the Eneolithic (Botai: Zaibert 1979) the population of the southern Urals and northern Kazakhstan has a europoid appearance. Large groups of fauna are found in the Urals only from the beginning of the Neolithic. Animal bones have been found on 21 Neolithic and Eneolithic sites in the southern Urals and in their eastern foothills (Matyushin 1982). Almost all of them contained the bones of horse, cattle and sheep. Taking into account that wild sheep are absent from the Urals and the surrounding areas, and that their region of origin was northern Mesopotamia and northern Iran (Vorontsov et al. 1972; Harris 1996), it can be assumed that stockbreeding was introduced to the Urals from Iran and the southern shores of the Caspian. The introduction of the ‘southern’ stockbreeding elements may date well back into the Mesolithic (Aceramic Neolithic), possibly to the date of the appearance of the geometric microliths (ninth to seventh millennia bp). However, analysis of the faunal remains and their early appearance suggests that in the steppes

and forest-steppes of the southern Urals certain animal species were domesticated independently. On the southwestern slopes of the Ural Mountains, animal bones were found on 12 sites; two of these (Mullino and Davlekanovo) are multi-layered settlements and their investigation has made it possible to trace the development of a food-producing economy in the southern Urals. Mullino II and Davlekanovo II pottery consists mostly of vessels of an egg-shape with a conical bottom, decorated with comb ornamentation. Flint artefacts include many blades and bifacial tools. According to pollen which can be dated to the Mesolithic and Early Neolithic, these sites were surrounded by birch, pine and spruce forests. There were extensive open areas within the forest cover. The excavation at Davlekanovo covers 506 square metres. From this area, Tsalkin (1974) and Petrenko (1984) have identified 2304 bones from 280 individuals, including both wild and domestic species. Table 24.1 summarizes the faunal material recovered from Neolithic (Mullino II, Davlekanovo II) and Eneolithic (Mullino III, Davlekanovo III) layers. Mesolithic layers (Mullino I, Davlekanovo I) contained only sparse and fragmented bone material and were not included in the analysis. The evidence, as it stands at present, shows only a slow increase in the percentage of domestic animals during the Neolithic and Eneolithic periods. Bones of wild species form as much as 90 per cent of the total in the Neolithic layers at Mullino, and this figure decreases only slightly during the Eneolithic. At Davlekanovo, the percentage of wild fauna remains within the 35– 45 per cent range. Among domesticated animals, the horse is the most important species. Pigs are absent from both Neolithic and Eneolithic layers, its bones first appearing in the area in the Late Bronze Age. The settlement of Belskoe II is located in the wooded mountain regions in the upper reaches of the river Belaya. Its artefacts, however, suggest a close link with the Agidel culture of the steppes southeast of the Urals. It is characterized by comb and collared ceramics, as well as flint blades. The site is not very large and was, obviously, temporary. Nevertheless about half of the faunal remains consisted of bones of wild animals, while the remainder was composed of the bones of cattle (26 per cent) and horse (29 per cent). This would indicate that animal husbandry penetrated the more remote areas of the southern Urals during the mid-Neolithic (dated to the sixth to fifth millennium bp). Faunal remains from other settlements of the southern Urals and adjacent regions are not as ex376

Problems of Inhabiting Central Eurasia

larger presence of the horse during the Stone Age in tensive as those at Mullino and Davlekanovo. Howthe southern Urals, analogies for which can be found ever, the osteological material from the Neolithic in the subsequent, circum-Caspian and Central Asian and Eneolithic layers has established quite reliably Bronze Age, but certainly not in the Ukraine or the the presence of the major domestic animals within the Balkans. region: cattle, ovicaprids and horse (Petrenko 1982). Anthropological data provide further evidence In recent years, bones of domestic animals were of the arrival in the Urals of population from the found on the steppes of the Volga, in a region near south during the Mesolithic. For example, a burial the southwestern slopes of the Urals. At Vilovatoe, has been uncovered under a hearth containing early for instance, layers dating to the Neolithic and Neolithic ceramics of Mullino II type in Davlekanovo. Eneolithic contained bones of sheep and goat (107 The bones were partially burned in the hearth. A bones from 10 individuals), of cattle (34 bones from reconstruction of the buried man’s features by M.M. 7 individuals), and of horse (156 bones from 12 indiGerasimov revealed clear Mediterranean characterviduals) (Petrenko 1984). istics (Matyushin 1970). Anthropologists have also Faunal remains have also been preserved at the traced Mediterranean/Middle-Eastern features Neolithic and Eneolithic sites of the southern and among the recent native population of the Urals eastern slopes of southern Urals (Table 24.2). As else(Mansy and Khanty) which are thought to have been where in the region, the Neolithic layers date to no connected with the arrival of people from the southlater than the first half of the sixth millennium bp ern shores of the Caspian (Davidova 1976). and contain bones of both wild and domestic aniIt seems that the first definite signs of a foodmals. For example, in the Neolithic layer of the setproducing economy in the southern Urals were contlement of Berezki, dated according to C14 to the sixth millennium bp (5650±200 bp), horse bones nected with the long-lasting Mangyshlak regression dominate. Bones of domestic sheep and cattle, howof the Caspian Sea. The prolonged period of arid ever, are also present. A similar situation can be climate associated with the regression was bound to observed in the Eneolithic layer Berezki (Surtanda reduce food resources on the steppes and forestculture) and at the Neolithic and Eneolithic sites of steppes of the southern Urals and on their eastern Yubileinoe, i.e. II, Surtanda VIII, Karabalykty VIII, flank to such an extent that it became necessary to Murat, Surtanda I, Surtanda VII and others. supplement the old way of life by new methods of A new group of sites has recently been excaobtaining food, stockbreeding and hoe-farming. vated in the area of the River Tobol in western SibeSignificantly, the increasing aridity of the cliria. Numerous bones of domestic animals were found. mate in the seventh millennium bp has been noted In contrast to the southern Urals, however, bones of not only from the low levels of large inland lakes the horse dominated the faunal remains. Taking into such as the Caspian or Aral Seas, but also from the account that these sites can be dated to a later period depopulation of areas sensitive to desiccation than the Eneolithic sites located around the lakes of the throughout the Middle East. Thus, the occupation of South Urals, the Tobol sites probably represent the Jericho ceased around 6000 bp, evidently because of further development of a food-producing economy an increase in the aridity of the climate (Legge 1977). and increasing specialization in horse breeding. After 6000 bp, large settlements such as those of the In analyzing the economic patterns of the Urals pre-pottery Neolithic A and B never reappeared at in the Stone Age, the unique character of the food-producTable 24.2. Percentage of fauna remains at Neolithic and Eneolithic sites in eastern Urals. ing economy and a contrast Total Horse Cattle Goat/ Dog Elk Reindeer Red Roe with that of the Black Sea and sheep deer deer the Balkans should be emMurat 15/5 66.7 26.6 – – – – – 6.7 phasized. Perhaps the prinSurtanda VII 8/3 33.3 33.3 – – 33.3 – – – cipal difference is the absence Surtanda III 5/2 60 – – – 40 – – – Surtanda VIII 5/2 80 – – – 20 – – – of pigs in the Neolithic– Surtanda I 1/1 – – – – 100 – – – Eneolithic of the Urals and Kara VIII 1/1 – 100 – – – – – – adjacent regions, as comBannoell G. 10/2 90 – – – – 10 – – pared with its great economic Yubileinoe 6/2 – 66.7 33.3 – – – – – Berezki 32 68.5 9.3 12.5 – 9.3 – – – importance in areas further west. A further difference can Note: In the ‘Total’ column, the first value is the NISP count, the second the MNI frequency. be observed in the much 377

Chapter 24

Jericho. Evidence of desiccation and of contemporary economic intensification was also found at Ali Kosh (Flannery 1969; Hole et al. 1969; Hole 1977). It seems that the change of climate in the seventh millennium bp was more significant than the climatic fluctuations of preceding or succeeding periods. It apparently influenced not only the Caspian Sea and its catchment area but also a considerable part of Eurasia. It probably provided the impulse for the intensification of a food-gathering economy and for the transition to food production in the Caspian basin. In the area of the southern Urals and the neighbouring steppes and forest-steppes, the transition from foraging to food production was a gradual process. Thus, at Mullino II, domestic animals represented 31 per cent of MNI or 9 per cent of bone counts, while in the Mullino III layers the corresponding figures were not much higher (Table 24.1). Obviously the percentage of animal bones, even when coupled with the minimum number of individual counts does not give a realistic picture of the relative importance of the actual subsistence strategies. The amount of meat obtained from individual animals has to be taken into account. According to Petrenko (1984), 17 cattle provided as much meat as 34 elk or 476 sheep; or 72 horses, found in the Neolithic of the southern Urals, could replace 122 elk and almost 1500 beaver. Significantly, most of the horses at Mullino were younger than five years. From this it would appear that the importance of wild animals has been overemphasized by the bone counts; on the other hand there is bias of another kind introduced into faunal samples, increasing the representation of domestic animals (Zvelebil 1985). It would seem, therefore, that the role of hunting and fishing was no less significant than that of stockbreeding and hoe farming during the Neolithic period in the southern Urals. During the following Jilaldin regression (Mullino III), the production of the collared ceramics, which had hitherto been confined to the northern shores of the Caspian Sea basin, must have extended to the southern Urals, replacing the combed ware characteristic of the previous period (Mullino II). This change in ceramic style, possibly indicating a northward shift in population, coincides once again (as did the previous cultural changes) with the regression of the Caspian Sea. The Jilaldin regression occurred at the end of the sixth millennium and the beginning of the fifth millennium bp. During this time the water level in the Caspian Sea fell to 44.5 m below sea level, that is 24 m below the present level. Correspondingly, the remains of Mullino III and other settlements of the

period are located on the present day flood plain, confirming that the waters of the Caspian Sea must have been lower than at present. The change in ceramics is associated with possibly significant shifts in the composition of domestic fauna. Although at Mullino III the proportion of domestic animals increased only slightly to 37 per cent, within the domesticated sector the percentage of horse bones fell dramatically from 66.6 per cent at Mullino II to 38.1 per cent at Mullino III. Cattle, on the other hand, almost trebled from 16.7 to 42.8 per cent. Possibly, stable communications with the southern territory near the Caspian Sea and Central Asia account for the rather early appearance of food production in the southern Urals. The bones of domestic animals were found in Mullino (the beginning of the VI millennium bp) and in other Neolithic settlements of the southern Urals (21 sites). In Mullino II, they comprise about 30 per cent (sheep and cattle 7 per cent, horses 22.4 per cent). In the layer MIII (6450±80 BP) remains of horses drop to 13.6 per cent, and sheep/ goat and cattle to 23.2 per cent (8 per cent and 15 per cent respectively), totalling 37 per cent (Petrenko 1982; 1984). Direct traces of agriculture are rather scarce. Possibly horses and cattle breeding prevailed. (Fig. 24.7) Even in the mountain settlement Kaga, however, traces of barley were found. It is important to note that sheep/goats and corn (cereals) never existed in their wild state in the Urals and could only have been brought from the southern region of the Caspian Sea. Probably new materials must modify the generally accepted account of the dissemination of food-production in Europe, that is, we must acknowledge the possibility of an eastern route, via the eastern coast of the Caspian Sea to the southern Urals, and on to Europe. Probably it was initially a trade route for jasper and later a route along which Indo-European peoples spread. Eneolithic: Surtanda and Agidel culture 4000–2000 BC In the 1960s to 1980s many sites attributable to Mesolithic and Neolithic cultures, as well as Eneolithic settlements, were discovered and analyzed in the southern Urals. The two main types of culture of this region, those of Surtanda and of Agidel, enable us to understand the history of the population inhabiting the territory of the southern Urals during Eneolithic times (Table 24.3). The Surtanda culture occupies the area of the eastern slope of the southern Urals. The Agidel culture is mainly situated in the western Urals along the banks of the river Belaya and its tributaries. The Eneolithic settlements are as 378

Problems of Inhabiting Central Eurasia

Sheep/goat Near East and Central Asia

Cattle South Urals

Near East and Central Asia

Horse South Urals

Near East

Pig South Urals

Dates bc

Near East 2000

3000

4000

5000

6000

7000

8000

9000

Figure 24.7. Appearance of domesticates in the Near East, Central Asia, and the southern Urals. ments made of jasper and flint prevail, just as in Neolithic times. There are fewer implements made of clay than of stone, and metal implements are extremely rare. On the basis of their inventory, both these sites can be attributed to the Stone Age, though the number of knife-like blades is decreasing and the proportion of bifacial tools and of tools made from flakes is increasing. In the sites of the early and developed Bronze Age, we do not find so many flint and jasper tools as in the Surtanda settlements. Even in the apparently synchronic sites of the Lipchino type, flint tools are not as numerous as in Surtanda settlements. As for Boborykino culture, already in the early 1960s I thought that the attribution of an extensive microlithic inventory could only be due to a misunderstanding. Even K.V. Salnikov rejected the attribution of microliths to Boborykino pottery. It is common to attribute the early pit-grave culture to the earliest sites of the age of metal in the region of

rich in flint tools and pottery as the Neolithic sites but they differ from the latter because they include several implements made of copper (the Surtanda culture), special pottery, a specific type of dwellings and some other peculiarities of their culture. In all settlements we find the bones of domestic animals. Comparing Surtanda and Agidel culture materials, we can see that there are some differences between them in the location of settlements, the ornamentation of pottery and other features of tools. The sites of the Surtanda type have more stone tools (in comparison with pottery), several copper implements, distinct planning of the settlements and other peculiarities. Taking into account that both groups of sites are more or less synchronic, but each occupies its own clearly isolated territory, we can attribute them to two different cultures. Analyzing the sites of the Surtanda type we cannot help noticing that among their tools imple379

Chapter 24

Table 24.3. Comparisons between settlement, economic and artefact data for the Surtanda and Agidel cultures Main characteristics I. Settlements and dwellings 1) Type of settlement

Surtandy

Agidel

Mostly lake settlements on the lowest terraces

Exclusively river settlements on high flood lands and very rarely on the first terraces above flood lands

2) Size of settlement in comparison with Neolithic

The size of the settlements is much greater than in the Neolithic (up to 3–4 hectares)

The settlements also occupy a much greater territory than in the Neolithic

3) Nature of settlements

6–8 houses situated in a semicircle around a flat surface (enclosure)

4) Dwellings

Winter dwellings — deep earth pits, with a floor Rectangular dwellings with hearths and laid with stone tiles, and with walls made of wells in the settlement big stones; summer dwellings — rectangular houses above the surface of the earth, size 48–50 square metres

II. Type of economy

Hunting and lake fishing with big nets up to 45–50 metres long in combination with horse breeding and domestic cattle breeding

Hunting and river fishing in combination with horse breeding and domestic cattle breeding

III. Metallurgy

Tools made of natural fusion of copper

Metal tools were not found

Vessels with round bottom, with slightly turned-out corolla, continuous comb ornament and prevailingly geometrical compositions Rarely — vessels with an almost flat bottom

Vessels with round bottom and flat vessels (sometimes with concave bottom) with turned out corolla and collar, ornamented entirely with comb stamp. Compositions are mostly complicated.

2) Stone

Abundance of flint and jasper tools. Each settlement has a flint workshop

Flint is very varied, less abundant than pottery

3) Bone

Variety of bone tools

Variety of bone tools

IV. Implements 1) Pottery

But at the same settlement in the Neolithic, there are more flint tools than pottery. Thus in excavation area II, pottery occupies only 51.1 per cent of the total sum of pottery and flint; in excavation area III, 50 per cent; and only in excavation area I is the ratio different, although it is important to note that there the Neolithic layer lies higher than in other excavation areas. At this site the average number of flint tools in the Neolithic is 45.06 per cent and in the Eneolithic it is 41.58 per cent. How can we account for the decrease in number of flint tools as compared with pottery? It is not easy to answer this question, but a lot of accidental factors, which are usually taken into account by scholars in such cases (such as closeness or distance from the sources of material, presence or absence of ‘good’ flint etc.), must be excluded in this case, as both sites lie in almost identical conditions. For this reason, the decrease in the number of stone tools has to be accounted for by factors of production. The basic sites for Agidel culture are Mullino III, Davlekanovo III, Belskoye II, Sauz III, Kamennyi Mys, Bor I etc. The analysis of these sites shows that in the western Urals domestic animals appeared

the Volga and the Urals, but even in those we do not find any significant number of flint implements. The total number of stone implements found at all the sites of the Pit-Grave culture in this region is hardly greater than the number of similar implements found in a single settlement of the Surtanda type in the South Urals. Probably the appearance of metal is connected to the significant decrease in the variety and number of bone tools. In the Neolithic layer, bone tools constitute a high proportion, and they are very varied in kind, but the set of bone tools in the early Agidel and Surtanda layer is considerably smaller. On the whole, in spite of quantitative changes in the ratio of separate types in the inventory of the Eneolithic, it is undoubtedly inherited from the local Neolithic. The very technique of working with stone and the choice of flint material show continued connection with the local Neolithic. It is impossible to trace any alien incursions into the flint culture of Surtanda and Agidel population. Pottery prevails in the Eneolithic layer in all excavations in Mullino (Matyushin 1979). Its quantity ranges from 58 per cent (on average) to 80 per cent (excavation area III). 380

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rather early (not later than the Neolithic) but in comparison with primary original areas of domestication later by at least 1000–2000 years. The analysis of faunal remains at Mullino is very interesting. The number of domestic compared to wild types is lower here. Thus in the Neolithic layer, wild animals constitute 73.3 per cent of all fauna remains; in the Agidel layer their number decreases to 65 per cent, and at the same time the number of domestic animals rises from 26 per cent to 35 per cent. In the Agidel layer (Mullino III), among the bones that can be defined (Matyushin 1979), 170 bones belonged to 21 domestic animals and 552 to 39 wild animals. In the Neolithic layer, 79 bones belonged to 18 domestic animals and 752 to 42 wild animals. Moreover in the Neolithic layer, there were many bones of birds (60 bones from 10 individuals), of big fish (pike) and most surprisingly also of tortoise. Domestic animals were also represented by horse, cattle, sheep and goat. The proportion of horse bones is significant, though it differs from those at other Neolithic and Eneolithic sites of the southern Urals. Thus, in the Neolithic layer horse bones constitute 17.64 per cent of all animal species (here the figures are given according to the number of animals and not according to the number of bones as in the description of sites above), whereas cattle, sheep and goats each constituted 4.4 per cent of the total number of all animals. In the Agidel layer the number of horse bones drops to 13.3 per cent, but the number of cattle increases to 15 per cent, and the number of sheep and goats increases to 6.66 per cent. The number of cattle bones becomes even higher than the number of horse bones. This increase is not great (only 1.67 per cent), but it is quite symptomatic. The materials at Davlekanovo show that in the Bronze Age the number of cattle bones is twice that of horse. Thus the increase in the number of cattle bones is very marked here. This analysis shows that such an early appearance of the elements of a productive economy is conditioned by a very close connection between the population of the southern Urals and the population of the southern Caspian regions, where cattle-breeding and agriculture appeared several centuries earlier. Domestic cattle were undoubtedly brought here from more southerly regions. In the Neolithic layer (in Davlekanovo II), the number of domestic animals constitutes 55 per cent, in the Agidel layer 54.3 per cent, and in the Bronze and Iron Age layer 70 per cent. Thus whereas in all layers at Davlekanovo the bones of domestic animals constitute more than half of all faunal remains,

in Mullino their number is smaller than the number of wild animals. The materials of Mullino are clearer, which is why the ratio of animal bones in Mullino probably more precisely reflects the real ratio of wild and domestic animals in the economies of separate tribes, though the differences between sites cannot be excluded. In all circumstances the major dynamics are more important than tiny distinctions in percentage figures or in the ratio between different types of animal. These dynamics demonstrate that the number of remains of domestic animals was significant in both settlements. Thus we are dealing here with developed domestic cattle breeding, which had deep roots in the local Neolithic. In other words, cattle breeding in the southern Urals and in the territories of the western Urals and adjacent territories did not originate in the Eneolithic together with new pottery, but was already established there. It is interesting to compare the ratio of separate types of animal in Davlekanovo and in Mullino. If we draw a comparison based not on the total number of bones, as in Table 24.1, but on the species of individual animals, then the ratio between different types of domestic animal in Davlekanovo III and Mullino III is quite similar. Judging from the analysis of bone remains, we can conclude that Agidel culture is characterized by relatively developed breeding of horse and cattle, whereas the number of sheep and goats is either equal (as in Davlekanovo III) or smaller (as in Mullino III). But hunting and fishing dominated compared to cattle breeding. Judging by the number of hoes and grain grinders found at all sites of this culture, agriculture also played a role, but one which is more difficult to define. We must note that the preservation of animal bones was probably not always conditioned by the accidental factors which prevail if we attribute all remains of fauna to kitchen waste. In the excavations accumulation of bones for making tools was fairly frequent. For example in Mullino, in excavation area III, square 8, at a depth of 80-100 centimetres, ten large elk long bones were found, put together and prepared for further treatment. Most bone tools were made from elk in the Neolithic and Eneolithic. Hard and long elk bones must have been stored especially for this purpose. Of 184 bone tools that could be attributed to a specific animal species, about 100 were made of elk bone. In the Eneolithic layer of Mullino (M III), 69 per cent of tools were made of elk bone; in the Neolithic layer 57.7 per cent. 12 per cent of tools were made of horse bone in Neolithic times and 10.9 per cent in the Eneolithic. Rather fewer tools (8.3 per cent and 7.2 381

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per cent respectively) were made of beaver. It is important that not only the bones of wild animals but also those of domestic animals were used for making tools. This probably testifies to the development of domestication. On the eastern slope of the southern Urals, bone remains are found at the nine sites of the Neolithic and Eneolithic. Among them one site is purely Neolithic (Surtanda III), four sites (Yubileinoe, Bannoe II, Surtanda VIII and Karabalykty VIII) are single-strata settlements of Surtanda culture and four settlements (Murat, Berezki, Surtanda VI and Surtanda VII) include both Neolithic and Eneolithic materials. Animal bones in the eastern part of the southern Urals are not very numerous and not very well preserved, but the recurrent range of fauna at many sites can form evidence for hypotheses concerning the nature of industry in the Neolithic and Eneolithic. Only one bone can be identified in the single-strata settlement of Surtanda III. In the singlestrata site of Surtanda culture (Bannoe II) 10 bones were identified; in a similar site Yubileinoe 6 bones (of two animals); in Surtanda VIII 5 bones (of two animals). At the site of Berezki, 32 bones were identified, excluding the materials excavated in 1976. In the settlement of Murat, there were 15 identifiable bones from 5 animals. On the eastern slope of the southern Urals and in the western Urals, horse bones dominate: Bannoe II, 90 per cent; Berezki, 68,2 per cent; Murat, 66.6 per cent; Surtanda VI, 60 per cent; Surtanda VII, 33.3 per cent. In the sites where Neolithic materials are represented, the number of horse bones is smaller. However, horse bones were not found in two single-strata sites of the Surtanda type: in the Yubileinoe site, where the bones of cattle constitute 66,6 per cent and the bones of sheep and goats 33.1 per cent, and in Karabalykty VIII, where only one bone could be identified. It is hardly possible to question the validity of the attributions made by the archaeozoologists: horse bones and bones of cattle, sheep and goats were considered to belong to domestic types. The main definitions were drawn up by V.I. Tsalkin; the faunal remains of Mullino and Davlekanovo were studied by A.G. Petrenko with the assistance of E.G. Andreeva; the bones found at the sites in the eastern Urals were studied by V.P. Danilchenko; and in all cases the result was the same. Even if we assume that the bones of domesticated horse are difficult to distinguish from the bones of wild horses, we must remember that sheep, goat and cattle never existed here in a wild state. So this is a sound indication of the existence of domestic cattle breeding both in

Agidel and Surtanda culture. As for the horse, a very distinguished archaeozoologist, V.P. Tsalkin, was categorically opposed to postulating the presence of wild types. He wrote: We do not see any reason to consider the remains of horse bones occurring in the Neolithic and Eneolithic settlements of south-eastern Europe as belonging to wild animals . . . it is more correct to view them as belonging to domestic animals. Their appearance on the banks of the Dnestr is very likely a result of borrowing from more eastern tribes (Tsalkin 1974).

The latest information leads us to think that in the southern and eastern Urals domestic animals appeared quite early, that is, not later than the Neolithic, but no less than 1.5–2 thousand years later than in the original areas of domestication. Consequently, although we found no metal implements or remains of metal either at the Davlekanovo III site or at the Mullino III site, we should still consider these sites to be Eneolithic and not Neolithic. This attribution is confirmed by the presence of Surtanda elements in the pottery ornament at Mullino III and Davlekanovo III. At Mullino III, such objects are present in smaller numbers than at Davlekanovo, but they are also quite indicative. For example, on some fragments of pottery from the Agidel layer of Mullino we find triangles and rhomboids shaded by comb lines uncharacteristic of Agidel. However, such figures are a typical element of pottery of the Surtanda culture. The presence of Surtanda pottery at the sites situated on the banks of the Kama and near Orenburg testifies that at some period these cultures co-existed chronologically. As for the industry of the Surtanda culture, it is important to stress that it belongs to the final stage of habitation by the lakes of the southern Urals. In the Mesolithic and Neolithic there were many settlements and sites at the Bannoe Lake, Karabalykty, Surtanda, Syvarkul, Uzunkul and other places, and in the Surtanda period they were even more numerous. The area of the Surtanda settlements covers 3–4 hectares and more. They are bigger than many settlements of Neolithic times in the eastern Urals and cover the greater part of the banks of the lakes, which had long been inhabited. The banks of the southern Urals were probably never inhabited so densely before or since, even in modern times. It remains unclear, though, why none of this vast population remained. The lakes which used to be so well populated become deserted in the post-Surtanda period. The whole huge population left the lakes and went elsewhere. Some of the routes of this massive migration can be traced at the Surtanda settlements situ382

Problems of Inhabiting Central Eurasia

ated beyond the lakes (Fig. 24.8). The Yubileinoe settlement, by Lake Bannoe, is very representative from this point of view. It is situated not far from the Berezki settlement, on the bank of a small river, now nearly dried up, which flows into the lake near the Berezki settlement. Yubileinoe occupies quite a large area, 500 metres long and 30 metres wide. However the cultural layer is not very rich here. There are no traces of dwelling pits, but there are small pits with hearths. The ground is smooth. On one side of it is the bank of the stream; on two other sides there are broad moats of unclear origin. As the cultural layer is so poor, it is difficult to establish its origin. But the place chosen for settlement is clearly very convenient for cattle. We cannot exclude the possibility that this was the site of a migrating, nomadic and unsettled population. Although there are few implements, we find bones of domesticated animals, cattle, sheep and goat. No fishing plummets have been found. Yubileinoe is probably a settlement of the Surtanda type, which was deserted by a population dependent not on complex fishing and cattle breeding but exclusively on cattle breeding and hunting. This settlement perhaps reflects the direction of movement of the migrating Surtanda population — from the lakes to the flood lands of small rivers (Fig. 24.9). It is important to remember that the lakes in the southern Urals are not very suitable for cattle-breeding, as the turf layer is not very deep, and in any drought the grass is completely burnt out. It is likely that, as shown by the low location of the settlements at the end of Surtanda times, droughts made the population move from the coastal area to an area

10

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Figure 24.8. Location of Stone Age sites by the lakes of the eastern Urals: 1) Karabalykty I; 2) Karabalykty II; 3) Karabalykty III; 4) Karabalykty IV; 5) Lynevoe; 6) Karabalykty VI; 7) Mysovaya, Karabalykty VII; 8) Karabalykty XII; 9) Karabalykty XIII; 10) Karabalykty VIII, VIIIa, b; 11) Karabalykty IX; 12) Tashbulatovo I; 13) Tashbulatovo II; 14) Sabakty VI; 15) Sabakty V; 16) Sabakty III, IV, IVa; 17) Sabakty I, II; 18) Kusimovskoe; 19) Yakty-Kul; 20) Berezki; 21) Banno IV; 22) Bannoe III; 23) Bannoe II; 24) Surtanda I; 25) Surtanda II; 26) Surtanda III; 27) Surtanda IV; 28) Surtanda V; 29) Surtanda V; 30) Surtanda VIa; 31) Surtanda VI; 32) Surtanda VII; 33) Surtanda VIII, IX; 34) Surtanda X; 35) Chevarkul X; 36) Chevarkul XI; 37) Yangelka; 38) Chevarkul I; 39) Chevarkul II; 40) Chevarkul III; 40) Chevarkul IV; 41) Chevarkul IV; 42) Chevarkul V; 43) Chevarkul VI; 44) Chevarkul VII, VIII; 45) Chevarkul IX.

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Figure 24.9. Surtanda and Botai-Tersek sites. (After Logvin 1991, fig. 1; Zaibert 1993, fig. 1.) culture is formed in the eastern Urals. As for the transitional sites of Botai and Makhandgar, they are the result of the migration of the Surtanda population into the eastern Ural steppe. This is confirmed not only by the close territorial location of sites of the Makhandgar and of the Surtanda type, but also by the similarity of their implements. The main implements of the Makhandgar type are not only very close to, but actually identical with, those of the Surtanda. The pottery is made of clay with the addition of southern Ural talc, and its forms and ornamentation are identical to those of Surtanda pottery. This is the case with pottery from Livanovka, Solenoe Lake I, Bestamak (Fig. 24.9) etc. The only exceptions are the vessels from the site of Solenoe Lake II, which have a pointed bottom and broad corolla. In the publications by V.N. Logvin (1993) as well as Marsha Levine, Yuri Rassamakin, Aleksandr Kislenko and Nataliya Tatarinzeva (1999), only this pottery is considered to characterize Makhandgar vessels, but it can hardly be attributed to the Eneolithic at all. The

which was more distant from the lake but close to the flood lands covered with grass (first to the lands near the lake, then to the more distant flood lands). Thus droughts triggered not only the migration but also the beginning of the transition to a nomadic way of life and cultivation of the steppes. It is not surprising that if the Surtanda tribes were the last inhabitants of the lakes on the eastern slope of the southern Urals, then the exploitation of small rivers in the vicinity of the lakes of this region begins with them — in other words they are the first large-scale inhabitants of the rivers of the western Ural steppes in the Holocene. We cannot exclude the possibility that this led to the development of the small steppe rivers and later of the steppe areas of western and eastern Urals and thus became a factor in spreading the Surtanda and Agidel cultures into the steppe. It is possible that the so-called Turganik culture is a variant of the Agidel culture, on the basis of which the Khvalynsk and Pit-grave cultures are formed in the steppes of western Urals and the Andronovo 384

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Surtanda lakeland

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Figure 24.10. Pottery of the Surtanda lakeland (1, 3, 4 & 6 Surtanda 8; 2 Chebarkul; 1 & 7 Murat) and steppe region (8–11 Bestamak; 12–13 Livanovka). occur. Stone implements from Makhandgar sites are also identical to Surtanda implements. Most of them are made of southern Ural jasper. Little ornamented stones (‘irons’) are also widely spread here, and one little ornamented stone (‘iron’) from Livanovka is identical to the Surtanda ornamented stone (‘iron’) from the Kyzykul site (Matyushin 1982, figs. 31 & 26). Flint implements are similar not only in material (brown and gray jasper) but also in form. Arrow points with a reduced bottom and made of other materials are quite characteristic. It is interesting that the geometrical motifs typical of Surtanda were used for decorating bone implements, for example, the ornamented metapodiae (bone dice) found in Livanovka. As for the Botai settlement, which, as noted before, was excellently studied by V.F. Zaibert and his colleagues (Zaibert 1981; 1982; 1983; 1992; 1993), the scholars themselves acknowledge close similarity with Makhadgar (Surtanda) sites. This is cer-

scholars themselves acknowledge that in the Tobol sites ‘the cultural layer consists of sand and sandy loam and is to a great extent dispersed’. Consequently it is possible that chronologically separate materials have become mixed up. This is confirmed by identical pottery having been found at the Makhandgar sites and the Surtanda sites, as well as by the obvious addition of alien pottery with a sharp pointed bottom. The origin of the latter could be late, as similar pottery is found in the graves of ancient pitgrave culture at Bykovo II in the lower Volga region (Merpert 1974, fig. 5:2). The sites of the Pit-Grave culture occur in the higher parts of the river Ural near the Makhandgar sites. We cannot exclude the possibility that pottery of this type should be attributed to the Bronze Age and not to Eneolithic times. At all events, it is alien to the main materials of Livanovka, Bestamak, the lake Solenoe I and other Eneolithic Tobol sites. Scholars underline the point that Makhandgar sites are identical to Botai sites but at the sites of the Botai type pottery like that does not 385

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earlier. It is interesting that the sites of the Makhandgar and Late stage Botai type are dated mainly to the third millennium bp, whereas the sites on the banks Cheliabinsk ✪ ✪ Samara Petropavlovsk of the lake belonging to the m Surtanda culture are dated Magnitogorsk earlier (fifth millennium bp, Botai culture Uralsk according to C-14). This datTersek culture ing for the earlier sites is conOrsk firmed by the chronology of the lower layer of Berezki setLake ai Tengiz rg tlement (around 7600±200). u T Thus two periods of developa b Em ment can be distinguished in the Surtanda culture. The first can be called the lake period (late fifth-fourth millennium bp). The second period is the Aral Sy USTYURT rD Sea steppe period (third millena Caspian ry nium BC , at Botai, MakhSea KYZYL-KUM andgar). In the second period, Kelteminar DESERT culture at the beginning of an ecological crisis (second millennium Tashkent bp), the Petrov and Alakul ✪ KARA-KUM (Andron) cultures of the DESERT Samarkand Bronze Age were formed.2 ya Dushanbe ✪ From the end of the fourth millennium bp the population of the forest-steppe and N GISSARO-ALAI steppe regions gradually MOUNTAINS adopted the practice of no0 150 km madic stockbreeding. This was also the date of the last major Caspian (MakhachFigure 24.11. The spread of Surtanda culture. kalinsk) regression, which betainly true, though in Botai the implements are rather gan at the end of the fourth millennium bp and peculiar. Most of the pottery here is of the Surtanda continued through to the first half of the second type, with the addition of southern Ural talc. Howmillennium bp. During this period, the population ever there is some pottery here without talc. The gradually shifted to the steppes, where cattle breedornament is of a typically Surtanda kind, but there ing eventually became the principal means of suboccurs some collar pottery of the Agidel type (for sistence. By about 2000 bp, an extensive cultural instance from dwelling 19) and pottery with dresva tradition, the Andronovo, had formed in the eastern and rare ornament on the neck (dwelling 16), etc. Urals, while in the western Urals, the Timber-Grave Most flint implements are made of southern Ural culture emerged. The origin of these major tradijasper, but there are some implements made from tions dates to the Eneolithic of the southern Urals local stone etc. Probably, the peculiarities of Botai and neighbouring territories. can be attributed to its distance from the epicentre of It would be difficult to pinpoint the cultural the Surtanda culture. But the similarity of these cultradition or population ultimately responsible for tures cannot be doubted. the transition to a nomadic way of life. However, at Thus the spreading of the Surtanda culture to the beginning of the third millennium bp, the lakeside the east up to the basin of the Irtysh River seems settlements of the eastern Urals (the eastern slopes very probable (Fig. 24.11). We gave the reasons for it of the mountains and adjacent foothills) ceased to be Early stage

ure

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inhabited, with the population becoming more nomadic. Greater residential mobility is associated with an increased reliance on horse breeding. The cultural context of these developments is known as the Surtanda culture. During the course of the third millennium bp, Surtanda pottery appeared over an extensive area, which included the steppes of northern Kazakhstan, the western and southern foothills of the Urals and even as far north as the forest zone along the Kama river (the site of Bor 1). In the southwest Urals, sites that previously had served as basecamps were also by now becoming deserted. At a few sites, such as Mullino IV, where occupation did continue, the cultural layers are very thin and contain relatively few finds. Porous ceramics, typical of the local forest groups, become quite scarce. The indigenous population, bearer of the collared ceramic tradition, also seems to have changed in its use of resources to a nomadic pastoralism and to the exploitation of the steppes to the south. Both the bearers of the Surtanda and Agidel culture and the local groups from the southwest Urals contributed to the formation of the Pit-Grave culture in the Volga–Ural inter-fluvial region during the third millennium bp (Merpert 1974; Telegin 1973; Shilov 1975). The economy of Pit-Grave culture was characterized by ovicaprid pastoralism, to the extent that ritual burials of sheep and goats were found among the funerary equipment, as in the Khvalynsk burial (Petrenko 1984). Subsequently the nomadic form of ovicaprid and bovine husbandry extended over the steppes north of the Black Sea across eastern Europe. The steppes and deserts of Central Asia were occupied only periodically, during the moister climatic phases. Although the arid lands of Central Asia yielded cultural remains, their relative chronology is very difficult to establish, owing to their temporary character, the lack of datable stratigraphic context and the disruptive effect of wind-blown sand deposits. Such so-called ‘desert complexes’ must be treated with utmost caution when one attempts to reconstruct diachronically the cultural history and socioeconomic changes of the area. This note of caution should also be stressed when one is dealing with the ‘Kelteminar’, ‘Seroglazovskaya’ and other so-called cultures. It is no accident that these cultures are often redefined on the basis of no new evidence. Since the 1940s, the Kelteminar culture, for instance, has been redefined three times, using almost the same set of archaeological finds. According to the current interpretation, Kelteminar is now dated between the seventh and the third millennium bp (Vinogradov 1981, 119–

35), in contrast to the original date of the fourth to second millennium. Our confidence in this latest date is further eroded by Vinogradov’s contradictory remarks about the depth of the cultural layer at the principal site of the early Kelteminar phase, Uchashchi 131: said to be buried at the depth of 90 cm, on p. 131 of the article, it reached a depth of 2 m., while the profile photograph shows it just under the topsoil (Vinogradov 1981). Dating of the middle and late Kelteminar phases is based on equally implausible stratigraphic evidence. Typologically, arrowheads made of blades, and typical of the Eneolithic and the early Mesolithic geometric forms, are both assigned to Kelteminar. In neighbouring regions, such finds are separated, in stratigraphically controlled situations, by thousands of years. This chronological confusion means that faunal remains, which were found in ‘Kelteminar’ contexts and which contained bones of both domesticated and wild animals cannot be dated with any precision. It may be significant, however, that most of the domesticated bones were recovered from the site of Tolstov, which also contained Bronze Age and later materials. In summary, it seems that we are dealing with a desert adaptation of long standing, a chronological agglomerate of cultural remains which extended from the Mesolithic to the Metal Age, reflecting perhaps the repeated but discontinuous use of the marginal arid areas during periods of climatic amelioration. In the circumstances, however, it would be prudent to refrain from suggesting any conclusions until sites with better stratigraphic controls are found. Conclusions It is an interesting fact that the appearance of geometric forms coincides with an increase in global temperature (Dansgaard & Tauber 1969). It could be argued that the rise of temperature between the eleventh and ninth millennium bp, which occurred all over the planet, resulted in an increase in the aridity of the steppe and other semi-arid zones of the Near and Middle East and other regions of Eurasia. This in turn generated the need for a more controlled collection of cereals and for higher productivity within the more restricted areas of natural growth. Within an area as vast as the southern Urals and the steppes of Central Asia, differences in the socio-economic development of Mesolithic communities and in their adaptation to the postglacial conditions were bound to occur. Throughout the area, however, major changes coincide with the periods of 387

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increased aridity, which can best be detected from fluctuations in the level of the Caspian Sea. It seems that the Begdash regression, which started in the ninth millennium bp, not only coincided with the transition to fishing but also provided motivation to improve hunting implements. At the end of this stage, Mesolithic sites shifted location to the high terraces and at the same time their inventory expanded to include both microliths and arrow-heads made on broad blades (Staraya Mushta II, Staro-kainlykovo, Ilmursino III), suggesting the transition to bows and arrows for hunting. Similar technological developments also took place east of the Urals (Matyushin 1976). In the latter half of the eighth millennium bp, further climatic changes caused a decrease in the humidity of the area. The Mangyshlak regression was more than twice as long as the preceding Begdash regression. Such a long period of marine regression must have reflected a longer, and consequently more significant, ecological crisis. It is at the end of this period that the bones of domesticated animals and the earliest pottery appeared in the southern Urals, a coincidence that could hardly have been accidental. This marks the beginning of the next phase in the transition to farming. During the first of the Caspian Holocene regressions, the Begdash dated to the ninth millennium bp, plant cultivation and animal husbandry appeared in the Near East and in the south Caspian region, while further to the north the groups inhabiting the Central-Asian plains and southern Urals adopted more intensive forms of food production, with the development of fishing and the use of the bow and arrow. Although this remains speculative for the present, some elements of animal husbandry might have been introduced along with the new range of microliths at this date. During the second regression, the Mangyshlak in the late seventh and early sixth millennia bp, domestication occurred in the steppe and forest-steppe of the southern Urals, presumably as a response to the shortages in food supply available through hunting and fishing. However, foraging remained the principal means of subsistence, while stockbreeding probably played no more than a subordinate role. In South-Central Asia, on the other hand, we can observe a marked shift to food production, which included not only stockbreeding but also intensive arable cultivation (the Djeitun culture). During the period of increased aridity marked by the third regression the Jilaldin (late sixth to early fifth millennium bp), cultural changes took place in Central Asia that were associated with

the Eneolithic. In the southern Urals, collared ware replaced earlier pottery styles (pitted and combed wares), while at the same time the overall zone of pottery-producing forest cultures expanded further to the north, into the basin of the River Kama. During the last major regression, the Makhachkalinsk (late fourth to early second millennium bp), Bronze Age cultures came into existence in the arid regions of Central Asia. The steppe margins in northern Kazakhstan and the forest-steppe regions of the southern Urals experienced depopulation, or at least a decline in the density of settlement. These shifts in the settlement pattern are associated with the transition to a nomadic pastoral economy. From its probable centre of origin within the cultural context of the Surtanda culture in the southeast Urals, nomadic pastoralism gradually extended to cover the Ural–Volga interfluve (Pit-Grave culture), northern Kazakhstan (Surtanda culture), the eastern margins of the Eurasian steppe (the Angara–Altai region, Afanasevo culture) and, at the other extreme, the steppes of eastern Europe. By the end of the Makhachkalinsk regression, in the mid-second millennium bp, most of the area east of the Urals was integrated into a uniform cultural horizon, known as the Andronovo Bronze Age, while west of the Urals, in the East-European steppes, the Timber-Grave culture emerged. The economy of these nomadic cultures continued to develop towards more specialized nomadic pastoralism, with a corresponding decrease in the importance of other economic pursuits; by the second millennium bp this process was consolidated, with the establishment of specialized cattle and horse nomadism. Of the four major periods of aridity, recorded in archaeological and geological deposits, the Mangyshlak and Makhachkalinsk phases were probably the most pronounced. During the first phase, food production penetrated to the southern Urals and eastern Europe; during the second, a widespread shift to the nomadic mode of existence took place. The transition to food production involved not only animal husbandry, but also cultivation. Pollen samples from at least one site, Kaga I, located near the Neolithic settlements of Belskaya I and II, show that non-arboreal pollen formed 60–70 per cent of pollen counts and Cerealia formed up to 50 per cent of non-arboreal pollen remains already in layers dated to the Neolithic (Khotinskii 1985). Pollen from each layer in Mullino shows a very dry, arid climate. The layers are separated by sublayers showing traces of marsh. Thus it is possible to assume that each of these sites was inhabited during 388

Temperature curve of the atmosphere

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ings were found lying 18–20 metres lower than the Mesolithic site. The difference in level can be discerned more clearly in river settlements (Fig. 24.12). This coincides with a graph showing fluctuation in the level of the Caspian Sea (after Varushchenko et al. 1980). Possibly these fluctuations were caused by global changes of climate (Fig. 24.13) Settlements corresponding to each layer were found in various places in the southern Urals (Fig. 24.8). Interesting dwellings belonging to the Neolithic layer were discovered in the Murat settlement situated on Lake Uzunkul. On the highest part of the cape, the remains of the Mesolithic site are preserved; above it there was a Neolithic settlement with dwellings, and the whole area was covered by a huge settlement of the Surtanda type (Chalcolithic). In the Mesolithic layer, the complex was typically Yangelkatype with geometric microliths. In the Neolithic layer, tools of bifacial type prevail. An interesting axe was found near the remains of a wooden tool. The axe was lying on an abrasive plate. Probably the Neolithic craftsman sharpened the edge of his axe as he worked. The dwelling was inlaid with stone plates up to one metre in length. At the entrance to the dwelling there was a hearth. The oval form of the dwellings gives way during the Chalcolithic to a rectangular form, but it is retained in the general planning of the settlements even during the Bronze

Radiocarbon dates

Figure 24.12. Fluctuation in the altitude of sites and settlements in the Mesolithic–Eneolithic period. periods of dry climate and was abandoned because of flooding when the climate became humid. As all the settlements are situated in modern flood-lands, there are grounds for believing that in the period when the sites were inhabited, the climate was warmer and drier than at present. Thus, from the Mesolithic to the Neolithic, there were four major periods of drought and the same number of periods when atmospheric humidity increased. On the basis of excavations in Mullino it is possible to hypothesize that there were at least four ecological crises during this period. Investigations at other settlements show that during the Bronze Age there was a fifth crisis. Excavation of other settlements (e.g. a site on the river Syun) confirms the stratigraphy of Mullino. Here too, in the lower levels of light loamy soil, there are remains of a Mesolithic site, whereas higher up, in the dark brown layer, there are remains of a Neolithic site. This corresponds to the difference in level between the settlements. For example, close to the Mesolithic site of Yakty-Kul, site Berezki is situated, where traces of Neolithic and Eneolithic dwell389

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Figure 24.14. Cultural developments related to the climatic changes of the Holocene: 1) Jericho; 2) Beidha; 3) Shanidar; 6) Zawi Chemi Shanidar; 8) Ubaid culture; 11) Ganj Dareh; 12) Çatalhöyük; 13) Ali Kosh; 14) Mergara; 15) Jarmo; 18) Djeitun; 20) Khvalynsk burial; 25) Botai; 26) Djeitun; 27) Namazga; 28) Kara Comar; 29) Machai; 30) Djebel; 31) Osh Khona; 32) Tutkaul; 33) Milovka I–III; 34) Romanovka II, III, VIII; 35) Ilmursino II; 36) Staraya Tchermak; 37) Mikhailovka; 38) Ilmursino III; 39) Staraya Mushta; 40) Yangelka; 41) Mullino I; 42) Mullino IIa; 43) Staraya Mushta I; 44) Davlekanovo II; 45) Mullino IIb; 46) Mullino IIc; 47) Mullino III; 48) Davlekanovo III; 49) Belskaya II; 50) Ust-Yuryuzanskaya; 51) Mullino IV; 52) Davlekanovo IV.

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Age in settlements of the Sintashta-Arkaim type (Gening et al. 1992). It is important to note that the settlements of the late-Surtanda type, Botay (Zaibert 1985) and later, as well as the Arkaim type, were built on mud like those in Mesopotamia in spite of the abundance of wood in the Urals. Probably this fact testifies to continuous communication with the Middle East in the period of early metal. To some extent this supposition can be confirmed by reference to the planning of the settlement with its round shape, including the cattle pen in the centre, as traced in the settlement of Surtanda type, with one winter dwelling of the dug-out type. The agricultural transition was accomplished by indigenous hunter-gatherers in the course of adaptation to post-glacial conditions. This process involved not only the adoption of cultigens and domesticates from the south, but also the local domestication of native species, such as the horse and possibly cattle. The significance of equine domestication cannot be overestimated: horse remains predominate on all Neolithic and Eneolithic settlements of the southern Urals. It could be argued that the contribution of the aboriginal population to the process of transition to food production was of importance equal to the earlier domestication of plants and animals in the Near East. Needless to say, this proposition requires further investigation and further evidence (Fig. 24.14). Thus the common view that the beginning of the domestication of the horse should not be dated earlier than the Eneolithic is overturned by the excavations in Mullino and other Neolithic settlements of the southern Urals, which show that it must have begun before then. It is important to bear in mind the presence in the early Neolithic of the bones of sheep and goat, which never existed in the wild in the Urals and consequently could only have been brought there in domesticated state. Moreover the very fact of a sudden migration to the steppe (as witnessed by the identity of pottery at the lake settlements of Surtanda 8 type and at the steppe settlements on the banks of the Tobol river, Bestamak, Solenoe lake etc.: see Fig. 24.10) can only be accounted for by the disappearance of grass for domestic animals. All this enables us to suggest that the domestication of horse in the southern Urals and adjacent territories began no later than two or three thousand years before this migration, that is, before the Eneolithic.

2.

References Bergelund, B.E., 1966. Late Quaternary vegetation in Eastern Blekinge, Southeastern Sweden: a pollen analytical study. Opera Botanica 12(1&2). Bizhanov, E.V., 1982. Mezoliticheskie I neoliticheskie pamyatniki Severo-Zapadnogo Ustyurta, in Arkhaeologia Priaraliya, eds. S.K. Kamalov, V. Jagodin & J.F. Buriakov. Tashkhent: Fan, 11–39. Bonsall, C. (ed.), 1989. The Mesolithic in Europe. Edinburgh: John Donald. Braidwood, R.J., 1967. Prehistoric Man. Clenview: Scott, Foresman & Company. Braidwood, S., R.J. Braidwood, B. Howe, C. Reed & P. Watson, 1983. Prehistoric Archaeology Along the Zagros Flanks. (Oriental Institute Publications 105.) Chicago (IL): University of Chicago Press. British Museum 1, Collektion Carrod 1930, Iraq, Zarzi cave. Clark, J.G.D., 1965. Primitive Man in Egypt, western Asia and Europe in Mesolithic times, in The Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 1, eds. I.E.S. Edwards, C.J. Gadd, N.G.L. Hammond. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Clark, J.G.D., 1971. Excavations at Star Carr. 2nd edition with new preface. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Clark, J.G.D., 1980. Mesolithic Prelude: the Palaeolithic– Neolithic Transition in Old World Prehistory. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Coon, C., 1951. Cave Explorations in Iran 1949. Philadelphia (PA): Philadelphia University Press. Cunliffe, B. (ed.), 1998. Prehistoric Europe: an Illustrated History. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Chernykh, E.N., 1970. Drevneishaya Metallurgiya Urala i Pomlihiva. Moscow: Nauka. Dansgaard, W.S.J. & H. Tauber, 1969. Glacier oxygen-18 content and Pleistocene ocean temperatures. Science 166, 499–502. Davidova, G.M., 1976. Antropologicheskie Issledovaniya Sevemykh Mansy i Nekotorye Voprosy ikh Raso-i Rthnogenesa. Summary of PhD thesis, Moscow. Nauka. Fersman, A.E., 1961. Ocherki po Istorii Kamnya. Moscow: Nauka. Flannery, K.V., 1969. Origins and ecological effects of early domestication in Iran and the Near East, in The Domestication and Exploitation of Plants and Animals, eds. J.J. Ucko & G.W. Dimbleby. Chicago (IL): Aldine, 73–100. Garrod, D.A.E., 1930. The Palaeolithic of southern Kurdistan: excavations in the Caves of Zarzi and Hazar Merd. Bulletin of the American School of Prehistoric Research 6, 8–43.

Notes 1.

tion of this paper. The editors are aware of a number of inconsistencies in the dating but owing to the decease of the author they were unable to clarify this problem.

It is with great regret that we inform you of the death of the author, Gerald Matyushin, prior to the publica-

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Gening, V.F., G.B. Zdanovich & V.V. Gening, 1992. Sintashta, vol. 1. Chelyabinsk: Uzhno-Uralskoe knizhnoe izdatelstvo. Harris, D.R. (ed.), 1996. The Origin and Spread of Agriculture and Pastoralism in Eurasia. London: UCL Press. Hole, F., 1977. Studies in the Archaeological History of the Deh Luran Plain: the Excavation of Chaga Sefid. Ann Arbor (MI): University of Michigan Press. Hole, F., K.V. Flannery & J.A. Neelev, 1969. Prehistoric and Human Ecology of the Deh Luran Plain. Ann Arbor (MI): University of Michigan Press. Khotinskii, N.A., 1985. Report on the conference held at the Institute of Archaeology on the 17th of January on the Neolithic and Bronze Age, Moscow. Kislenko, A. & N. Tatarintseva, 1999. The eastern Ural steppe at the end of the Stone Age, in Levine et al. 1999, 183–216. Legge, A.J., 1977. The origins of agriculture in the Near East, in Hunters, Gatherers and First Farmers Beyond Europe, ed. J.V.S. Megaw. Leicester: Leicester University Press, 51–68. Levine, M.A., 1982. The use of crown height measurements and eruption-wear sequences to age horse teeth, in Aging and Sexing Animals Bones from Archaeological Sites, eds. B. Wilson, C. Grigson & S. Payne. (British Archaeological Reports 109.) Oxford: BAR. Levine, M.A., 1983. Mortality models and the interpretation of horse population structure, in Hunter-Gatherer Economy in Prehistory, ed. G. Bailey. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 23–46. Levine, M.A., 1990. Derievka and the problem of horse domestication. Antiquity 64, 727–40. Levine, M.A., 1992. Trade and exchange in prehistoric Europe, in Proceedings of a Conference held at the University of Bristol, April 1992, eds. C. Scarre & F. Healy. Oxford: Oxbow Books, 135–41. Levine, M.A., 1996. Horse, domestication of the, in Archaeology, ed. B.M. Fagan. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 315–17. Levine, M.A., 1998. Eating horses: the evolutionary significance of hippophagy. Antiquity 72, 90–100. Levine, M.A. & A.M. Kislenko, 1997. New Eneolithic and Early Bronze Age radiocarbon dates for North Kazakhstan and South Siberia. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 7(2), 297–300. [Reprinted with corrections as: Levine, M.A. & A.M. Kislenko, 2002. New Eneolithic and Early Bronze Age radiocarbon dates for North Kazakhstan and South Siberia, in Ancient Interactions: East and West in Eurasia, eds. K. Boyle, C. Renfrew & M. Levine. (McDonald Institute Monographs.) Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, 131–4.] Levine, M.A., Y. Rassamakin, A. Kislenko & N. Tatarintseva, 1999. Late Prehistoric Exploitation of the Eurasian Steppe. (McDonald Institute Monographs.) Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research. Logvin, V.N., 1986. Neolit i Eneolit Stepnogo Pritobolya.

Unpublished PhD dissertation, Moscow. Markov, G.E., 1966. Raskopki grota Dam-Dam Chashme. Sovetskaya Arkheologiya 2, 104–25. Masson, V.M., 1964. Srednaya Aziya i Drevnii Vostok. Moscow & Leningrad: Nauka. Masson, V.M., 1971. Poselenie Djeitun. Materialy i Issledovaniya Po Arkheologii SSSR 180, 5–207. Masson, V.M., 1981 (1982). Eneolit Srednei Azii, in Eneolit SSSR, eds. B.M. Masson & N.V. Merpert. Moscow: Nauka, 9–92. Matyushin, G.N., 1970. Neoliticheskoe poselenie I pogrebenie u goroda Davlekanogo na Yuzhnom Urale. Sovetskaya Arkheologiya 4, 160–68. Matyushin, G.N., 1972. Pamyatniki kamennogo veka v nizovyah reki Beloy, in Otchety Nizhnekamskoi Arkheologicheskoi Ekspedizii, vol. 1. Moscow: Nauka, 57–74. Matyushin, G.N., 1976. Mezolit Yuzhnogo Urala. Moscow: Nauka. Matyushin, G.N., 1977. Jasshmovoy Poyas Urala. Moscow: Iskusstvo. Matyushin, G.N., 1979. Nekotoryie voprosy pervonahalinogo zaseleniya Urala i Sibiri. Kratkie Soobshchenia Instituta Arkheologii AN SSSR 157, 6–43. Matyushin, G.N. (ed.), 1982. Eneolit Yuzhnovo Urala. Moscow: Nauka. Matyushin, G.N., 1986. The Mesolithic and Neolithic in the southern Urals and Central Asia, in Hunters in Transition, ed. M. Zvelebil. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 133–50. Matyushin, G.N., 1990. Osnovnye etapy rasvitiya paleolita Urala, in Chronostratigraphia Paleolita Severnoi, Centralnoi, i Vostochnoi Asii i Ameriky. Novosikirsk: Akademia naur SSSR, 226–30. Matyushin, G.N., 1994. Smena Cultur, Civilusatyi i Ecologicheskie Krisicy. (Drevnosty 12.) Moscow: Russian Archaeological Society. Matyushin, G.N., 1996. Neolit Yuzhnogo Urala. Moscow: Nauka Melentev, A.N., 1977. O vozniknovenii skotovodstva v evraziiskikh stepyakh, in Problemy Epokhi Eneolita Stepnoi i Lesostepnoi Polosy Vostochnoi Evropy, eds. L.I. Futoranskii, N.J. Saygin & N. Hozoyukova. Orenburg: Tezisi13. Melentev, A.N., 1981. Pamyatniki seroglazovskoi kultury. Kratkie Soobshchenia Instituta Arkheologii AN SSSR 149, 100–108. Merpert, N.Y., 1974. Drevneishie Skotovody VolzhskoUralskogo Mezhdurechiya. Moscow: Nauka. Okladnikov, A.P., 1956. Teschera Dzhebel pamyatnik drevneishei cultury prikaspiiskih piemen Turkmenii, in Trudy Yuzhnoturkmenistanskoi Archeologicheskoi Kompleksnoi Ekspeditsii, vol. 7, ed. M.E. Masson, 11–214. Oshibkina, S.B., 1983. Mezolit Basseina Sukhonmy i Vostochnogo Prionezhiya. Moscow: Nauka. Petrenko, A.G., 1982. Kostyanye ostatki zhivotnykh s poseleniya Mullino, in Matyushin (ed.), 301–7. Petrenko, A.G., 1984. Drevnee i Srednevekovoe Zhivotnovdstvo Srednego Povolzhiya i Preduraliya. Moscow: Nauka.

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Ranov, V.A., 1965. Kamennyi vek Tadzhikistana. AN Tadzh SSR. In-t Istorii. Dushanbe: Donish. Ranov, V.A., 1982. Gissarskaya kultura: rasprostranenie, khronologiya, ekonomika, in Kultura Pervobytnoi Epokhi Tadzhikistana, eds. N.N. Negmatov & V.A. Ranov. Dushanbe: Donish, 22–41. Renfrew, C., 1984. Approaches to Social Archaeology. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Renfrew, C., 1987. Archaeology and Language. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. Shilov, V.P., 1975. Ocherki po Istorii Drevnih Plemen Nizhnego Povolzhya. Leningrad: Nauka. Smith, P.E.L., 1986. Palaeolithic Archaeology in Iran. (The American Institute of Iranian Studies Monograph 1.) Philadelphia (PA): American Institute of Iranian Studies. Telegin, D.Y., 1973. Seredni-stogivska Kultura Epokhi Midi. Kiev: Naukova Dumka. Telegin, D.Y., 1978. Voprosy khronologi i periodizatsii Neolita Ukrainy. Kratkie Soobshchenia Instituta Arkheologii AN SSSR 153, 46–8. Varushchenko, A.N., S.I. Varushchenko & R.K. Klige, 1980. Izmenenie urovnya Kaspiiskogo morya v pozdnem Pleistotsene–Holotsene, in Kolebaniya Uvlazhnennosti Aralo-Kaspiiskogo Regiona v Golotsene, eds. B.V. Andrianov, L.V. Sorin & R.V. Nikolaeva. Moscow: Nauka, 79–90. Vinogradov A.V., 1981. Drevnie Ohotniki I Rybolovy Srednecasialskogo Mezhdorechya: Trudy Khorezmskoi

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Chapter 25 The Steppes of the Urals and Kazakhstan during the Late Bronze Age Svetlana Zdanovich T

he development of the Andronovo cultural-historical community in the steppes of the Urals and Kazakhstan ends with the Sargary culture. Characteristic of the pottery of the final stage of the Late Bronze Age is a form of earthenware with rollers stuck on to the neck or the upper part of the body of the vessel. Such pottery was also widespread across other territories of the Eurasian steppe/forest-steppe zone at the end of the Bronze Age. Chernykh was the first to pay attention to the existence of a Roller Pottery or Valikovaya cultural community (Chernykh 1983). He also outlined its borders and characteristic features. The borders of the community, according to Chernykh, in the north passed through the Eastern European and West Siberian forest-steppe from the northeastern Balkans, Lower Danube and eastern Carpathians in the west to the Altai in the east; in the south they extended from the Crimea and Lower Don to the MiddleAsian deserts and foothills (Fig. 25.1). Chernykh has singled out 12 archaeological areas (cultures or types) within the community. The cultures of the Roller Pottery community share similar types of economy, work tools (including those made of metal), types of dwellings and settlements, plus a kurganless form of burial construction etc. At the same time, significant changes are seen in the second, supplementary, part of the pottery complex. The proportion of roller pottery in each separate complex usually equals 15–40 per cent. The pottery concomitant with the roller type can be completely different from it (both technologically and ornamentally), as it is in the western area, but it can also differ only in terms of ornamental composition, which is more typical for the eastern area. The cultures of the Roller Pottery community developed in the thirteenth to twelfth centuries BC. The final part of the community equates with the ninth to

eighth centuries BC, that is the end of the Bronze Age. The Roller Pottery cultures will become a common basis for the formation of the Scythian-type culture complex in this area during the Early Iron Age. The earliest studies of the Late and Final Bronze Age sites of the South Urals and Trans-Urals began in the 1930s–40s. It was at this time that the first regional concepts of periodization and chronology of the Bronze Age developed (Krivtsova-Grakova 1948; Salnikov 1948). The difficulties encountered in solving cultural and chronological problems were connected to the typological and stratigraphic indivisibility of the cultural layers of the settlements and with the absence of cemeteries at the end of the Bronze Age. Massive excavations of archaeological sites of this period, leading to a reconsideration of earlier views, were carried out in the 1960s and 1970s. The settlement and the cemetery of Sargary (Northern Kazakhstan), with archaeologically clean Roller complex ware, were investigated by the author of this paper (Zdanovich & Malyutina 1975). Data from excavations have confirmed the correctness of the typological division of pottery that was, by that time, used on the materials from multi-layer settlements by G.B. Zdanovich (in Northern Kazakhstan) and Potemkina (in the area near the river Tobol). As a result of complex research, an archaeological culture was singled out and introduced into the Roller Pottery cultural community (Zdanovich 1979). Initially its territory was limited to Northern Kazakhstan and the Southern Trans-Urals (Zdanovich 1974; Potemkina 1979, 27–9). Then it was widened to include Central Kazakhstan (Varfolomeev 1991) and significant areas of the Altaian steppes. Along with the name Sargary the researchers also use Alekseevka-Sargary (Potemkina 1985, 17) and Dandybai-Sargary (Varfolomeev 1991). 395

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Dn ep r

y Yenise

increased humidity, for island forests have emerged (pine, larch, fir and birch). Mixed grass and cereals dominate in steppe communities. At the end of the period (fifteenth to fourteenth centuries BC) the climate became warmer, forests decreased and were concentrated along river valleys. Insignificant climatic fluctuations towards cooling and continentality in the folOb Ka m a lowing centuries did not spoil I rt ysh the picture of the relative staBl ac bility of the Sub-Boreal (LavkS x x xx x x x x x x ea rushin & Spiridonova 1999). x x x x x Ix x x shim x x By the end of the second x x x xx xxx v sss s s BC the population millennium s s s v v s s s ss vvv v s s ss s s ss s s Sy s s s ss vvv s of the Sargary culture covers rD v vv v s ssss s s all places suitable for a settled herding-farming economy. Petrovka, Alakul and Fedorovka-Bishkul layers are overlapped by cultural layers with roller pottery. 0 1000 km The most noticeable stage of humidification in the s s x x v v s v x steppes of Northern Kazakh1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 stan is seen at the turn of the second and first millennia BC, Figure 25.1. Map of Roller pottery cultures (by Y.N. Chernykh). The borders of with its maximum in approxiSargary culture are outlined by the author: 1) Pshenichevo-Babadag; mately the eighth–sixth cen2) Koslodzhen; 3) Noa and sites of Thracian Hallstatt; 4) Belogrudov culture and turies BC. Judging from many Chernolesskaya; 5) Sabatinovka and Belozer; 6) Srubno-Khvalynsk; features, this stage was very 7) Kobyakovskaya; 8) Sargary; 9) Bergazy-Dandybayevkaya culture settlements; dynamic, with periods of high 10) Trushnikovsky-type sites; 11) Amirabad culture. water intermitted between somewhat more stable atmospheric conditions (Khabdulina & Zdanovich 1984). Climatic conditions, settlement topography and At the very end of the Bronze Age the tribes of house-building the Andronovo cultural-historical community leave traditional dwelling grounds that have served as The Bronze Age development of the steppes of the places for settlements for almost a millennium. The Urals and Kazakhstan took place during the Submain reason for this phenomenon is repeated floods Boreal. The middle stage of the Sub-Boreal (SB2) is and flooding of dwelling pits, evidence of which is connected with the extreme xerothermal phase of observed during archaeological excavations. Traces the Holocene (4100–3800 BP). This is a stage of inof floods are found at Novonikolskoe I and Petrovka tense aridity and a rise in temperature; it promoted II. The floors of the Late Bronze Age dwellings of the the expansion of the desert zone into southern areas. settlement Iylinka I are covered with river alluvium, The late stage of the Sub-Boreal covers the period while part of the settlement territory is completely from 3800 to 2500 BP. Generally speaking, the climate washed away by the waters of the Ishim river. Mainis cooler and more humid, but it is also characterized taining a settled tradition, the population of the Late by variable natural conditions. The period from 3800 Bronze Age tries to consolidate in the same place by to 3400 BP in the South Trans-Urals is marked by ar

ya

Caspian Sea

Ura

l

To bo l

Do n

ga

dak del

396

Steppes of the Urals and Kazakhstan during the Late Bronze Age

fixing dwellings. However, at the beginning of the first millennium BC, because of the increase in atmospheric and subsoil waters, the Sargary population leaves the occupied areas once and for all. A good level of bone and artefact preservation is proof of the fact that in the pits of former surface dwellings and semisubterranean houses there was still water with swamp vegetation developing in it (Sargary, Novonikolskoe). Only small and short-term settlements survive up to the eighth– seventh centuries BC. Along with roller pottery their cultural layers may contain fragments of Iron Age earthenware (Petrovka IV, Iylinka I). The first signs of the coming pluvial phase introduced some changes into the ethnocultural map of the area of investigation. Settlements with West-Siberian pottery of forest appearance (Karluga, Novopavlovka) occur on the banks of Ishim river (latitude of Petropavlovsk). Waves of Mezhovskaya people penetrate far into the steppes Figure 25.2. Sargary settlement: I) situational plan; II) plan of excavations of the (Bersuat, Sargary). Its cultural settlement (1 - hearths, 2 - contours of early constructions, 3 - contours of dwelling and economic type has devel- depressions, 4 - kurgans). oped in the stable zone of the forest-steppes and the southern edge of the forest. Dwelling grounds are usually located at a height of The emergence of northern forest-steppe tribes in 4–12 metres from the contemporary water level. The Kazakhstan and secondary Sargary assimilation of presence of wide flood-lands in the immediate neighthe territories left at the end of the Alakul period are bourhood was a crucial condition for the construcevidence of the shrinking latitudinal limits of the tion of the settlement. Only a few of the sites are steppes and sufficient rate of their humidization. located on higher grounds near spring and brook Judging from the area of spread of Late Bronze Age outlets. sites, it should be stated that in the early first millenBased on their size, settlements of the Sargary nium BC a close-to-contemporary geographical situaculture can be divided into two groups: 1) large settlements with an area of 6–10 and up to 30 thoution formed in Northern Kazakhstan. sand sq.m; and 2) small ones that do not exceed 1000 The topographic situation of the Final Bronze sq.m. However, there are several settlements of 4.5 Age settlements of Northern Kazakhstan is characand even 15 thousand sq.m. Usually, there are 10 to terized by stable features. The sites of this period 40 dwelling depressions on the settlement sites of are, we know, all connected to river systems: the the first group and 3–4 on those of the second. In settlements occupy the ground on terraces close to some cases small Sargary settlements are marked water and immediately overlooking flood-land. 397

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2

3 1 0

300 cm

4

5

Figure 25.3. Reconstruction of a Sargary dwelling: 1) plan and section of the dwelling 7; 2) reconstruction of the dwelling 7; 3) cross-section of settlements and dwellings 8,7,5; 4) reconstruction of the entrance; reconstruction of a ventilation hatch. Large semi-subterranean buildings represent a complicated dwelling and economic complex with no distinct separation between dwelling and economic areas. Ground dwellings have economic functions. Their area is small and, as a rule, there are no hearths in them. All of the buildings of the Sargary culture are carcass buildings. The base of the Sargary buildings is a system of several rows of posts that support overhead cover beams and inclined walls (Fig. 25.3). The cultural layers of the settlements are rich with diverse finds. Their analysis shows that the population of the Final Bronze Age practised many crafts. There are many metal artefacts (Fig. 25.4) and mining-metallurgical implements (hammers of different size, anvils, polishers, etc.) (Fig. 25.5). Series of tools are connected with weaving and wood- and leather-processing. Pottery was hand-made with only a few imported vessels made on a potter’s wheel (Figs. 25.6 & 25.7). Complex analysis of the settlements shows long-term settled existence, a fact which allows us to ask questions about the type of economic activity practised by the population.

only by surface finds from very thin cultural layers. There are three basic types of Sargary settlement layout: 1 linear (one or two rows); 2 circular (the dwellings occupy an area of 500–800 sq.m; 3 solid building of multi-chamber houses. Sargary is a typical site of the third type. There are 16 dwelling constructions placed compactly 0.5–3 metres away from each other (Fig. 25.2). A total of 80 constructions have been examined on the settlements attributable to the Sargary culture. The predominant type of building on all studied sites is a semi-subterranean house of stretched rectangular shape. The depth of the foundation pits ranges from 0.7 to 1.5 metres with their area varying from 200 to 400 sq.m. Square constructions are close to the first type. They have two to five entrances and passages in the form of corridors. There can be anything from one to seven hearths. Oval- and circularshaped constructions are related to the second type. Their area is considerably smaller (36–160 sq.m) and, as a rule, they have very shallow foundation pits, a fact which allows us to consider them to be aboveground installations (Zdanovich 1983). 398

Steppes of the Urals and Kazakhstan during the Late Bronze Age

4 3

2

1

1

2 3

5

6

7

8

Figure 25.4. Metallic articles of the Sargary culture: 1, 3 & 4) Novonikolskoe settlement I; 2 & 7) Petrovka II settlement; 5–8) the Sargary cemetery; 6) Zhabuy Pokrovka II.

4 5

Figure 25.5. Stone implements of the Sargary culture. 1 & 5) soil-processing implements; 2–4) miningmetallurgical implements.

Economic development of the steppe in the late Bronze Age The economy of the Sargary culture population had a complex character typical of cultures of the Andronovo community. Herding dominated and farming was an essential component stabilizing the economy. Hunting, fishing and gathering were of supplementary importance. Bone remains provide the main source of information for the reconstruction of the role and character of herding. Lots of animal bones were found on the single-layer Late Bronze Age settlements of Northern Kazakhstan and 6307 of them were analyzed. Bone material is primarily composed of kitchen waste and only in rare cases is it represented by dismembered skeletons from storage pits and sacrificial complexes. There are fragments of all parts of the skeleton, but single teeth, vertebrae, ribs and small extremity bones are numerically dominant. In terms of quantity, cattle bones dominate in the collections; second place is taken by horse bones and the third by those of small cattle. There are not many wild animal bones in assemblages from Late Bronze

Age settlements (0.4–0.9 per cent). Species frequency data is shown in Table 25.1. The most significant data were obtained from the Sargary settlement. These data allow us to describe the species of animal present, to perform age analysis on a small amount of material and to single out some breed-generating features of animal breeding. The latter are limited to approximate determination of stature and massiveness of the skeleton (Makarova 1976; Akhinzhanov et al. 1992, 101–17). Cattle Among cattle remains there are bones of young animals, as well as old. There are some deciduous teeth remaining in many lower jaws, and separate long bones lack distal epiphyses. On the other hand, there is a substantial proportion of heavily-worn molars. Age analysis can only be made on the ten lower jaws with a complete row of molars. Six of them belonged to animals over two–three years old while the other 399

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1 2

1

2

3 4

3

5

4

Figure 25.7. Pottery from the settlement of Sargary.

6

cattle (Tsalkin 1962, 16–17). The biometric parameters of cattle from the settlement of Sargary allow us to make comparisons with materials from adjacent territories. In terms of height and proportions the Sargary cattle were the same as those from Chaglinka, Alekseevka, Sadchikovskoe, Myrzhyk, etc. A similar range in variability of bone size at these sites is evidence of the homogeneity of cattle herds of the forest-steppe and steppe zones of the Trans-Urals and Northern Kazakhstan during the Bronze Age. Cattle from the settlement of Atasu are a little smaller than the Sargary cattle. This is probably connected to the peculiarities of natural and climatic conditions of cattle maintenance on the steppe. In Europe the closest are the examples from the Timber-Grave sites. In terms of size and massiveness the Sargary cattle not only matches but, in some cases, even exceed the Timber-Grave cattle. In comparisons between. Sargary cattle and this kind of animal in the Eastern-European forest zone the former come out on top. This advantage is revealed in the index of metacarpal diaphysis width (17.54 against 19.6) and the length of the alveolar row of molars (105– 142.5 against 155). These data provide evidence that the Sargary cattle belonged to the large-cattle popu-

Figure 25.6. Pottery from the settlement of Sargary. four derive from younger individuals. Biometric analysis of cattle bones from the settlement of Sargary shows that the size of the bones of the post-cranial skeleton displays a rather wide range of variation. The length of metacarpals varies between 180 and 210 mm (variation range equals 30 mm, average length - 196 mm). The length of the metatarsals also varies: 223–45 mm with an average of 234 mm. Sizes of other bones also display a wide range of variation. Based on these data, the height of cattle at the withers is anything between 250–78 cm. The criterion of animal massiveness is a relationship between the width of the diaphysis of the metacarpal and its length (the so-called index of the diaphysis width). For cattle from the settlement of Sargary this value varies between 19.5 and 20.2 with an average of 19.85. A wide range of bone size variability, meaning the variability in height and massiveness, is a typical phenomenon for aboriginal races under conditions of primitive cattle maintenance. It is clearly shown by Tsalkin in the example of contemporary Kalmyk 400

Steppes of the Urals and Kazakhstan during the Late Bronze Age

lation, the spread of which in the Late Bronze Age was initially connected to the south — from the Dnestr to Near-Urals and Western Kazakhstan (Tsalkin 1964, 26).

Table 25.1. The correlation of species of domestic animals on single-layer Late Bronze Age settlements. Animal species Cattle Small cattle Horse Total

Sargary quantity % 96 33.50 104 36.20 87 30.30 290 100.00

Small cattle Small cattle bone remains are not well-preserved and are undifferentiated by species. The bones with the most vivid distinctive features belong to sheep, but there were also goats in the herd (at least one skull was attributable to goat). The cranial material is small; all possible characteristics are limited by the fact that we have almost only post-cranial material and, primarily, lower sections of extremities. As the analysis has shown, there are also variations in bone size, although they are smaller than in the case of the cattle. The conclusion about the size of small cattle is largely a generalization. However, in some cases we can suppose that the animal was quite large. The metatarsal from Sargary (a single find) is 170 mm long, while seven from Chaglinka range from 153 to 185 mm in length. For purposes of comparison we can compare this with the average size of the metatarsal calculated by Tsalkin for sites of the Early Iron Age in the territory between the Volga and Oka (117.14 mm). In Krasnov’s opinion, this size represents a lower limit for all archaeologically-known populations of small cattle (Krasnov 1971, 95). Another criterion for estimating animal size is the length of the alveolar row of molars. For 11 lower jaws from Sargary it varies from 71.0 to 84.5 mm, corresponding to relatively large-sized domestic sheep. Animals from the settlements of Chaglinka and Alekseevka are very close to the Sargary animals in terms of size and proportion. Those from Sadchikovskoe and Atasu are a little smaller. In Tsalkin’s opinion, a united single population of large-sized small cattle (average height at the withers being 70 cm) occurred in the southern steppe regions of the Southeast Europe during the Late Bronze Age (Tsalkin 1964, 26). Comparison of biometric data from Sargary small cattle with data from Timber-Grave small cattle included in this population provides evidence that Sargary small cattle were possibly even larger and more massive than were those of the Timber-Graves. This allows us to include Northern Kazakhstan in the populations distribution area as singled out by Tsalkin.

Petrovka IV quantity % 9 34.60 9 34.60 8 30.80 26 100.00

Alekseevka (1969) quantity % 4 36.40 3 27.20 4 36.40 11 100.00

Horse In terms of quantity, second place is occupied by the horse. Judging from two examples of metacarpals 235 mm long, the horse is estimated to be between 114 and 135 cm high, while based on seven examples of metatarsals which are 250 to 278 mm long it is anything from 152 to 144 cm high. Based on the most frequent finds height varies between 136 and 144 cm. This allows us to consider these horses to be of average height. Based on measurements of the relative width of the diaphysis of the metacarpal and metatarsal, following Brauners method (Brauner 1916), the horses from the site of Sargary belong to the slim-legged and semi-slim-legged variety (Makarova 1976, 224). Comparative biometric analysis of horse bones (especially hobbled) from the settlements of Sargary and Chaglinka have shown that their average values are similar. The animals from Atasu and, perhaps, Sadchikovskoe are smaller. The horses from Sargary and Chaglinka are most similar to those of the Timber-Grave culture of the near-Volga region (with Sargary animals being a little larger in size). The same applies to the massiveness of bones. The average value of the diaphysis index of the horse metacarpals from Sargary is 12.1, while for those of the Timber-Grave culture it is only 11.2. Thus, the horses of the Timber-Grave culture are all of the slim-legged variety. Tsalkin thought that the horses from Late Timber-Grave sites of the region near the Volga were larger than those from ScythianSarmatian times and forest horses and much larger than Przewalski’s horse (Tsalkin 1958, 243). These comparisons can be extrapolated on horses from the excavations at Sargary. Osteological material from other single-layer Late Bronze Age sites (Table 25.1) is not plentiful. However, judging by the position of the represented domestic animals, it corresponds completely to the data from Sargary. This material provides evidence for the predominance of cattle and small cattle in the herds of the Late Bronze Age. In terms of the number of individuals cattle are either equal to small cattle (Petrovka IV, Alekseevka 1969) or just a little rarer (Sargary). Horses comprise 25–36.4 per cent. Swine 401

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and camel are absent. Based on zootechnical criteria (agricultural) domestic animals of the Late Bronze Age did not change significantly when compared to the cattle of the developed Bronze Age. Relatively large domestic animals were raised in the TransUrals and Kazakhstan. They all belonged to one population and, in terms of breed features, were close to the archaeologically-defined animals of the Volga region — and may also be similar to those of the whole steppe and forest-steppe zone of the south of Eastern Europe. The role of the horse increases significantly at the end of the Bronze Age. Average horse frequency is 30 per cent. It is widely known that the role of the horse in the herding economy was determined by its ability for ‘tebenyovka’, grazing throughout the winter. Breaking the snow crust, the horse cleared feed not only for itself, but also for the cows and sheep that followed it. Thus, we can connect the importance of the horse in the Late Bronze Age herd to the fact that herding at that time was already developing on a basis of all-year-round grazing. This required seasonal distribution of pastures so that cattle had to be moved. This form of herding economy is usually called ‘distant pasture herding’. Was the Sargary herd suitable for this form of herding? To answer this question we have to have a general notion of the real composition of the herd. As we know, osteological material does not reflect real proportions of animal species, primarily because of the difference in the age at slaughter. According to proposed corrections (Krasnov 1971, 143), if we agree that in reality there was only half as much small cattle, the positions of animals of the Sargary herd would be the following: cattle (41 per cent), horse (37 per cent) and small cattle (22 per cent). The ability of horses and small cattle to graze all year round is accepted. As for cows, the question is still open. However, many ethnographic accounts show that cattle frequently graze with other animals. Observers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries speak of cattle-raising among nomadic and semi-nomadic Kazakhs and they constantly stress that the composition of the herd is connected with natural and climatic peculiarities of the areas explored. Dependence of herd composition on natural and climatic conditions is illustrated by ethnohistoric accounts from the end of the nineteenth century. It was a study of the area of Northern Kazakhstan between the Ubagan and Ishim rivers that gave the following average species distribution: horse (31.3 per cent), cattle (21.7 per cent), camel (0.2 per cent), sheep (40.5 per cent), goat (6.3 per cent). Herds that

were moving around the Ishim valley on a short distance had up to 27 per cent of cattle. In less suitable areas along the Ubagan river, where the population moved up to 120 km to find summer pasture, the proportion of cattle was not less than 16 per cent (Mikhailov 1893, 1–15). On the other hand, judging from ethnographic data, the composition of the herd and the proportion of cattle in it are closely connected to social differentiation of society. The horse could not compete with cattle in terms of productivity or with small cattle in terms of age of sexual maturity (3–4 years compared to 1–2), for the cow was the main supplier of milk and milk provided the bulk of the food in herding communities. Numerous recipes for milk products and ideas for their storage were developed by nomadic and semi-nomadic peoples — the herding peoples proper. The amount of milk food in the Kazakh diet was 80–90 per cent (Fielstrup 1930). The meat-and-milk aspect of cattle-raising is reflected in the age features of cattle during the Bronze Age. The age at time of slaughter varies from 28 to 34 months (Akhinzhanov et al. 1992, 108). The yearly cycle of the herding economy at Sargary can be reconstructed as follows. In spring, when young animals were a little stronger and could follow the herd, horses, small cattle and non-milk cattle moved to summer pasture where they stayed until the late autumn. This pasture was usually located close to the settlement. As for Sargary, one of the places for summer pasture could have been an area three kilometres from the settlement (at the Sargary III location). Traces of short-term activity in the form of pottery fragments were found there although there were no dwellings, nor even a cultural layer. Such locations — traces of seasonal camps — are also found near other large sites of the Late Bronze Age. The part of the population that stayed at the settlement took care of the dairy animals, letting them graze in the neighbourhood, stored feed and preserved milk products. Cane, branches and grass were used as feed. The quantity of stored winter feed was limited by technical abilities and a lack of highly-productive instruments. However, traces of grass found on the roofs of the settlement of Sargary form evidence of developed methods of feed storage. When it became cold, animals from distant pastures were moved to the settlement where they stayed until the following spring. Animals were kept close to winter dwellings in distant-pasture herding, as well as in semi-nomadic herding. Stored feed was used to feed young animals and the whole herd during bad weather. 402

Steppes of the Urals and Kazakhstan during the Late Bronze Age

Table 25.2. Species composition of the main domestic animals based on material from settlements of the Developed and Late Bronze Age. Chronological group Cattle Small cattle Horse

I Arkaim 60.40 24.20 15.40

II Sintashta 46.20 48.10 5.70

III Mirny IV 67.50 26.20 6.30

Atasu 27.20 65.40 7.40

Myrzhik 24.90 55.40 20.10

IV Novonikolskoye I 56.00 26.30 17.70

Petrovka II 46.60 27.90 25.80

Sargary 33.50 36.20 30.30

I - Single-layer site of the Sintashta-Arkaim culture (Developed Bronze Age) II - Multi-layer sites of the Developed Bronze Age III - Multi-layer sites of Middle and Late Bronze Ages IV - Single-layer site of the Sargary culture

Dwellings were not used for keeping animals. Evidence of this includes narrow entrances with stairs, details of floor wear and numerous post structures. It is difficult to imagine that animals were kept in special buildings in ancient times. It was extremely laborious not only because it required construction of buildings, but also because of high labour expenditure to keep them clean. At Alekseevka animals were kept in pens (Krivtsova-Grakova 1948, 96–9). Traces of them, in the form of ditches, were found on the periphery of the settlement. Sheep could be kept in these pens. As already stated, the cattle and horses did not need enclosures — they were grazing freely, finding shelter in bushes or canes along the river and in the forest. The general level of economic development and the character of work tools point to the existence of plough-farming with the use of primitive wooden implements and animal traction. Implements, such as stone and bone mattocks, are relatively rare. Based on the study of wear traces it is possible to conclude that they were used for secondary soil processing — loosening and making furrows. Flood-lands with high subsoil water levels were most suitable for ancient farming — plants could be cultivated with no watering needed and the soil was softer than elsewhere. The majority of the Sargary culture sites that we know of are located near river-bends with wide flood-plains that are inundated in spring. One of the implements was found beside the site of Sargary on the supposed ‘kitchen-garden’ territory (Fig. 25.5:5). The high altitude of flood-lands and long-duration floods made it impossible to practise irrigation farming in the valleys of the large rivers. In small river valleys, however, estuary irrigation was possible. In addition, judging from separate evidence, we can assume the existence of regular irrigation in Northern Kazakhstan during the period under consideration. Its most common form can be called ‘brook irrigation’ and farming based on it can be called ‘brook farming’. Gravity-drawn ‘brook irriga-

tion’ was not laborious and did not leave traces in the form of powerful dams and banks. However, its existence is supported by the location of a series of settlements in places with flood-lands unsuitable for farming, but always near spring brooks (Ilyinka I, Yavlenka I, Berlik). Currently, there are watered kitchen-gardens there. Although farming was not a major part of the economy of the Sargary culture population, it must have determined the character of its components to a considerable extent. The question concerning patterns in the evolution of herd composition during the Developed and Late Bronze Ages requires special attention. If we analyze only collections of animal bones from the settlement sites of the Developed Bronze Age, we encounter considerable fluctuations in the proportion of the horse (in terms of individual animals). Based on this information we can hypothesize that the importance of the horse in the herd during the Developed Bronze Age (the culture of the ‘Country of Towns’) was considerable. In Alakul times it decreases significantly while in the Late Bronze Age it reaches its maximum level for the Bronze Age. The relevant data are shown in Table 25.2. Conclusion Archaeological materials of the Sargary culture reflect the complex herding-farming economy of the Andronovo type. It was formed in the steppe-foreststeppe region of Eurasia at the turn of the third to second millennia BC and despite the extreme fragility of steppic ecosystems provided the wherewithal for numerous human communities for a whole millennium. The economy of the Andronovo is distinguished by its flexibility and dynamism, and provided a large reserve of adaptability to real micro-landscapes as well as the climatic fluctuations of the Holocene. The basic element of the Sargary culture economic system was pastoral herding. Farming played 403

Chapter 25

pozdnego pleistotsena i golotsena na vostochnom sklone Yuzhnogo Urala, in Prirodnye Sistemy Yuzhnogo Urala, eds. L.L. Gaiduchenko, S.G. Ageev, V.V. Zaykov et al. Chelyabinsk: Chelyabinskii Gosudarstvennyi Universitet, 66–103. Makarova, L.A., 1976. Kharakteristika kostnogo materiala iz poseleniya Sargary, in Proshloe Kazakhstana po Arkheologicheskim Istochnikam, ed. K.A. Akishev. Alma-Ata: Nauka Kazakhskoi SSR, 211–26. Mikhailov, V., 1893. Kirgizskaya step Akmolinskoi oblasti (po issledovaniyam veterinarnykh vrachei). Zapiski Zapadnosibirskogo otdela Imperatorskogo Russkogo Geograficheskogo Obshchestva 16(1), 115. Potemkina, T.M., 1979. O sootnoshenii alekseevskikh i zamaraevskikh kompleksov v lesostepnom Zauralye. Sovetskaya Arkheologiya 2, 19–30. Potemkina, T.M., 1985. Bronzovyi vek Lesostepnogo Pritobolya. Moscow: Nauka. Salnikov, K.V., 1948. K voprosu o stadiyakh v pamyatnikakh andronovskoi kultury Zauralya, in Pervoe Uralskoe Arkheologicheskoe Soveshchanie. Perm: Permskii Gosudarstvennyi Universitet, 41–6. Tsalkin, I.V., 1958. Fauna iz raskopok arkheologicheskikh pamyatnikov Stepnogo Povolzhya, in Materialy i Issledovaniya po Arkheologii SSSR 61, ed. A.P. Smirnov. Moscow: Izdatelstvo Akademii Nauk SSSR, 221–81. Tsalkin, V.I., 1962. K Istorii Zhivotnovodstva i okhoty v Vostochnoi Evrope. Moscow: Nauka. Tsalkin, V.I., 1964. Nekotorye itogi izucheniya kostnykh ostatkov zhivotnykh iz raskopok pamyatnikov pozdnego bronzovogo veka. Kratkie Soobshcheniya Instituta Arkheologii 101, 24–30. Varfolomeev, V.V., 1991. Saryarka v Kontse Bronzovoi Epokhi. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Alma-Ata. Zdanovich, S.Y., 1974. K voprosu o proiskhozdenii kultur razvitoi bronzy Severnogo Kazakhstana, in Sbornik Nauchnykh Trudov po Gumanitarnym Naukam, eds. A.A. Chukuev et al. Karaganda: Karagandinskii Gosudarstvennyi Universitet, 296–301. Zdanovich, S.Y., 1979. Sargarinskaya Kultura Zaklyuchitelnyi Etap Bronzovogo Veka v Severnom Kazakhstane. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Moscow. Zdanovich, S.Y., 1983. Poseleniya i zhilishcha sargarinskoi kultury, in Poseleniya i Zhilishcha Drevnikh Plemyon Uzhnogo Urala, ed. N.A. Mazhitov & A.K. Pshenichnyuk. Ufa: Bashkirskii filial Akademii Nauk SSSR, 59–76. Zdanovich, S.Y. & T.S. Malyutina, 1975. Sargary kulturnyi kompleks finalnoi bronzy, in Arkheologicheskie Otkrytiya 1974 Goda, ed. B.A. Rybakov. Moscow: Nauka, 488–9.

a supplementary role in providing food and raw materials. It was however a powerful stabilizing factor for the functioning of the culture as a whole. On the one hand the Sargary culture marks the flowering of a complex economy. On the other hand its late stage is connected with the crisis in the economic system of the Bronze Age. Within the old traditional forms there a new type of relationship between man and nature — nomadic herding emerges. One of the main reasons for the Sargary culture crisis was a rapid increase in humidity. This humidity of the steppe and watershed areas made it possible to widen the possibilities for pasture significantly. The farming component of the economy, however, was destroyed by an increase in river water level and long spring floods. There were no more reasons for a settled way of life. References Akhinzhanov, S.M., L.A. Makarova & T.N. Nurumov, 1992. K Istorii Skotovodstva i Okhoty v Kazakhstane (po Osteologicheskomy Materialy iz Arkheologicheskikh Pamyatnikov Eneolita i Bronzy). Alma-Ata: Gylym. Brauner, A.A., 1916. Materialy k poznaniyu domashnikh zhivotnykh Rossii. 1. Loshad kurgannykh pogrebenii Tiraspolskogo uezda Khersonskoi gubernii. Zapiski Obshchestva Selskogo Khozyaistva Yuzhnoi Rossii 86(1). Chernykh, E.N., 1983. Problema obshchnosti kultur valikovoi keramimki v stepyakh Evrasii, in Bronzovyi vek Stepnoi Polosy Uralo-Irtyshskogo Mezhdurechya, ed. G.B. Zdanovich. Chelyabinsk: Bashkirskii Gosudarstvennyi Universitet, 81–99. Fielstrup, F.A., 1930. Molochnye produkty turkovkochevnikov, in Kazaki, vol. 15, ed. S.I. Rudenko. Leningrad: Isdanie Akademii Nauk SSSR, 263–308. Khabdulina, M.K. & G.B. Zdanovich, 1984. Landshaftnoklimaticheskie kolebaniya golotsena i voprosy kulturno-istoricheskoi situatsii v Severnom Kazakhstane, in Bronzovyi vek Uralo-Irtyshskogo Mezhdurechya, ed. S.Y. Zdanovich. Chelyabinsk: Chelyabinskii Gosudarstvennyi Universitet, 136–57. Krasnov, Y.A., 1971. Rannee Zemledelie i Zhivotnovodstvo v Lesnoi Polose Vostochnoi Evropy. Moskow: Nauka. Krivtsova-Grakova, O.A., 1948. Alekseevskoe poselenie i mogilnik. Trudy Gosudarstvennogo Istoricheskogo Muzeya 17, 58–172. Lavrushin, Y.A. & E.A. Spiridonova, 1999. Osnovnye geologo-paleoecologicheskie sobytiya kontsa

404

Index

Index compiled by Dora Kemp & Alexandra Hemming

Notes: This is an index of proper terms only, i.e. placenames, languages, geographical features and archaeological cultures. Alphabetization is word-byword. A page reference in italics indicates an illustration.

Akkadian language, word for horse, 117, 123 Mesopotamian contacts, 245 Akmola, site, 260, 384 Aktau, burial, western Kazakhstan, 325 Alaca Hüyük, site axes, stone, 237 trade, long-distance, 246 Alakul culture: development, 319; ecological crisis, 386; horses, 403; Sargary, 397 site, Roller pottery, 396 Aleksandriya, site, 58 Alekseevka, site cattle, 400–401 pens, 403 species correlation, 401 Alekseevka-Sargary, see Sargary Ali Kosh, site cultural developments, 390 desiccation, 378 domesticates, 379 points, blunted, 373 Ali Tappeh Caves, site, 136 Alkau, site, 368 Alsóné-medi, Hungary, paired-cattle burial, 237 Altai artefacts, 146 horse hair, isotopic values, 257 tin: bronzes, 158; circulation, 237 Valikovaya region, 395 Altinova plain copper sources, 240 wild horses, 117 Altun Tagh, region, spread of horse-riding, 174 Amangeldi, site, 368 American grasslands, 66 Indians, horse-back riding, 190 Amirabad culture, Roller pottery, 396 Amorite, people, horse-riding, 121 Amvrsievka, site, bison remains, 301 Anatolia(n) Central, two-wheeled vehicles, 247 cheek-pieces, antler, 245 crossbar wheel depictions, 215

Abashevo culture, 245, 319–20 cheek-pieces, 222 fauna, 337–40, 344: cattle, 339; horses, 340; ovicaprines, 340 Abatsky, site, 259–60 human remains, 255; isotopic values, 257–8; 254–5 Abu-Salabikh, site, vegetal material, 112 Acemhüyük, site, trading post, 246 bronze wheel models, 247 Aegean goldwork, 236 maritime trade routes, 237 spearheads, 248 Afanasevo culture, Angara–Altai region, 388 artefacts, holed horn, 213 Afghanistan Bactrian camels, 239 economy, 203 lapis lazuli, 240 Africa North: donkey domestication, 115; cultivated plants, 287; wild ass, 239 savanna, ungulates, 2 Agidel culture, 378 artefacts, 376 economy, 380 and Pit-Grave culture, 387 Agispe, site, sheep bones, 215 Ahon language, word for horse, 179 Ain Ghazal, Jordan, wild donkeys, 115 Ak-Alakha, site, 262; 259 animal bone samples, 255 horses: isotopic values, 257; 254; keratin samples, 256; tissues, 51–2; 50 humans: bone samples, 255; isotopic values, 258 saddles: cover, 264; ornamentation, 263 wig, 257 Ak-Zhunas, Khvalynsk cemetery, stone iron, 211 Akbuta, site, 368 settlement height, 389

405

Index

Anatolia(n) (cont.) domesticates, 37: pigs, 181 falconry, 171 farming and dispersal, 35–6 horse-breeding populations, 244 innovation, 248 language, word for cow, 180 onagers, 117 trading routes, 246 urbanization, 246 wild horse population, 240 Andaman Islands, settlements, 35 Andronovo culture, 147, 158, 245, 319, 395 animal husbandry, 23 artefacts, 146 Bronze Age, 388 characteristics, 399 farming economy, 403 migration, 396 people, technologies and ideologies, 142 regional affinities, 384 Anetovka, site aurochs, 302 bison, 301 bull cult, 303 Angara, site, 259 human isotopic values, 262 Anyang, site, 148–9, 154–7, 166–8; 149, 167 artefacts, bronze, 141 chariot burials, 153 horses, domesticated, 147 ritual behaviour, 140 wheel, 144 Arad, site, domestic horses, 117 Araks, river, 240 wild horse survivals, 240 Arakses Valley, 241 Aral Sea, region, 146 aridity, 377 microliths, 369 Neolithic cultures, 205 West, 207 Arax, see Araks Arctic peoples, thong-smoothers, 93 Arkaim agricultural economy, 36 animal husbandry, 23 culture, 234, 319, 336 radiocarbon dating, 223 settlement(s), 23: defended, 235; plans, 245 split socket typology, 248 -type sites, 250 Arkhara cemetery sceptres, 211; 211 Yamnaya burials, 360 Armenian language word for horse, 123 word for sheep, 180 Arshan culture, 144

Arslantepe, site equids, spread of, 239 horses, domesticated, 249 -Maltya, Uruk polity, 241 seals, 249 sledge, 242 Uruk connections, 240 wheel-models, 249 Aryans, people, 183 Asia(n) East: horse-riding, 170 Minor, population movement, 271 North, 142: wheel, 144 South and Central, economy, 203 Southwest: cultivated plants, 287; dry farming, 33; goat domestication, 181; horse-riding hunters, 171 steppes: ecological characteristics, 31; herding, 215 West: arsenical bronzes, 158; chariots, 168; urban communities, 233 see also Central Asia Asopkino, site, 368 As&s&ur, site horses, in text, 121 Mesopotamian goods, trade, 246 Assyrian chariot, 244 reliefs, depictions of cheek-straps, 245 steppes, ecozone, 234 Astrakhan, region, 321 Atasu, site, 70 cattle, 401: size, 400 faunal assemblages, 72 Atbasar, site, 70, 260, 384 animal husbandry, 72 Australian Bushmen, meat consumption, 313 Avestan language, word for sheep, 180 Aydos, site, 368 Azov –Dnepr, culture, 206 faunal remains, 337: pigs, 340 northern: grave goods, 276; Timber-Grave culture, 309 –Pontic steppes, cattle breeders, 299 steppes, 59; 338 Baba 1, site, plant composition, 293 Babine-3, 320 faunal assemblage, 279 plant composition, 294 Babylon, horses, 122 Bachi-Tay, site, settlement height, 389 Bactria of Djakutan period, artefacts, 224 Bactrian-Margiana Archaeological Complex, 205, 215 pottery, 224 Badakhshan, lapis lazuli, 241 Baden culture /Cernavoda III complex, 248 -Kostolac culture, 66 wagon models, 242 wheel, fixed, 249

406

Index

Bagatovalykova culture burial rite, 279 funerary monuments, 282 mobility, 280 Bahrein, domestication of Arabian camels, 239 Baicapo, site, Lingtai District, bronze artefact, 169 Baijiafen, site, 149, 151; 153 Baikal, lake, 259 axes, nephrite, 238 humans, isotopic values, 261; 262 seals, isotopic values, 257 Bairin Left Banner, site, 167 Baiying, site, horses, 142–3; 144 Bakhmut basin, mines, 323 Balandino, site, 70 faunal assemblages, 72–3: changes, 80; dates, 71 Balkan(s) /Carpathian cultures, 236: copper sources, 60, 236 cheek-pieces, 222 -Danubian region: sceptres, 211; wheeled transport, 214 domesticates, 37 economy, 203, 295, 377 Eneolithic tell cultures, decline, 57 Europe, exchange networks, 235 farming and dispersal, 36 Valikovaya region, 395 wheeled vehicles, 243 Balkhash, lake level changes, 23 palaeoclimatic data, 11 Baltic language, 181 Balto-Slavic language group, 180 Bannoe, lake sites, 383: chronology, 382 Surtanda culture, 382 Bannoell G., site, faunal remains, 377 Banpo, Shaanxi, site, 148 caprines, 181 horses, 142–3; 144 pigs, 166 Baotou, site, 148, 155 horses, 143 Baranovka-1, burial, Volgograd region, 323 Bärenkeller, site, horse size, 77 Barinka, site, wild fauna, 371 Bashkir, region, Pokrovskaya culture, 321 Bashkortostan, kurgan burials, 319 Bashmachka, barrow, 325 Batumi, Kura-Araks culture, 240 Bazkiv Ostriv, site, 288 Bedeni tombs, 245 -Martkopi, Georgia, 237 Begdash, period, sea level atmosphere and vegetation, 389 changes, 390 regression, period, 388 Beidha, site, cultural developments, 390

Beidi cultural group, 157 Beiwutun, site, horse bones, 142–3 Beixinzhuang, site, Anyang, Henan, 150; 153 Belgorod region, 321 Bell Beaker culture horses, domesticated, 241 pottery, 237 riding, adoption of, 66 Spanish sites, decorated phalanges, 94 Belogrudov culture, Roller pottery, 396 Belorussian language, word for wheel, 180 Belozer culture arboreal pollen increase, 15 cultivated plant impressions, 295 economic activity, 17 Roller pottery, 396 -Tudorovo culture, 309 Belskaya, site animal remains, 372 cultural developments, 390 pollen samples, 388 settlement height, 389 Belskoe, site, Agidel culture, 376, 380 Belt Cave, site, 205 artefacts, blade, 370 bones, 136 microliths, 369: morphology, 374 Belya, river, Agidel culture, 378 Berezhnovsko-Mayivskaya Srubnaya culture, 319–21, 323, 336; 320, 325 animals: cattle, 339; horses, 326; ovicaprines, 340; pigs, 326 cereals, domestic, 325 economy, 295 Berezki, site, 383 chronology, 382, 386 faunal remains, 377: domesticates, 379 settlement height, 389 stratigraphy, 389 Berezovka, burial, Saratov region, 323 Bergazy-Dandybayevkaya culture, Roller pottery, 396 Berlik, site chariots, 154, 217 proximity to water, 403 Bernburg, cultural complex, 241 Bersuat, site, Mezhovskaya people, 397 Bestamak, site, 384 pottery, 384–5, 391; 385 Beydar, site, donkey in texts, 115 Beydha, site, domesticates, 379 Bezbozhnik, site, grain remains, 336 Bezymennoe, site, 337; 325 animal stock ranking, 340 burial, 325 cereals: domestic, 325, 336; charred, 295 faunal assemblage, 337; 341–2 plant composition, 293 skeletal spectra, 344 taxonomic diversity, 341

407

Index

Bigger Yu Tripod (Da Yu Ding), bronze vessel, 166 Bikovo-1, burial, Volgograd region, 323 Bilogrudivska culture, pastoralism, 284 Bishkent culture, Tajikistan, 217 Black Sea, 182 agriculture, grain, 35 animal domestication, 248 coast, 11: steppe zone, 338; tree spread, 13–14 cultural interconnections, 247 economic pattern, 377 horse-riders, nomadic, 213, 387 pastoralism, 35, 354 societies, 233 steppes, 12: complex architecture, 36 trade routes, 236–7, 246 Blagivka, burial, Lugansk region, 325 BMAC, see Bactrian-Margiana Archaeological Complex Boborykino culture, pottery, 379 Bodrogkeresztúr, site, flint artefacts, 235 Bogdanivka-2, burial Dnipropetrovsk region, 325 Boian population, 204 site, Linearbandkeramik culture, horses, 209 Boleráz /Baden/Cernavoda III cultural complex, 236 culture, wagon models, 242 site, spread of fixed wheel, 249 Bolgrad, Tudorovo, site, plant composition, 294 Bolotnoe, burial site grain sack, 292 plant composition, 293 Bolshaia Akkarzha, site, faunal remains, 301 Bolshekaraganski, bone cheek-pieces, 224 Bolshoi Kuyalnik, site bull cult, 303 palaeoethnobotanical remains, 291 Bor I, site, Agidel culture, 380 Surtanda pottery, 387 Borodaevka-2, burial, Saratov region, 323 Borodino, site Black Sea: artefacts, 238; coast trade, 246 burial assemblages, 279 metallurgical contacts, 245 metalwork, 246 Borovoe Lake, site, settlement height, 389 mountains, tree cover and expansion, 21 Bostan, lake, 174 Botai animals, 70–72, 255: domestication, 379; exploitation, 72; fat residues, preservation, 49; see also Botai, horses artefacts, 47, 210: bone, 87; bridles, 195; fishing tool, 263; harpoons and thong-smoothers, 93; weapons, 93 bones, 260: butchery, 85; chopping marks, 89; horse, 76, 78, 98, 100; 74, 88, 90, 92; human, isotopic values, 257–8; 255, 262; marrow in diet, 99; phalanges, 92, 95, 97; spiral fractures, 90; thoracic

vertebrae, 87; trepanned skull, 256; wild horse, 73; wounds to horse bones, 86; see also Botai, horses chronology, 58, 106, 386 culture, 70, 386: affinities, 385; agricultural economy, 36; characteristics, 46, 111; developments, 390; genetic continuity, 80; population structure, 2 horses, 89, 211–12, 329: age structure, 2, 48, 75; as food resource, 363; average size, 77; bit wear, 55, 62–3; burial, 88, 90, 92; domestication, 23, 69, 81, 83; interaction with humans, 74; isotopic values, 254–5; mortality pattern, 101; sex ratio, 76; skulls, 100; slaughtered, 75; teeth wear, 65; vertebrae pathologies, 64 pottery: implements, 386; lipids, 49, 51–2; 50 radiocarbon dates, 56, 71 site, 84, 262; 70, 83, 259–60, 384: dwellings, plans, 47, 106; height, 389; land-use evidence, 105; location, 45, 105; midden, 84; palaeosols, 110 Botai-Tersek culture population, horses, 63 pottery, 385 sites, 384: human burials, 261 Brak-Nagar, site, domesticated horses, 117 Britain Bronze Age: dog, 100 horses, 241 Bu’in Zahra, region, animal exploitation patterns, 129 Bug, river botanical remains, 310 cattle, large horned, 277 economic micro-regions, 314 field systems, 310 radiocarbon dates, 309 Sabatinovka settlements, 281 settlements, micro-group, 282 Southern: Bagatovalykova pottery culture, 279; PreCucuteni culture, 290; valleys, 14 Bug–Dnestr culture animal domestication, 329 ceramics, 288 interaction with other cultures, 59 population movements, 287 sites, 204 Bug–Ingul interfluve, settlements, 307 Bugskoe, site animal remains, 311: domestic mammals and camels, 312; female fauna dominance, 342 dwellings, stone, 307 Bukhara oasis, sites, 205 Bulgarian language, word for wheel, 180 Burmic language, word for horse, 179 Bushmen, hunting behaviour, 3 Buzki, site, 283 ceramics, 289 hulled wheat impressions, 290 plant composition, 290 Buzuluk, site, 12 bronze production, 24 tree species, 19 Bykovo II, site, Volga region, pottery, 385

408

Index

Bytyn@, central Poland, yoked oxen castings, 248

240; metallurgy, 239; sedentism, 35; smoking practices, 237 pastoralism, long-distance, 362 plant species, cultivated, 290 trading routes, 236, 246 wheeled transport, 214 wide-gauge vehicles, 245 Cayonü, site, domesticates, 379 Celkar, plate-formed cheek-pieces, 197 Celtic Ipomiidvos, horse sacrifice, 203 language, word for cow, 180 Central Asia, 207 antelope, 132 bread wheat, 296 Bronze Age populations and drought, 315 carts, 215 cheek-pieces, 196 climate, 106 desert, transit territory, 369 domesticates, 379 Eastern, mummies, 172, 182 economy, 205 farmers, 215 forest-steppe belt, 11 horses: and chariot, 225; distribution, wild, 142 livestock-breeding, 253 pastoralists, 35 plants, cultivated, 287, 290 population, 183 regional developments, post-Holocene, 390 tin circulation, 237 wheeled vehicles, 181, 214 see also Asia Cernavoda culture, 206 Chagar Bazar, site, use of horse, 120 Chaglinka, site, 70 faunal assemblages, 72: cattle, 400–401 Cham cultural complex, 241 Chang’an, site, 167 Changsha, site, 167 Chärchän, site, 167 Charwighul, site, 172; 167 Chawuhugou, see Charwighul Chebarkul, site, 368 pottery, 385 Cheliabinsk, site, 260, 384 Chengziya, Shandong, site, 148 horse s, 142–3; 144 Cherevichnoe, site millet, 294 plant composition, 294 Cherkasu, site, plant composition, 293 Cherneckoe Ozero, site, ceramics, 289 Chernolesskaya culture, Roller pottery, 396 Chernyakhov culture, hunting, 312 Chetirovka, burial, Samara region, 323 Chevarkul, sites, 383 Chikalovka, site, plant composition, 294

Carpathian Basin: Equus hydruntinus, 240; Stangenknebel cheekpiece, 245; trade, 246 beech expansion, 15 –Danube, region, 204, 206: artistic steppic influences, 211 exchange networks, 235 military horse-riders, 213 mountains: agriculture, spread of, 287; Pre-Cucuteni tribes, 290; tree cover, 12 Valikovaya region, 395 wheeled vehicles, 238, 245 Caspian Sea aridity, 388 –Azov, region, 204 –Black Sea range, region, 205 ‘Bridge’, region, 320 climate: fluctuation, 378, 389; phases, 18, 22; reconstruction, 357 date of regression, 17 faunal remains, 337: cattle, 339; horses, 240; ovicaprines, 341; sheep, 204 /Kalmykh steppe sites, 340; 338; Makhachkalinsk regression, period, 386 microliths: geometric, 373; provenance, 370 Neolithic cultures, 205, 208 non-Yamnaya sites, 353 pastoralism, 35, 354 population: movement, 377; regional adaptations, 355 sites, domesticates, 379 soil salinity, 23 southern, 2: microliths, 368 stockbreeding, 206, 208, 376 Catacomb culture arboreal pollen decline, 15 burial(s): Ordzhonikidze, 277–8; period, 358 cattle, 311 clay mask for skulls, 99 composite bow, 363 economic cycle, 362 grave goods, 279 -grave type, 237: spilt socket innovation, 248 kurgans, overgrazing, 358 pastoralism, 276 population, mobility, 215, 280 Catalhöyük, site burials, ideology in, 376 cultural developments, 390 domesticates, 379 Caucasus, 207 bread wheat, 296 cultural interconnections, 247 farming, 36 horse domestication, 239–40 metallurgy, Late Eneolithic, 236 North: artefact type, 360; cheek-pieces, 194; horses,

409

Index

China/Chinese Black Death, 249 bronze working, 238 Central Plains, 142 farming and dispersal, 36 horse paintings, 183 pastoral staves, 214 pig domestication, 181 relationship with neighbours, 247 steppe corridor, 203 tattooing, 182 transport contacts, 247 urban societies, 233 wide-gauge vehicles, 245 Chizhovskoe, site, faunal assemblage, 337 Choga Mami, eastern Iraq, 242 Chograi, Arzguir district, Stavropol region, 360 Church Slavonic language word for iron, 180 word for wheel, 180 Chuvash, region, Pokrovskaya culture, 321 Cimmerians chariot graves, 191 pastoralism, 273 warriors, mounted, 182 Circum-Pontic Region, horse and wheel, 233 Cis Baikal region elk and deer isotopic values, 257; 262 human isotopic values, 258 Comanche, region, 3 Corded Ware culture pottery, 236 riding, 66 Çoruh, region, Kura-Araks culture, 240 ‘Country of Towns’ culture Bronze Age, 403 cultural genesis, 320 Crimea(n) Berezhnovsko-Mayivskaya culture, 321 Catacomb burial, 34 grasses, 34 Peninsula, Mediterranean transgression, 299 shield cheek-pieces, 222 Valikovaya region, 395 wheat, 34 Cris& culture, 59 dating, 288 Csepel-Háros, site, domestic horses, 77 Csongrad, site 66 Cucuteni culture, 206 horse bones, 209 -Tripolye culture, 57 Cuina Turcului, site, decorated horse phalanx, 94 Czech language, word for wheel, 180

artefacts, 146 horses, 143–4; 144 Dalian, site, horses, 143 Dam-Dam Chashme, site, 373 animal bones, domesticated, 205 microliths, 369 Dancheny 1, site, plant impressions, 289 Dandybai-Sargary, see Sargary Danish language, word for colt, 179 TRB, culture, plough marks, 242 Danube, river, 207, 269 Basin, human occupation, 299 cheek-piece, 245 economy, 203 forest-steppe belt, 11 Lower, 395 military horse-riders, 213 Mycenaean ornamentation, 222 steppe corridor, 203 trade routes, 237, 246 Dardanelles, region, urban settlement, 237 Dasikongcun, site, Anyang, Henan, 149–50, 153; 153 chariot burial, 140 Datuotou, site, Tianjin, 150; 149 Davlekanovo, site, 368 Agidel culture, 380 burial, 371, 376; reconstruction, 371 cattle to horse ratio, 381 cultural developments, 390 faunal remains, 372, 377 metal, absence of, 382 settlement height, 389 Decea Mureshului, site, 66 Denisova cave, site, bronze fish hook, 263 Denkovo, site, settlement height, 389 Dereivka, 6, 206; 6, 59, 105, 259 antler(s): tine, 193, 195; 195; tool, 263 aquatic resources, 262 artefacts: cheek-pieces, 194, 213; fishing tools, 263; horse-head maces, 4; pottery, 354; sickle blade, 35 dates, 58, 60 horses, 55, 79, 84, 212, 329: age structure, 2; as food resource, 363; domestication, 57, 78, 209; size comparison, 77; teeth, 62 dogs, 55 human isotopic values, 262 livestock breeding, 5 plant composition, 292 population: movement, 291; structure, 2 radiocarbon dates, 56 Derezki, site, horses, 377 Desyatiny, site, 262; 259–60 animals, 255–6: isotopic values, 254–5, 262 Deukovo II, site, wild fauna, 371 Di, people, 165 Didube, site, domesticated horses, 249 Djebel, site, 204–5, 373 cultural developments, 390

Dagestan, period, sea level atmosphere and vegetation, 389 changes, 390 Dahezhuang, site, 148

410

Index

microliths, 369–70 Djeitun culture, southern Turkmenia cultural developments, 390 farming, 205, 388 meat consumption, 313 microliths, 374 Djungar, site, Lower Volga, sheep bones, 204 Dmitrovka, site, faunal remains, 301 Dmuhaylivka-12, barrow, Dnipropetrovsk region, 325 Dnepr, river, 207 agriculture, 274, 295: topographic restraints, 310 Bagatovalykova pottery culture, 279 bone preservation, 6 Carpinus betulus, 15 Catacomb burial, 35 cultures, 206 –Don, culture, 206 –Donets culture, 290: cultivated plants, 289 –Donetsk steppe, region, 321 Holocene sequences, 13 horse ancestor, domestic, 208 Left Bank area, grave goods, 276 Lower: bronze-smelters, 24; economic micro-regions, 282, 314; Mesolithic settlement, 302; Tripolye pottery, 236; warfare, 302 ox-carts, 345 palaeoethnobotanical evidence, 310 plough point, wood, 35 Rapids, Ukraine, human isotopic values, 258 Sabatinovka settlements, 281 shield cheek-pieces, 222 Srubnaya settlements, 323 valley: expansion of forest area, 15; trees, 11, 14 Dnestr, river cattle, spread of, 401 –Dnepr interfluve, trade networks, 236 Lower: aurochs taming, 302; plant composition in burials, 293 Middle, plant impressions, 289 Pre-Cucuteni, 290 valley: Holocene sequences, 13; tree cover, 12 Dnipropetrovsk, region, Berezhnovsko-Mayivskaya culture, 321 Dobrudzha, river, Mediterranean transgression, 299 Dolgii Einik, site, 368 rod morphology, 373 Don, river basin: forest decline, 11; vegetational cover, 18 Bronze Age, 310 cheek-pieces, ornamented, 222 culture, 208 floodplain, tree species, 17 horse skull and leg burial, 222 Lower: aurochs taming, 302; culture, 206; sheep breeding, 326; small horned cattle, 277; Valikovaya region, 395 non-Yamnaya sites, 353 Repin cultural genesis, 354 Tripolye pottery, 236

Don–Volga Abashevo culture, 319–20 Pokrovskaya culture, 321 Donets, river basin, Srubnaya culture, 24 cheek-pieces, ornamented, 222 Northern, small horned cattle, 277 pastoralism, long-distance, 362 tree cover, 11 Donetsk, region Berezhnovsko-Mayivskaya materials, 321, 323 faunal homogeneity, 338 metallurgical centre, 326, 336; 320: copper, 237 millet in graves, 276 pigs, 340 Donghuishan, 145 Dovjok, site, 13; 12 Drehem, site, horse in administrative reports, 117 Dudchan, site, Ingul-Krasnomayak culture, metalworking, 312 Dulan, site, Nuomuhonghalehe, Qinghai, artefacts, 158 Dunhuang, site, 167 Duo You Tripod, bronze vessel, 165–6 Duoma Qiang, people, 168 Duzbai 3, site, 384 Dzhangar, site, 59 horse and onager remains, 59 Eannatum, stele of, equid and wagon, 119 Ebla, site donkey in texts, 115 trade, 246 Egypt coastal route, 238 crook and flail, 249 drought, 315 lapis lazuli, 239 shepherd-rider depictions, 217 Ekaterinovka, site, plant composition, 294 Ekazhevo, site animal remains: cohort frequencies, 337; 341–2; pigs, 340 juvenile dominance, 341, 346 Elam, use of donkeys, 238 Elar, site, domesticated horse, 249 Elburz Mountains, 130 Elista burial ground, Yamnaya burials, 360 Elton saline lake, increased soil salinity, 23 Emba, river, 207 European/Asian Neolithic, 204 microliths, geometric, 373 Erbaba, site, domesticates, 379 Erlitou, site, 155 burial customs, 145 Erzurum, site, Kura-Araks culture, 240 Esil, site, 260, 384 Eugenievka, site, 368 Euphrates, Upper, equids, 239 donkeys, 124

411

Index

Euphrates, Upper, equids (cont.) mules, 241 wild horses, 240 Eurasia(n) agriculture, spread, 29 bridle distribution, 196 Bronze Age cultural collapse, 315 Central, 1: adoption of riding, 66; economic exploitation, 367; fishing, 253, 261; horses, hunting of, 4; peoples, diet, 52, 253; steppe, human adaptations, 5 chariots, 247 climate, 30, 378 copper ore production, 23 domesticates: animal sacrifice, 98; spread, 181 Eastern, steppes, 368 ecozone, 234 falconry, 171 grassland cover, 29, 38; 31 head and hoof deposits, 55 Holocene environmental history, 11 horses and vehicles, 233 northern, climatic deterioration, 19 pastoralism, 214 petroglyphs, horseback riders, 217 radiocarbon analyses, 225 subsistence and human ecology, 34 wheeled transport, 214 wild horses, 141 Europe alcohol consumption, 237 Black Death, 249 cattle stalls, chronology, 314 Central: animals, domesticated, 241; Bronze Age sites, dendrochronology, 223; farming, 14 cheek-pieces, 196 Eastern: agriculture, 310; animal domestication, 204, 211; archery and chariots, 245; broad-leaved forest, 11; cattle breeding, 326; cheek-pieces, 222; domestic stock, 402; economy, 295; horse size comparison, 77; human impact on vegetational cover, 25; Late Bronze Age hunting, 312; nomadism, 387; palaeoethnobotanical evidence, 287; Srubnaya culture, 329; Valikovaya region, 395 economic activity, 271 horses: and dogs, 99; variability, 79 northwestern: brown earths, 110; woodland development, 113 pig domestication, 181 plants, cultivated, 287, 294 Southeast: animal domestication, 204; cattle, 401; copper, 60, 235; farming, 209, 291, 295; horse domestication, 211; vegetational development, 111 Southwest, spread of agriculture, 287 wheeled vehicles, 243 Evgenevka, site, 70, 384 faunal assemblages, 72

Fatyanovo-Balanovo, complex, 248 Fedorovka-Bishkul, site, Roller pottery, 396 Fedorovskaya culture, development, 319 Fen, river, 155 Fertile Crescent donkeys, 238 economies, 242 Finnic language, 181 Floreshti, site, horse bone measurement, 79 Forbidden City (Imperial Palace), 182 France, artistic representations of horses, 4 Fu Hao Tomb, site bronzes of Northern Zone-type, 154 jade artefacts, 139 Füzesabony-type Bronze Age, bone cheek-pieces, 194 Galugay I, site, equid representation, 239 Gamatai, site, Guinan, Qinghai, artefacts, 158; 146 Ganguya, site, 145 Ganj Dareh, site cultural developments, 390 domesticates, 379 Gansu Corridor, 147, 170, 182: cultures, 166 Province, 145, 148–9: horses, 143–4, 147; breeding, 157 /Qinghai, region, 155 Gaodui, site, horses, 143; 144 Gaulish language, word for horse, 179 Georgia churches, drug offerings, 234 Kura-Araks culture, 240 spelt finds, 34 Germanic language, 181 word for cow, 180 word for horse, 179 Germany, Central, horse size comparison, 77 Girka Polonka, site, crop-plant impressions, 288–9 Girzhevo, site, 302; 59 horses, 59 radiocarbon dating, 302 Globular Amphora cultural complex, 237 Gloyshev, site, plant impressions, 289 Gnidava, crop-plant impressions, 288–9 Godin Tepe, site, domestic horses, 117, 135, 241 Golovna, site, plant impressions, 289 Golyshive, site, crop-plant impressions, 288 Gorny, site, 337 bone and manufacturing activity, 335 cattle, 338–9, 342: chort frequency, 341 donkeys, 341, 343, 346 faunal assemblage, 337 horses, 340: cohort frequency, 342 house mice, 346 pigs, cohort frequency, 342 skeletal spectra, 344 Gough’s Cave, site, bone cut marks, 97 Gousans period, sea level changes, 390 atmosphere and vegetation, 389

Far East, wheeled vehicles, 181

412

Index

Govorukha, site, faunal remains, 301 Greece bread wheats, 296 cattle, 333 cheek-pieces, 222 farming and dispersal, 36 horseback-riding depictions, 217 warriors, mounted, 182 Greek Dioskures, twin-brothers horse cult, 203 language, word for bronze, 180; word for cow, 180; word for horse, 179; word for sheep, 180 Zeus, Apollo and Helios, god and chariots, 203 Grini, site ceramics, 289 plant composition, 290 Grotte des Eyzies, site, bone cut marks, 97 Grottes Chauvet, site, horse representation, 4 Gumelnitsa culture, 206, 235 horses, 209 Guojiazhuang, site, 150; 153 Gupalovka, site, plant composition, 293 Guran, site, domesticates, 379 Guru Galbena, site, plant composition, 294

Siba culture artefact, 147 Hurrian language, words for horse, 123 Hutor Teterevskiy, site, ceramics, 289 Hvalinsk burial, domesticates, 379 Iberia Bell-Beaker contacts, 239 donkey domestication, 248 Igren VIII, site, 260 human isotopic values, 258; 262 Ilichevka, site grain impressions, 336 plant materials, absence of, 295 Ilmursino, site, 368 cultural developments, 390 settlement heights, 389 tool inventory, 388 Ilyinka I, site, proximity to water, 403 Iman-Burluk river, 261 site, 70; faunal assemblages, 215; 72 India twin horse depictions, 203 wheel, ideology of, 247 Indian Ashvamedha, horse sacrifice, 203 Indo-European food production, 370 horse trainers, 247 horseback migration, 57 language group, 163, 178–9, 181, 233; spread of, 213– 14; word for horse, 123, 203; word for sheep, 180 microlith manufacturers, 368 populations, 371: cultural ritual, 211 warriors-riders, 213 Yamnaya and migration, 353 Indo-Iranian(s) language: word for cow, 180; words for horseback rider, 217 mythology, 225 Nasatyah, twin-brothers horse cult, 203 population intrusion and spread, 131 steppe origins, 225 Varuna, Mitra and Suryah, gods and chariots, 203 Indus Valley, urban societies, 233 Ingul Catacomb culture, kurgan burial rite, 276 -Krasnomayak culture, metal artefacts, 309, 312 river, suitability for field systems, 310 Ingulets Catacomb culture, pastoralism, 278 Inner Mongolia, 145 horse remains, 143 petroglyphs, 183 Iran Bactrian camels, 239 Belt, region, microliths, 370 caprine domestication, 181 northern, wild sheep, 376 population migration, 205 Iranian Plateau, animal movements, 133

Habuba Kabira, Uruk site, 240 Hacilar, site, domesticates, 379 Halaf villages, 242 Halys (Kizilirmak), river, trading routes, 246 Hamrin, region, bit useage, 121 Han period horse symbols, 183 schematic animal forms, 175 Western, Dynasty, 163 Hebei, site, gold earrings, 158 Helmsdorf, site, cushion-stones, 248 Henan, region, 155 horses, 143 Hissar culture, Tadjikistan, 205–6 crossbar wheel depiction, 215 Hittite(s), 122 Empire, horse trainers, 247 Kikkuli text, Wellenband decoration, 250 Pirva, god-thunderers, 203 Homeric Greece, chariots, 122, 217 Horodishtea-Folteshti group, 248 Hotu, site, microliths, 374 Hougang, site, 150; 153 Hu, Eastern, bronze plaque, 171 Huangniangniantai, Wuwei, Gansu, artefact, 146 Huizu, site, 167 Hungary cheek-pieces, antler, 245 graves, steppe-type, 66 trade, 246 Huns, mounted warriors, 182 Huoshaogou, Gansu, site, 145, 148 bronze tools and weapons, 154 horses, 143–4; 144

413

Index

Iraq pig domestication, 181 ploughing, 242 Ireland, horses, 241 Iron Gates region, 259 bovid isotopic values, 257; 262 human isotopic values, 258, 261 Irtysh, river, 158 pine penetration dates, 22 Surtanda culture, 386 Ishim, river basin, animal husbandry, 23 species distribution, 402 Italic language, word for cow, 180 Ivanovka, site animal bones, 207 artefacts, 208 Iylinka I, site flooding, 396 Iron Age earthenware, 397

Kalibangan, Pakistan, plough furrows, 243 Kalmykia Berezhnovsko-Mayivskaya culture, 321 cattle, 400 ecological niche, 356 economy, modern, 362 environment, 356: winter, 357 forest decline, 11 landscape diversity, 360 northern, pollen data, 17, pastoral adaptation, 355 shepherd, 362 vegetational changes, 18 water resources, 359 wooden carriage, 215 Yamnaya culture, 360; 358: horses, 361; migrations, 360 Kama, river pottery-producing zone, 388 Surtanda pottery, 382 Kamenka, site ceramics, 289 hulled wheat impressions, 290 plant composition, 290 Kamennyi Ambar, cemetery, chariot, 217 Mys, site, Agidel culture, 380 Vrag, burial, Samara region, 323 Kamti language, word for horse, 179 Kamushevataya, site charred grains, 295 plant composition, 293 Kanadey-3, burial, Samara region, 323 Kapitanovo I, site, Lugansk region, 323 faunal assemblage, 337 Kapovaya Peshchera, cave site, 368 Kaptarnikum, period, Iranian-type axe-moulds, 215 Kara, site, faunal remains, 377 Kara Comar, site, cultural developments, 390 Karabalykty culture, 377 sites, 383: chronology, 382; stone-plated floor, 376 Karaganda XV, site, 70 faunal assemblages, 72 Karakuduk I, site, sheep, 208 Karasye lake, regional vegetation, 21 site, 12 Karaungur, site, cattle, 215 Karbuna, site, charred seeds, 290 Kardashinskoe, site, 12 mire, 13 pollen diagram, 14 Kargalinskiy, region, mining-metallurgical centre, 320 Kargaly region, metallurgical centre, 326, 336 Pokrovskaya materials, 321 Kargula, settlement, West-Siberian pottery, 397 Karim Shahir blade artefacts, 370 microliths, 374

Japanic language, word for horse, 179 Jarmo, site blade artefacts, 370 cultural developments, 390 domesticates, 379 microliths, 374 Je-Kalgan, site, onager hunting, 58 Jebel Aruda, Uruk site, 240 wheel-models, 249 Jeitun, site, domesticates, 379 Jericho, site cessation of occupation, 377 cultural developments, 390 domesticates, 379 population levels, 378 Jijiachuan, site, horses, 143; 144 Jilaldin period aridity, 388 atmosphere and vegetation, 389 collared ceramic production, 378 sea level changes, 390 Jingjie, site, Lingshi, Shanxi, 150; 149 Jingjiecun, site, bronze artefact, 155; 139, 141 Kabakovskiy horde, Poltava region, 325 Kaga, site, cereal evidence, 378 pollen samples, 388 Kailyu, site, microliths, 369 Kaindy, site, 70 Altai culture, bronze fish hook, 263 faunal assemblages, 72 hoofed animal remains, 213 Tersek culture, 73 Kair-Shak, site, 59 onager and saiga, 58 Kajstrova Balka, site, faunal remains, 301 Kalanchak, river, catfish bone source, 314

414

Index

Karkaralinsk Mountains pine forest expansion, 21 tree species, 20 Karnak, Egyptian temple, 248 Karum Kanesh, see Kültepe Kazakhstan, 78, 84 Andronovo culture, 215, 395 animal domestication, 71–2, 253, 402 Berezhnovsko-Mayivskaya culture, 321 bone collections, 84 Bronze Age development, 396 camel cart petroglyphs, 215 cattle, 400–401 cheek-pieces, 222 copper-ore production, 24 depopulation, 388 forest: cover, 19; tribes, 397 horses: domestication, 70, 211; modern age structure, 3; nutritional value, 4; riding, 66; slaughter, 91 humidity, 23, 396 irrigation, 403 Late Bronze Age settlement, 399 nomads, 402 North: faunal assemblages, 70; 73; horse size, 78; 77 pine, expansion of, 11 pollen spectra, 19 Przewalski’s horses, 213 raw-hide thongs, 94 sites, 260: characteristic, 36; short-term, 367 Surtanda pottery, 387 transit territory, 369 Kazan culture cattle stocks, 339 faunal: homogeneity, 338; spectra, 339 Kelteminar culture, 207, 387; 386 Aral area, 205 fishermen, 215 migration, 204 Kenotkel, site, 70 faunal assemblage, 71–2 Keresh, site, horses, 209 Kermen–Tolga, region, Yamnaya burials, 360 Kernosivka, culture, anthropomorphic idol, 272 Kerson, region, Berezhnovsko-Mayivskaya culture, 321 Kexingzhuang II, culture, 158 Khabur, region horses, domesticated, 117 Hurrian-speaking peoples, 123 Khadzhibej, river Basin, wild aurochs, 303 Valley, Usatovo people, 304 Khanty, native Ural population characteristics, 377 Kharabuluk, site, 12 palynological investigation, 17 Kharkiv, region, Berezhnovsko-Mayivskaya culture, 321 Khlopkovy, site, sceptres, 211 Kholodnyi Kiyuch, site, 368 settlement height, 389 Khoturuk, site, 262

Khryashchevka, barrow, Samara region, 323 Khutor Repin, site, domestic horse, 78 Khuzir, site, 262 Khvalynsk culture, 57, 206–7, 236; 59 animal burial, ritual, 210, 387 cultural developments, 390 dates, 56, 60 horse images, carved, 62 pollen, arboreal, 15 pottery, collar-like, 376 regional affinities, 384 ritual deposits, 61; 60 sceptres, 211; 211 sea level changes, 389, 390 settlement height, 389 Kimmerian culture, nomadism, 284 Kinya plain, Equus hydruntinus, 240 Kirovo, site, 276 domestic mammals and camels, 312 Kiselovo, site, grain impressions, 292 Kizyl-Arvat, site, pottery, 205 Kladi Kurgan 31, site, ‘cushion-stones’, 248 Kniegrotte, site, horse size comparison, 77 Kobsakovskaya culture, Roller pottery, 396 Kochetnoye, burial, Saratov region, 323 Kodry hills of Moldova, Fagus, 14 Kokchetau, site, 260, 384 field appraisal, 105 Komsomolskoe, burial, 325 Konarovka, cheek-pieces, 197 Konezavod III, site, 70 faunal assemblages, 72 Konik, site, plant impressions, 288–9 Konstantinovsk culture, arboreal pollen, 15 Koreanic language, word for horse, 179 Kosirbakovo, site, 368 Koslodzhen culture, Roller pottery, 396 Koslogen, site, carbonized plant material, 310 Kozhai I, site, 59, 70 aquatic resources, 262 artefacts, horse, 210 bit wear, 64 faunal assemblages, 72: hoofed animals, 213; horses, 63 radiocarbon dates, 56 Tersek culture, 73 Krasnii Yar, 84, 262; 70, 259–60, 384 faunal material, 71–2, 255: cattle, 73, 85 horses, 79: age structure, 78; average size, 77; exploitation, 81; human interaction, 74; incised phalanges, 94; isotopic values, 254–5, 262; male vs. female, 76; sacrifice, 98; sex ration, 76; size comparison, 77; wild, 80 radiocarbon dates, 70 Krasnogvardeskoe, site, cylinder seals, 248 Krasnoselka, burial, Samara region, 323 Krivoe Ozero, site, 154 Borodino complex, 245 chariot burial, 64, 69, 217; 69 radiocarbon dates, 56, 223

415

Index

Krivoi Rog, site, 262; 260 human: bone samples, 255; isotopic values, 257–8; 254–5, 262 Krushniki, site, plant impressions, 288–9 Krutenkiy single barrow, Samara region, 323 Krutuaki, Vyyka, sites, 368 Kryzhovlin, site, Black Sea coast trade, 246 Kuban, river Berezhnovsko-Mayivskaya culture, 321 non-Yamnaya sites, 353 Kuibyshev (Samara) museum, zoomorphous sceptres, 211 Kulevchi, site, bit wear, 64 Kültepe, site chariot depiction with equids, 223 couriers, 120 cylinder-seal impressions, 247; 121; with seated rider, 119 Old Assyrian trading post, 246 Kumkeshu, site, 70 faunal assemblages, 72: hoofed animals, 213 radiocarbon dates, 56 Tersek culture, 73 Kura region, wild horse survivals, 240 valley, local culture, 241 Kura-Araks culture, 240–41 artistic tradition, 236 domesticated horse assemblages, 249 expansion, 245 plough and wheel, 243 Kurchurgan river valley, Mesolithic social structure, 302 Kuschevoe, site, plant composition, 293 Kushmurun, site, 260; 384 Kusimovskoe, site, 368, 383 settlement height, 389 symmetrical trapeze morphology, 373 Kustanai, site, 260, 384 Kuzminkovskoe, site animal stock ranking, 340 faunal assemblage, 337 Kvityana, culture, 206 funerary rituals, 269, 271, 353 Kyrgyz sod dwellings, Yamnaya connections, 359 Kyzykul, site, ornamented stone, 385

Lettish language, word for iron, 180 Levant(ine) /Arabian, donkeys, 240 corridor, spread of horticulture, 238 donkey, domestication, 238–9: dates, 115 southern: early agriculture, 36; wild ass, 239 split socket spearheads, 248 wild horse survival, 117 Levoberezhnoe, site, faunal assemblage, 337 Li Village, Qishan District, 166 Liaomupo, site, chariot burial, 156 Liaoning Province, 147, 149 site: gold earrings, 158; horses, 143 Liaoniupo, site, 149 Licheng, site, horses, 143 Liman, site domestic stocks, 341 faunal assemblage, 337 Linearbandkeramik culture, 204, 207 plant cultivation, 288–9 Linfen, site, horses, 143 Lingtai, site, 167 Lipchino-type sites, flint tools, 379 Lipetsk, region kurgan burials, 319 Pokrovskaya culture, 320 Lipigi region, pollen diagram, 18 site, 12 Lipovy Ovrag, site grain remains, 336 horse figurines, bone, 210; 62, 210 Lithuania(n) language: word for iron, 180; word for sheep, 180 Perkunas, god-thunderers, 203 twin horse depictions, 203 Litovii, site, plant impressions, 289 Liujiahe, Pinggu, Beijing, artefact, 146 Livanovka, site, 70, 384 faunal assemblages, 72–3 pottery, 385: affinity, 384; Tobol culture, 385 Loboiki-type products, 323 Lola, site two-wheeled cart, 214 Yamnaya burials, 360 Longshan culture, 148, 181 animal domestication, 166: dogs, 166; horses, 142–3; pigs, 166–7 pottery type, 145 Los Millares, site, Iberian Chalcolithic, 239 Lower Mikhailovka culture, 236, 291 -type graves, 57 Lower Xiajiadian culture, 170 sites, 158 Loyang, site, bronze mirror, 172; 172 Lugalanda of Lagash, evidence for barley feeding oxen, 242 Lugansk, Berezhnovsko-Mayivskaya culture, 321

La Madeleine, site, bone cut marks, 97 Laduzin, site, palaeoethnobotanical data, 288 Laoniupo, site, Xi’an, Shaanxi, 150 Laotian language, word for horse, 179 Lascaux, site, horse representation, 4 Latin language word for horse, 179 word for spinning wheel, 181 Latoshinka, site horse, domesticated, 208 sheep, 204 Lena, Upper, site, 259 human isotopic values, 262 Lepenski Vir, human isotopic values, 262

416

Index

Lugovoe, site barrows, Crimea region, 325 plant composition, 293 Lukyanovka, settlement, Belgorod region, 323 Luneren, Bell Beaker burial site, ‘cushion-stones’, 248 Luoyang, site, 167 Luzanovka, burial, Samara region, 323 Lyavlyakan period of humidity, 205, 215 Iranian type axe-moulds, 215 turquoise bead workshops, 215 Lynevoe, site, 383 Lysaya Gora, site, grain impressions, 291–2

Mari, site equid depiction, 197 horses, 120 Marievka, site, 260 human isotopic values, 262 two-wheeled vehicles, 214, 244 Mariupol culture, 57, 206, 208; 59 arboreal pollen, 15 dates, 60 ossuaries, 65 people, 207 Martkopi, tombs, 245 Maslovskoe, site, faunal assemblage, 337 Matveev Kurgan, site, 59 animal bones, 204 equids, 59: domesticated, 208 radiocarbon dating, 302 Matveevka I, site domestic mammals and camels, 312 permanent settlement, 276 Maya 1, site domestic cereals, 325 plant composition, 293 Mayaki, site, plant composition, 291–2, 295 Mediterranean Bronze Age trading, 234 coastal sites, microliths, 370 environments, expense of draught oxen, 242 sea-level rise, 299 Mehrgarh, site, domesticates, 379 Mergara, site cultural developments, 390 steep-sided microliths, 374 Mesoamerica, domesticated crops, 35 Mesopotamia(n) donkeys, 331 Early Dynastic: equids, 243–4 Greater: economies, 234; onager, 240 horses, 115, 122, 241, 244: dates for introduction, 123–4 lapis lazuli trade routes, 239 Lowland, irrigated farmland, 243 settlements, 238: mud foundations, 391 wheeled transport, 242, 249: platform-cars, 244 wild sheep, 376 Mezhovskaya people, migration, 397 Miaodigou II, site, Henan province, goat bones, 181 Miaopu, site, 150; 153 Middle East communications, 391 desiccation, 377 donkey domestication, 115 pastoralism, transhumance, 330 Middle Würm, period, bison, 301 Mikhailovka, site, 274, 276 cultural developments, 390 kurgan funerary practice, 269, 271 plant: composition, 292–3; impressions, 291 settlement height, 389 see also Lower Mikhailovka culture

Macedonian language, word for wheel, 180 Machai, site, cultural developments, 390 Ma(cin, site, Black Sea coast trade, 246 Mafang people, 168 region, 155 Magala, site, plant composition, 294 Magdalenian, period, harpoon artefacts, 93 Maidanetske settlement, charred seeds, 290 Maikop culture, 207, 240 agricultural contacts, 354 arboreal pollen, 15 bronze loops, 194 burial, silver vessels, 236 cheek-piece type, 194 copper wire loop, 193; 195 radiocarbon dates, 15 socketed meat hooks, 248 vases: iconology, 239; precious metals, 240 Majiawan, site, horses, 143; 144 Majiayao, culture, horses, 143 Makhachkalinsk period, 386, 388 atmosphere and vegetation, 389 sea level changes, 390 Makhandgar sites chronology, 386 pottery mixing, 385 transitional character, 384 Maksjutovo, site, 337 animal stock ranking, 340 faunal assemblage, 337 ovicaprines, 346 Mala Bilozerka, burial, Zaporizzya region, 325 Malatya, site, metalwork hordes, 240 Malye Barsuki, site, sheep, 215 Mandjikiny, burial ground, burial construction, 357 Mangyshlak period, 388 atmosphere and vegetation, 389 food-producing economy, 377 sea-level changes, 390 Mansy, native Ural population characteristics, 377 Manych, river Chograi reservoir, winter base-camps, 359 valley: artefacts, 357; Yamnaya burials, 360 Maori, people, 182 Marcos group, southern Hungary, tin-bronze, 237

417

Index

Mikolayiv, site, pottery, 325 Mikulina Broyarka, site, palaeoethnobotanical data, 288 Milovka, site, 368 cultural developments, 390 temporary communities, 374 Mindiak sites, 368 Ming Dynasty, 164 Minkivka, burial, Donetsk region, 325 Mirnoe, site aurochs, 302 grain impressions, 292 horses, 59: age structure, 75; size comparison, 77 hunting technique, 79 plant composition, 293 radiocarbon dates, 302 seed processing, 301 Mitannian courts, contacts with horse trainers, 247 Kikkuli, people, horse training manual, 124 Mitkiv Ostriv, site, palaeoethnobotanical data, 288 Mizhnee Adishchevo, sites, 368 Mnogovalikova culture, 245 burial (Ordzhonikidze), 280–81 and Catacomb cultures, 319 geographical range, 320 Moeknoe Ozero, site faunal assemblage 337, 340 mobility, 341 Mogilnik, site collar-like pottery, 376 settlement height, 389 Mokhovoe, site, 12 peat, 20 region, pollen diagram, 20 Moldavia, see Moldova Moldova agriculture, 23, 287, 292 animal husbandry, 23 ecological contexts, 12 grasses, 34 horse bone measurement, 79 plant remains, 290: pollen diagrams, 11, 15, 25 Molochansk Catacomb-period ‘temple’, 235 ceremonial mound, 237 Moloncha, river, trade routes, 237 Molosovka, site, wild faunas, 338 Molyukhov Bugor, site, 6, 262; 59, 259–60 aquatic resources, 262 faunal samples, 5, 255–6 grain impressions, 58, 291 isotopic values, 254; 255, 262 plant composition, 292 Mongolia(n) horses: burial ritual, 98; hunting, 4; nutritional value, 4; wild, 141 camps, domestic ungulate bones, 331 Inner, horse-breeding grounds, 157

language, word for horse, 179 southeastern Plateau, 170 stockbreeding practice, 330 population, 164: economic models, 253 Monteoru culture, 245 gold sheet-working, 238 and Otomani fortresses, 250 Mörigen, cheek-pieces, 196 Mosolovka, site animal stock ranking, 340 faunal assemblage, 337 Mount Carmel, caves sites, 117 Mullino, site, 368, 374 artefacts, 375: pottery, 380, 387 burials, partitioned, 376 climatic crisis, 389 cultural developments, 390 faunal remains, 373, 377–8, 381; 372, 379: horse, 371, 391 metal, absence of, 382 pollen samples, 388 settlement heights, 389 Murat culture, 377 site, 368: chronology, 382, 389; faunal remains, 377; pottery, 385 Mureybet, Neolithic site, 240 Murmanskiy-1, burial, Saratov region, 323 Mycenae(an) cheek-pieces, 222–3: antler, 245; bronze, 221 chronology, 224–5 frescos, 245 Mynshunkur, site, Seima knife horse depictions, 224 Myrne, site, 283 Myrzhyk, site, 70 faunal assemblages, 72: cattle, 400 Mys Bezymyanni, site, 368 settlement height, 389 Mysovaya, site, location, 383 Nadporozhye-Azov, culture, 206 Nagar, city, kúngar hybrid, 117 Namazga culture, 206 Altyn Depe, 241 Catacomb tradition migration, 215 developments, 390 pottery, 217 Nanshan’gen, site, Inner Mongolia, 171 artefacts, 170 horses, domesticated, 147 Natufian culture permanent settlement, 35 vertebrates, 333 Near East domestic animals, 35, 209; 379 economy, 203, 295 farming, 238 horses, 247: distribution, 240; riding, 217, 242 pastoralism, transhumance, 330

418

Index

plants, cultivated, 295 post-Holocene, 390 societies, 233 threshing-sledges, 243 tin circulation, 237 warfare, use of equids, 244 wheeled transport, 214: chariots, 217, 247 Near-Caspian culture, 206 Near-Urals, spread of cattle, 401 Nerusaj, site, riveted daggers, 236 Nezvisko, site, charred grains, 289 Nikolskoe, site, 260 human isotopic values, 258, 262 radiocarbon dates, 56 ritual deposits, 61 Nimrud, site, stone relief with mounted riders, 122 Ningcheng, site, 167 Ningxia, site, 167 Ninxia, region, 145 Nisporenu, site, plant composition, 294 Noa culture population distribution, 294 Roller pottery, 396 Nomhong, site, 173; 167 wheels, 173; 173 Nors¸untepe, site, wild horses, 117 North America(n) horseback riding, 65 Indians, bridles, 101 Northwest Coast, settlements, 35 Plains, hunters, 253 Noua culture, Moldova, pigs, 311 Noua-Sabatinovka-Koslodzen culture, 309 animal husbandry, 310 Noviye Yabalakli, burial, Bashkir autonomy, 323 Novobalkhash transgression, date, 23 Novodanilovka culture burial practice, 271 -type graves, 57 warfare, 65 Novogrigorovka, site, plant composition, 294 Novokamyanka, burial, Kcherson region, 325 Novokievka, site animal remains, 311, 314; 313: camels, domestic, 312; cattle, 312, 342; female fauna dominance, 342; horse breeds, 343 grain and seed impressions, 310 plant composition, 294 Novonikolayevka cemetery, crossbar wheel ochre depiction, 215 Novonikolskoe, site, 70 faunal assemblages, 72 flooding, 396 LSI-distribution comparisons, 80 metallic artefacts, 399 preservation, 397 Novoorsk district, sceptre-hammer, 211 Novopavlovka, burial, Samara region, 323 West-Siberian pottery, 397

Novopodkryadg-8, burial, Dnipropetrovsk region, 325 Novoselki, site, crop-plant impressions, 288–9 Novosvobodnaya culture, 236 wheeled transport artefacts, 214 Novotitarovka group, burial complex, 236 proto-Catacomb culture, 353 wheeled wagons, 214, 242 Novovladimirovka, site, faunal remains, 301 Novozhilovskaya, sites, 368 Ob, river, 158 Obitochnoe 20, site, livestock, 314 Ogurdino, sites, 368 Oka, region, average metatarsal size, 401 Oktyabri I, site, stone stele, 282 Oktyabrske, burial, Crimea region, 325 Old Babylonian horse-riding fable, 120 texts, ‘wooden thresher’, 242 Old English language word for flock, 179 word for horse, 179 Old High German language word for grey, 179 word for horse, 179 Old Icelandic language, word for grey, 179 Old Irish language, word for horse, 179 Old Norse language word for draft animal, 179 word for horse, 179 Old Prussian language, word for iron, 180 Old Rus annals, open steppe region, 315 Old Sinitic language graphs, 178 word for bronze, 180 Old Ukrainian language, word for wheel, 180 Oman, domestication of Arabian camels, 239 Ordos, site, 164, 182; 167 Ordzhonikidze, site, kurgan burial, 272–3, 277–8 Orenburg, site faunal remains, 337: cattle, 339; horse, 340; ovicaprines, 340 Pokrovskaya culture, 320 sceptres, 211 steppe zone, 338 Surtanda pottery, 382 warder-hammer, 212 Orgeev, site, 12 palaeolake: core data, 12; pollen diagram, 13 Orlovka, site, location, 59 Oroshaemiy, burial, Saratov region, 323 Osh Khona, site, cultural developments, 390 Osinovskiy-2, burial, Samara region, 323 Osipovka, site, radiocarbon dates, 56 Osniza, plant impressions, 288–9 Ossetic language, word for sheep, 180 Ostorf, antler tools, 193–4; 194 Ostrogozsk, burial, Voronezh region, 323 Otomani culture, 245

419

Index

Ozerki lake bog sediment, 21: regional vegetation, 22 pollen diagram, 22 site, 12 Ozernoe I, site, horse bone measurement, 79

plant composition, 290 Pit-Grave culture, 236–7 cattle, 311 nomadic pastoralism, spread, 388 regional affinities, 384 sites, geographical location, 385 stone implements, 380 wheeled wagons, 242 Pivikha culture, 291 Plains Indians horse-riding, 241 thong-smoothers, 93 Podstepkinskiy-3, burial, Samara region, 323 Pokrovka-Abashevo, sites, Don region, Bronze Age, 217 Pokrovskaya Srubnaya culture, 319, 336; 320 burial location, 321 cattle breeding, 325, 339 economy, 295 movement of people, 320 ovicaprine homogeneity, 340 periods of development, 321; 323 snow cover, 326 Poland, pottery groups, 236 Polish language, word for wheel, 180 Poltavka group, 248 ceramic type, 360 split socket innovation, 248 Poludenka I–II, sites, 368 Pontic steppe East, graves, 246 economies, 36 horse-rearing, 234 innovation, 242 Lowland, farmers and pastoralists, 307 metal artefacts, 235 North: agriculture and pastoralism, 269; antler tools, 195; artefacts, 309; cheek-pieces, 194; saiga teeth, 5; sedentism, 6; spread of metals, 236 Northwest: palaeoethnobotanical evidence, 310; Sabatinovka settlements, 281; wild equids, 59 ox-drawn wheeled vehicles, 243 Stangenknebel metalwork, 250 warrior cult, 35 western, livestock-breeding, 253 Pontic-Caspian steppes domesticated animals and hunting, 59 Eneolithic chariot origin, 217 horses domestication, 209, 214 post-Djeitun, type of symmetrical trapeze, 369 Potapovka, site battle chariots, 320 cheek-pieces, 64, 224 radiocarbon dating, 223 -type sites, 217: horse ritual, 222 Poundbury, Dorset, site, human isotopic values, 258; 261 Prisya, site grain impressions, 291 plant composition, 292

Palegawra, site blade artefacts, 370 horses and hemiones, 117 Palestine, pig domestication, 181 Pamirs, region, spread of horse-riding, 174 Panlongcheng, site, Hubei, 156 Pashennoe lake, 20: pine forest expansion, 21; pollen diagram, 21 site, 12 Pavlivka, burial, Dnipropetrovsk region, 325 Pavlograd, settlement, domestic cereals, 325 Pawli-Gawra, rock shelter, microliths, 368 Pazyryk, site fish tattoo, 264 hair, isotopic values, 255, 262 mummies, 263 saddle(s), 191: pendant, 264 subsistence strategies, 254 wheels: carriage, 244; multi-spoked, 245 wig samples, 257 Pech-Merle, site, horse representation, 4 Penki, site, 70, 368 faunal assemblages, 72: horse and sheep bones, 215 Penza, region, Pokrovskaya culture, 320 Perelyubskiy horde, Saratov region, 323 Peresadovka, site, faunal assemblage, 282 Persepolis, meat consumption records, 313 Persian language word for rider, 217 word for sheep, 180 Pers¸inari, Ma(cin, site Black Sea coast trade, 246 gold weapons, 238 Perun, site animal bones, 312 camels, 312 Pervokonstantinovka, site, two-wheeled cart, 214 Peschera, site, palaeoethnobotanical data, 288 Pesochnoye, burial, Samara region, 323 Petropavlovsk, site, 260, 384 faunal assemblages, 71 Petrov culture, ecological crisis, 386 Petrovka, site, 70 Bronze Age, 217 faunal assemblages, 72; 401: cattle, 401 Iron Age earthenware, 397 LSI-distribution comparisons, 80 metallic artefacts, 399 Roller pottery, 396 vessels, 225 PIE, see Proto-Indo-European Pischiki, site ceramics, 289

420

Index

Proto-Germanic language word for black, 179 word for grey, 179 Proto-Kam-Sui language, word for horse, 179 Proto-Indo-European language word for grey, 179 word for ride, 180 Proto-Mongolic language, 179 Proto-Slavic language, 181 word for wheel, 180 Proto-Tibetan people, 175 Przewalski’s horse, 3–4 Pshenichevo-Babadag culture, Roller pottery, 396 Pustynka, site ceramics, 289 hulled wheat impressions, 290 plant composition, 290

Rivne, site, crop-plant impressions, 288–9 Rodnoyi krai, site, plant composition, 293 Rogalik, site, 12 Roller Pottery cultures, 396 characteristics, 395 Roman(s) dog in aquatic contexts, 100 Eguus October, horse sacrifice, 203 mounted warriors, 182 racing-stadia, use of heavy chariots, 244 Romania, early Tripolye culture, 290 Romanovka, sites, 368 cultural developments, 390 pollen analysis, 374 settlement height, 389 Romanovsko-Ilmurzinskaya culture, 369 Rong cultural group, 157 Roshani language, word for sheep, 180 Roshchinskoe, site, 70 faunal assemblages, 72 Rostov steppe, Berezhnovsko-Mayivskaya culture, 321 Roznichi, site, crop-plant impressions, 288–9 Rusin Yar, burial, Donetsk region, 325 Russia(n) bone collections, 84 economic hardships, modern, 362 Hills, Middle, tree cover distribution, 11, 17 language, 181: word for wheel, 180 mobility and sedentism, 333 Plain, advance of farming, 287, 291 sites, animal bone sex ratio, 332 South: animal husbandry, 23; vegetational history, 17 southern: aridity phase, 19; domestication, 206; horse herding, 213; human impact, 25; osteological collections, 210 twin horse depictions, 203 western, vegetational development, 111 Russkaya Selitba, site, cultivated plant grains, 293, 295 Ryn sands, dark chestnut soils, 22

Qabrestan, site, 133; 130 horses, domesticated, 135 humerus: measurements, 135; scatter diagrams, 132, 134 proto-urbanism, 131 Qaradöwä, site, Qizilchoqa cemetery, 172 Qatna, site, source of horses, 121 Qäwrighul, site, 167 Qazvin Plain, 131; 130 cheek teeth, 133 equids, 129 Qiang, people, 169–70 Qijia culture, 145, 169–70 horses, 143–4, 166 Qin State, 157 Qing (Manchu) period, 183 Qingha, region, corral and wheel, 144 Qinweijia, site, 148 artefacts, 146 horses, 143–4; 144 Qizilchoqa, site, 167 Qumul, site, 167 Qurum Tagh, region, spread of horse-riding, 174

Sabakty, sites, 383 Sabatinovka culture, 309 agriculture, 284, 292, 337 animal: bone layers, 283; husbandry, 312 antler and bone plate, 193 artefacts, 195 bone plate, 195 butchering, 344 cheek-piece type, 194 chronology and climate associations, 315 development in the Black Sea region, 337 economic system, 281 faunal remains, 342 grain impressions, 293–4 kurgan burials, 282 plant composition, 294 regional development, 336 Roller pottery, 396 settlements, 281, 307; 308

Ra(deni, site Black Sea coast trade, 246 gold vessels, 238 Rakushechnyi Yar, site animal remains, 204: horses, domesticated, 208 artefacts, horse, 210 chronology, 206 radiocarbon dates, 15, 56 Ramad, site, domesticates, 379 Rameses II, representations with chariots, 247 Razdorskoe, site, 12 chronology, 206 pollen evidence for farming, 17; 16 stratigraphy, 15 Reinecke A2, site pin, 238 spearhead, 237 Repin culture, migration, 354

421

Index

Sabatinovka culture (cont.) steppe economy, 269 transhumance, 314 Sacarovca 1, site, plant materials, 288 Sadchikovskoe, site, cattle, 400–401 Sagzabad, site, 130 archaeozoological results, 136 Equus hydruntinus, 133 humerus: measurements, 135; scatter diagrams, 132, 134 occupation levels, 131 Sakarovka, site, horse size comparison, 77 Saki lake, pollen data, 15 site, 12 Saksaulskaya II, site, cattle and sheep, 215 Saltov culture pollen, 15 vegetational cover, 17 Samara, 59, 206 Buzuluk pine forest, 18 kurgan burials, 319 Pokrovskaya culture, 320 river, Pit-Grave tradition, 248 Samarkand, burial, 225 Samarsky, site, axe mould, 236 Sanskrit language, word for sheep, 180 Sa(rata-Monteoru, site, 246 cheek-piece, 224 Saratov, region, Pokrovskaya culture, 320 Sarazm, site, pottery, 225 Sargary culture, 395–6, 403: animal species correlation, 401; borders, 396; dwelling, reconstruction, 398; metallic artefacts, 399; population, economy, 399; Roller pottery, 396; stone implements, 399 herd, pastoral economy, 402 population, abandonment, 397 site, 70, 397: cattle, 400–401; faunal assemblages, 72; metallic artefacts, 399; Mezhovskaya people, 397; varying types, 398 Sarnowo barrow, site, plough marks, 249 Sarpin Lakes, Yamnaya burials, 360 Sartass period, sea level atmosphere and vegetation, 389 changes, 390 Sasyk, site, plant composition, 294 Satan, cemetery, chariots, 154, 217 Sauz, site, Agidel culture, 380 settlement height, 389 Savelevskiy, burial, Rostov region, 323 Savran, site, palaeoethnobotanical data, 288 Sayany, region, 269 Scandinavia, ideology of the wheel, 247 Schela Cladovei, human isotopic values, 262 Scythian(s) bridles, 197 cattle, 333 cheek-pieces, 213 field agriculture, 310

hunting, 312 Iron Age, 55 mounted warriors, 182 pastoralism, 273 people, 182 ritual smoking, 237 and Roller Pottery cultures, 395 -Samartian culture: horse size, 401; pollen, 15; vegetational cover, 17 settlements, economy, 315 Scytho-Siberian, art, 4 Seima-Turbino culture, 237–8 artefacts, 146: metal, 170 shamanism, 248 Selenkahiye, site, equid and rider figurines, 119 Selezni-2 cemetery, cheek-pieces, 221 Semyenovka, site, 259–60 faunal samples, 255–6 isotopic values, 254–5, 262 Serbo-Croatian language, word for wheel, 180 Serebriynoe, site ceramics, 289 plant composition, 290 Sergeëvka, site, 70, 72, 259 faunal assemblages, 64, 255; 72: dates, 71; domesticates, 65 horses, 79: age distribution, 76; age structure, 78; average size, 77; exploitation, 81; isotopic values, 254–5, 262; wild horse variability, 80 human–horse interaction, 74 LSI-distribution comparisons, 80 radiocarbon dates, 56 settlement site, 262 Seroglazovskaya culture, 387 Severskii Donets, river metal-processing activity, 323 Timber-Grave culture, 309 tree cover, 11 Shaanxi, Inner Mongolia horse bones, 147 Northern, 165 Shah-Tepe, site, 206 chronology, 224 pottery, 205 Shalkiya I, site, 70 faunal assemblages, 72 Shan language, word for horse, 179 Shandong, site, 149, 155 horses, 143 Shang animal sacrifice, 182 burials of élite, 148 civilization, 182 cultural traits, 182 Dynasty, 164–6: chariot use, 168 late, 167, 178; domesticated horses, 147 period, 157 polity, 169: horsemen, 183 and Zhou burials, horse contexts, 183

422

Index

Shanidar, site cultural developments, 390 domesticates, 379 microliths, 374 points, blunted, 373 Shanxi site, horses, 143 western, region, 155 Shengavit, site, domesticated horse, 249 Shikaevka, site, 368 microliths and mammoth bones, 370 Shilovskoe, site, faunal assemblage, 337 Shipobskoe, grain impressions, 336 Shirokaya Balka, site, 337; 325 faunal assemblage, 340–2; 337 plants, 293: charred grains, 295; domestic cereals, 325, 336 Shumilovo, site, palaeoethnobotanical data, 288 Shupta burial ground, season of burial construction, 357 Shurnkovskaya, sites, 368 Siba culture, 145, 147; 154 horses, 143–4, 166 Siberia, 204 Afanasevo culture, 213 deer-hunters, 212 southern, Xiongu mounted warriors, 171 West: Lowland, vegetation, 19, 21; Plain, climate, 89; Valikovaya region, 395 wild horses, 141 Silk Route ‘horse route’, 234 transport route, 241 Sinitic language, 177, 179 Sino-Tibetan language, 180 word for wheel, 180 Sinop-Samsun region, techniques of production, 246 Sintashta, site, 319; 368 agricultural economy, 36 -Arkaim-type settlements, 391 Borodino complex, 245 Bronze Age, 217 chariots, 154, 217, 320 cheek-pieces, 222, 224 fish hooks, bronze, 263 horse burials, 217 -Petrovka, culture, 154 spilt socket typology, 248 and Srubnaya culture, 336 wheel impressions, 245 Sirogozka Balka, site, 283 Sivash region, 307 economic micro-regions, 314 Skelya culture, 57, 206 burial types, 271 dates, 60 funerary rituals, 353 -Kamenolomnya, 276: millet impressions, 291; plant composition, 293

Slavic language, 180 Perun, god-snakefighter, 203 Sloboda-Shiurezciy, site, plant composition, 294 Slovakian language, word for wheel, 180 Slovenian language, word for wheel, 180 Sogdian language, word for sheep, 180 people, 183 Sokiltsy, site, palaeoethnobotanical data, 288 Solenoe Ozero, site, 70; 384 animal exploitation, 72 faunal assemblages, 72–3 genetic continuity, 80 pottery, 384–5, 391 Tersek, 368 Solenoe Zaimische, site, 12 Solnechniy-1, burial, Samara region, 323 Solntse II, cemetery, chariot, 217 Soloncheni II, site, Tripolye B1, 58 Solutré, site horses: kill comparisons, 87, 98; similarity with Botai, 79 Song Dynasty, 183 Northern, 164 Soroki, site, cultivated plant impressions, 288 South Africa, hunting, 3 Spain, horse domestication, 239 Sredny Stog culture, 56, 206–8 arboreal pollen, 15 burial rites, 213 caprines, 58 dates, 60 horse skulls, 209 typological groups, 57 Srubnaya culture, 319, 335–6, 341 arboreal pollen decline, 15 butchering, 344 cultivated plant impressions, 295 domestic stocks, 337 faunal spectra, 339 graves, 282 horses, 338 hybrids, 343 mobility, 340 sedentism at Arkaim and Sintashta, 346 stock features, 342 see also Timber-Grave culture Srubno-Khvalynsk culture, Roller pottery, 396 Standard of Ur, artefact, harnessed equids, 115 Stangenknebel cheek-piece, 245 Star Carr, site, microliths, 370 Staraya Chekmek, site, settlement heights, 389 Staraya Mushta, site, 368 cultural developments, 390 settlement height, 389 tool inventory, 388 Staraya Tchermak, site, cultural developments, 390 Starcevo-Cris& culture, economy, 287

423

Index

Stariye Yabalakli, burial, Bashkir autonomy, 323 Starmushtinskoye I, site, settlement height, 389 Staro-kainlykovo, site, tool inventory, 388 Starotokskaya, site, 368 Stavropol, Berezhnovsko-Mayivskaya culture, 321 Stepanovka, site domestic stocks, 341 faunal assemblage, 337 Stepvoe, site, plant composition, 294 Stila, burial, Donetsk region, 325 Stog culture, 206 Storozhevaya Mogila, site, two-wheeled cart, 214 Strumok culture, millet impressions, 292 Subeshi, site, 172; 167 Sumerian culture: agricultural regime, 242; cattle nose-rings, 189; temple-estates, 243 donkeys, 115, 238 language, words for horse, 117, 123 Sura-Dnepr culture, animal bones and knives, 204 Surtanda culture, 377–8; 383–4, 386 chronology, 382 copper artefacts, 379 economic and artefact data, 380 faunal remains, 377 lakeland pottery, 385 nomadic pastoralism, 388 Pit-Grave culture, 387 population migration, 367 sites, 384: pottery mixing, 385 tribes, regional exploitation, 384 -type pottery, 386 Suskanskoe I, site faunal assemblage, 340; 337: wild, 338 mobility, 341 Suvorovo, site burial type, 271 horse depiction, 211 ‘Ochre-graves’, 57 Svetly Djarkul, site, cattle and sheep, 215 Switzerland, pile settlements, artefacts, 214 Syezzheye cemetery, 61; 59 collar-like pottery, 376 horse figurines, 62, 210 people, 207 Samara culture, ritual horse burial, 210 Syria(n) ‘Canaanean’ flint blades, 249 fixed axle innovation, 249 horses, 115, 123–4, 244 horse-drawn chariot, 247 Jezira, use of donkeys, 238 ploughing, 242 trade, 246 Uruk colonial expansion, 240 Syun, site, 368 stratigraphy, 389 Syvarkul, Surtanda culture sites and settlements, 382

Tabqa basin, Uruk colonies, 240 Tadjikistan Hissar culture, 205–6 microliths, 270 Tagar, culture, clay mask for skulls, 99 Tagirmen sai, artefact, 146 Tahsbulatovo, site, 383 Tahsluk I, site, domestic mammals and camels, 312 Tai-Kadai language group, 179 Tal-I Malyan, site, bit useage, 121 Talcas, lake sites, 368 Tambov, region kurgan burials, 319 Pokrovskaya culture, 320 Tamtama cave, site, Palaeolithic wild horses, 136 Tanabergen cemetery, artefacts, 220 pottery, 218–19 Tang Dynasty, 164 tomb figurines, 174 Tängri Tagh, region, spread of horse-riding, 174 Tangyin, site, horses, 143 Tappeh Zagheh, site, 130 periods of occupation, 131 Tarim Basin, region, 172, 174, 182 Tashlyk, site animal bones, 311 female fauna dominance, 342 plant composition, 294 sanctuaries, 282 stone dwellings, 307 wild mammals, 312 Tashtyk culture, clay mask for skulls, 99 Tatar, Pokrovskaya culture, 321 Tel al Rimah, site, use of horse, 120 Tell Abu Hureya, Neolithic site, 240 Tell Beydar, site, equid-drawn wagons, 117; 116 Tell Brak, site bit wear, 120–21 donkeys, harnessed, 126 equid-drawn wagons, 116 kúngar hybrid, 117 phalange, 124 seal impression, 115 Tell Leilan, site, domesticated horses, 117 Tell Mozan, site, model equid head, 119 Tell Selenkahiye, site, donkey and rider figurine, 119 Tell Yelkhi, site, bit useage, 121 Telmen, site, 70 faunal assemblages, 72 Temple of Heaven Peking, 182 Tenteksor, site, Volga region, domesticated horse, 208 Tepe Hissar III B, Iran, site, chronology, 224 Tepe Sialk Cemetery B, cylinder seal, 171 Terni, burial, Dnipropetrovsk region, 325 Ternove, burial, Donetsk region, 325 Ternovka, burial, Saratov region, 323 Tersek culture, 70, 386 animal exploitation, 72 Botai, connections with, 94

424

Index

faunal assemblages, 70 horse as food source, 212 nomadic herding, 213 oxen/aurochs bones, 213 radiocarbon dates, 63 Tersek-Botai culture, aquatic resources, 262 Tersek-Karagay, site, cattle and sheep, 215 Thai language, word for horse, 179 Thracian(s) Hallstatt, sites, Roller pottery, 396 people, 182 Three Brothers Kurgan, site, clay modelled cart, 214 Timber-Grave culture, 245, 336–7 agriculture, 310 cattle, 311: size, 400–401 chronology, 309 communities, 309 Don region, pigs, 311 emergence of traits, 386, 388 sedentism, 346 stone moulds, 311 territorial divisions, 314 see also Srubnaya culture Timchenki, site, plant composition, 293 Tiszapolgár, site, flint artefacts, 235 Tobol, river domestic animals, 377 pottery typology, 395 sites, stratification, 385 Tocharian language, word for cow, 180 Toksoe, site animal stock ranking, 340 faunal assemblage, 337 Tolstov, site, domesticated animal bones, 387 Tomb of Lady Hao, site, jade artefact, 139 Touralinsk period, sea level atmosphere and vegetation, 389 changes, 390 Trailet, tombs, 245 Trans-Caspian, region, 205 Trans-Urals, region agriculture, 310 cattle herds, 400 domestic stock, 402 Srubnaya settlements, 323 Transcaucasia bread wheats, 291 fixed axle innovation, 249 gouges and spearheads, 248 horses, 240; spread, 239 horse-breeding populations, 244 local polities, 245 metallurgy, 243 productive economy, 203 Transylvania gold sources, 246 metalworking, 309 steppe-type graves, 66 Tripolye culture, 206, 235, 248

agriculture, 35, 269, 284, 354 artefacts, 236 B1, population movement, 291 B2, imported bowl, 56 barley, 295 burial types, 271 copper, 23 dates, 60 emmer wheat, 295 fortified settlements, 65 horn mattocks, 214 land management, 290 Late, 236: horses, 66; Usatovo people, 304 Linearbandkeramik culture, horses, 209 meat consumption, 313 population distribution, 290 pottery, ornamental motifs, 276 threshing waste, 296 wheeled transport, 214 Troy, site axes, 237: lazurite battle axe, 250 trading routes, 246 Trundholm, site, chariot of the sun, 198 Trushinkovsky-type sites, Roller pottery, 396 Tsatsa burial ground, horse skull, 361 Tshcieniec-Komarov culture, 309 Tudorovo, site, grain impressions, 294 Tugay, site, Samarkand, 225 vessels, 226 Tumek-Kichidjik, camel bones and spindle whorl, 205 Tungusic language, word for horse, 179 Tureng-Tepe III C, Iran, site, chronology, 224 Turgai, sites, absence of cattle, 73 Turganik culture, similarity with the Agidel, 384 Turkey/Turkic caprine domestication, 181 language group, 179 people, 183 southern: Uruk colonial expansion, 240 Turkmenistan Bactrian camels, 239 southern, climate, 133 western, Berezhnovsko-Mayivskaya culture, 321 Tutkaul, site cultural developments, 390 microliths, 369 stratified settlement, 373 Ubaid culture cultural developments, 390 domesticates, 379 Ubangan, river, species distribution, 402 Uchashchi, site, Kelteminar layers, 387 Ugric language group, 179 Ukok Plateau, 105 Ukraine/Ukrainian agriculture, 292, 310 aridity phase, 19 Berezhnovsko-Mayivskaya burial cists, 321

425

Index

Ukraine/Ukrainian (cont.) bone collections, 84 bone/antler fishing tool, 263 Bronze Age, 273 complex economy, 23 cultures, 207 eastern, maximum aridity, 17 ecological contexts, 12 economic activity, 269, 271 Eneolithic ‘horse-cult’, 57 grasses, 34 horses, 208: bone measurement, 79 language, 181: word for wheel, 180 mixed farming economy, 36 plant remains, 290 pollen data, 11, 25 sites, 260 southeast, farming and animal husbandry, 23 Stangenknebel cheek-piece, 245 weapons, 65 Yamnaya culture, 291; 361 Ulyanovsk, region kurgan burials, 319 Pokrovskaya culture, 320 Ulyubay, site, chariots, 154, 217 Umm Dabaghiyan, site, domesticates, 379 Ur horse in administrative reports, 117 language, word for horse, 117 Royal Cemetery, sledge, 249 Ural, river characteristic sites, 36 geometric microliths, 373 Yamnaya culture, 361 Urals, mountains agriculture, 295 Andronovo culture, 395 animal bones, 376 Bronze Age development, 396 cheek-pieces, 222–3: flat form, 245 cultures, 206 economic pattern, 377 horses: ancestor, 208; hunting, 58; riding, 66 horse-drawn chariot, 246 metalwork, 23 Southern: animal bones, 377–8; cattle-breeding, 383; chariot use, 168; cheek-pieces, 245; domestication, 373, 388; 379; ecology, 31; forest barrier, 367; hunting and fishing, 369; jasper, 385; Late Bronze Age, 310; metallurgy, 237; post-Holocene, 390; talc, 386; tools, 370 spoked-wheel vehicles, 238 Surtanda pottery, 387 wide-gauge vehicles, 245 wood resources, 391 Yamnaya group, migrations, 360 Urartu, region, cavalry horses and riders, 123 Urge-Tube, site, settlement height, 389 Ursum, site, siege accounts, 122

Uruk colonies Arslantepe, wall painting of canopied sledges, 243 artistic tradition, 236 collapse, 241 cuneiform sign for donkey, 115 diaspora, spread of traction, 243 northern Caucasus, 239 temple-estates, agricultural regime, 242 threshing-sledges, 249 wheeled transport, 242 Usatovo culture, 236 agriculture, millet useage, 291 cattle-breeders, 303 daggers, riveted, 236 people, settlements, 291 plant composition, 292 Saratov region, 323 Ushkalka, site faunal assemblage, 282 plant composition, 294 Usovo Ozero, plants cereals, domestic, 325 composition, 293 cultivated 295 grain impressions, 336 Uspenka, site ceramics, 289 plant composition, 290 Uspenskoe, site, 337 animal stock ranking, 340 faunal assemblage, 337 ovicaprines, 346 taxonomic diversity, 341 Ust-Ayskaya, site, settlement height, 389 Ust-Narym, site, sheep, 215 Ust-Urt plateau, microliths, 369, 373 Ust-Yuryuzanskaya, site, 368 cultural developments, 390 settlement height, 389 Utyevka, site radiocarbon dates, 56, 223 stallion burial, 64 Uvda, site, threshing floor, 249 Uzunkul, Surtanda culture sites, 382 Valikovaya cultural community, 395 Varfolomievka, site, 61; 59 economy, 208 horses: figurines, 62, 210; teeth burial, 210 radiocarbon dates, 56 sheep bones, 204 stone warder, 211; 212 Varna axes, 235, 248 cemetery, burial rites, 213 culture, 206: regional development, 57 Vasilkovka, site, 84; 384 Vasilyevka, site, 260 human isotopic values, 262

426

Index

Vedic literature, chariot descriptions, 217 Velika Bilozerka, burial, Zaporizzya region, 325 Veljanka IV, site, chariots, 154 Veretie, site, wild fauna, 371 Verhnya-Mayivka, burials, 325 Verkh-Kaljin, site, 262 animal bone samples, 255 horse keratin samples, 256 human: bone samples, 255; isotopic values, 257–8; 254 wig isotopic samples, 257 Veseloe, site cereals, 325: grain impressions, 295, 336 plant composition, 293 Viking funeral, nabid beer, 248 Vilovatoe, site, domestic animal bones, 377 Vilovatovskaya, site animal bones, 207 bone horse-figurine, 210 horses, 329: artefacts, 210; figurines, 210 Vinogradnyi Sad, site animal bones, 311; wild, 312 charred seeds, 293, 310–11 domestic mammals and camels, 312 female fauna dominance, 342 plant composition, 294 stone dwellings, 307 Vinogradovka, site, 70 Vishnevka I, site, 70 faunal assemblages, 72 Vlasac, human isotopic values, 262 Volga, river basin, forest decline, 11 domestic stock, 402 horses: domestication, 233; metatarsal size, 401 Late Bronze Age, 310 micro-landscape adaptations, 355 Pit-Grave tradition, 248 steppe region, domestic animal bones, 377 trade networks, 236 -Ural area: cultures, 207; economy, 208; Eneolithic horses, 209; mobility, 35, 225; Pokrovskaya burials, 321; sceptres, 211 Valley: tree cover, 18 Yamnaya culture, 361: migrations, 360 Volgograd steppe, Berezhnovsko-Mayivskaya culture, 321 Volyn region, vegetation, 14–15 Volynska culture, farming sites, 288 Vonigradovka XIV, site, faunal assemblages, 72 Voronezh region Berezhnovsko-Mayivskaya culture, 321 kurgan burials, 319 Pokrovskaya culture, 320, 323 tree cover expansion, 17 Voronivka, site, 283 grain impressions, 294 Vovnigi, settlement, Dnipropetrovsk region, 325 Vulchetrun, site, Black Sea coast trade, 246

Warka, site, cuneiform sign for donkey, 115 Warring States period, 178 horse figurines, 183 Warwasi, site horses and hemiones, 117 Palaeolithic wild horses, 136 Wei, river, 170 Zhou power base, 184 Welsh language, word for horse, 179 Wuguandamu, site, 152–3 Wuguangcun, site, 151; 153 Wuwei, Gansu, artefact, 146 Xia culture, 182 Xiajiadian culture, 170 domesticated horses, 147 Upper, 147 Xiamen, site, 167 Xi’an, site, 167 chariot pit near, 156 horses, 143 Xianyun, people, 166 Xiaomintun, site, 149, 151 Xiaotun, site, 149–51, 153; 153 royal chariot pits, 168 Xiaquan Village, Chang’an District, 165 Xibeigang, Houjaizhuang, site, 149, 152; 153 Xichagou, site, 171; 167 bronze plaque, 172 Xindian culture, horses, 143–4 Xinjiang metallurgy, 147 petroglyphs, 183 Xiongnu, South Siberia, bronze plaque, 171 Yablonovka, burial, Saratov region, 323 Yabrud, cave site, horse survival, 117 Yagodnoye, burial, Samara region, 323 Yakryk, site, settlement height, 389 Yakty-Kul, site, 370; 368, 383 stratigraphy, 389 trapeze morphology, 373 Yamnaya culture, 205, 241 agriculture, 276 arboreal pollen decline, 15 burials, 279, 358; 275: vessels, 292 chronology, 206 economic potential, 275 kurgans: construction, 269, 274; horses, 361; seasonal exploitation, 362 KVCH burial ground grave, 359 metal working, 158 migration, 5, 66, 204, 215, 280 pastoral exploitation, 353 population expansion, 291 ritual horse burial, 209 settlement pattern, 278 tombs, plaited mats, 359 wheeled transport, 214–15

427

Index

Yamnaya culture (cont.) Zunda-Tolga burial mound, 359 see also Pit-Grave culture Yandai cultural group, 157 Yang Tumulus, site, 184 Yangelka, site, 369; 368, 383 artefacts, 389: trapeze, microlith, 373–4, 376; 370 cultural developments, 390 microliths, 370 settlements, 374: height, 389 Yangshao culture horses, 143 pigs and dogs, 166 pottery type, 145 ‘Yanik culture’, domestic horse, 135 Yashkul, Yamnaya burials, 360 Yasinovatka, site, 260 radiocarbon dates, 56 Yavlenka I, site, proximity to water, 403 Yellow, river, 155, 170 Basin, region, 147 Yeniseic language, 179 Yennesei, river, 158 Yerevan, site, Armenia, Kura-Araks culture, 240 Yergueni Hills artefacts, 357 Yamnaya-type complexes, 360 Yi, people, 166 Yin, Shang capital, 184 Yinxu site, Anyang, 148 horses, 140 inter-site contacts, 141 West, 153 Yongjing County, 148 site, horses, 143–4 Yubileinoe, sites, 383 chronology, 382 cultural diversity, 377 faunal remains, 377 Yumen, region, horses, 143–4 Yuvilane, burial, Kcherson region, 325

site, 204: cultural origins, 215; environmental remains, 205; pottery and metal artefacts, 216 Zankivtsy, site, palaeoethnobotanical data, 288 Zaplavka-1, burial, Dnipropetrovsk region, 325 Zaporizhzhya, Berezhnovsko-Mayivskaya culture, 321 Zapovitne, burial, Zaporizzya region, 325 Zardcha-Khalifa burial, 224: artefacts, 223 cheek-pieces, 225 chronology, 225 horse depictions, 224 Zarzi, site blade artefacts, 370 flint industries, 368 jasper artefacts, 371 microliths, 374 Zatobolskaya, site, horses, 215 Zawi Chemi, site cultural developments, 390 domesticates, 379 microliths, 374 Zelyonaya Balka 4, site, horses, 215 Karaganda 15, site, horses, 215 Zhabuy Petrovka II, metallic artefacts, 399 Zhai cultural group, 157 Zhangjiazui, site, 148 horses, 143; 144: molars, 144 Zhao, region, genesis of riding in China, 174 Zheltoe, site, faunal assemblage, 337 Zhengzhou, site, 152, 155; 149, 167 Zhivotilovo-Volchanskoe, complex, burials, 236 Zhizhushan, horses, 147 Zhongshan, site, 167 Zhou Dynasty, 149, 157, 164–6 cultural traits, 182 Minister of War, 184 people, 166, 169 Western, Dynasty, 164: bronze inscriptions, 184; harness, 197; schematic animal, 175 Zhoujiadi, domesticated horses, 147 Zhovtneve, site, 283 Zhuanlongzang, site, 144 archaeozoology, 148 horses, 143; 144 Zhukaigou, site, Inner Mongolia, 156 gold earrings, 158 Zhusan, site, horse teeth and bone fragments, 85 Zimne, site, plant impressions, 289 Zinjar steppe, Near East, settled agriculturalists, 315 Zirkuni, site, plant composition, 293 Zizhiqu, site, 167 Zlivki, site, absence of plant materials, 295 Zolotaya Niva-2, burial, Samara region, 323 Zunda-Tolga burial ground, burial construction, 357–8 Zürich, lake, wheels, 249

Zagheh, site archaeozoological results, 136 cattle and equids, 133 chronology, 134 humerus: measurements, 135; scatter diagrams, 132 Zaghunluq, site, Chärchän (Qiemo) County, 172 Zagros Mountains, 130 differential biotope, 130 horses and hemiones, 117 -Taurus, region, productive economy, 369 Zalineynoe, site, plant composition, 293 Zalpa, site, Black Sea coast trading post, 246 Zaman-Baba culture, chronology, 206

428