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Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 18, 29–78 (1999)Article ID jaar.1998.0332, available online at http://www.idealibrary.com on

Botai and the Origins of Horse Domestication

Marsha A. Levine

McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge, Downing Street,Cambridge, CB2 3ER, United Kingdom

Received April 22, 1997; revision received April 27, 1998; accepted July 28, 1998

This paper explores some issues related to the origins of horse domestication. First, it focuseson methodological problems relevant to existing work. Then, ethnoarchaeological and archaeo-zoological methods are used to provide an alternative approach to the subject. Ethnological,ethological, and archaeological data are used to construct a series of population structuremodels illustrating a range of human–horse relationships. Analysis of assemblages from theEneolithic sites of Botai (northern Kazakhstan) and Dereivka (Ukraine) suggests that horses atthese sites were obtained largely by hunting. © 1999 Academic Press

Key Words: archaeology; Eurasian steppe; horse; domestication.

1.0. INTRODUCTION ently intensified. For a long time archae-

The impact on human society of theearliest domestication of the horse musthave been as profound as that of the in-vention of the steam engine and yet weknow very little about when, where, orhow it came about. The increased mobilityprovided by the horse would have en-abled people to move further and fasterand to take more with them than everbefore. They could exploit larger andmore diverse landscapes, maintain largerfamilies, increase the range of their tradecontacts. They could move into previouslyuninhabitable regions. And, since a manon foot is no match for a man on horse-back, the military implications of horsedomestication would have been revolu-tionary. John Ewers has shown how pro-foundly the introduction of the horse intoNorth America changed Blackfoot culture(Ewers 1955). We should expect no less ofits early domestication in central Eurasia.However, until recently relatively little at-tention had been paid to this problem (seealso Levine 1990, 1993).

Around 7000 years ago the relation-ship between people and horses appar-

29

ologists assumed that intensification meantdomestication. However, there are otherexplanations for this kind of change whichmust also be explored. It is important tobe aware that human– horse relation-ships varied widely over time and spaceand that multiple relationships could berelevant at a single site. Furthermore, be-havioral patterns for which we have nomodern or ethnographic analogues arelikely to have been important in the past.Whatever else is involved, it is clear thatthere was an important change in steppeecodynamics at this time (from around5000 to 3000 B.C.). Horses were becomingmuch more common in archaeological de-posits. Important cultural, social, and eco-nomic changes were taking place. It wasalso a period of significant climatic change(Schnirelman 1992). Until we can under-stand the development of the human–horserelationship we cannot know how all thesefactors were related (Levine 1993). If we areto make sense of events during this period,we must understand the structure of thearchaeozoological data.

The study of human–horse relation-ships has been bedeviled by both concep-

0278-4165/99 $30.00Copyright © 1999 by Academic PressAll rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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30 MARSHA A. LEVINE

paper explores some of the relevant issuesfrom two perspectives. First, it focuses onsome of the problems relevant to existingwork, in particular, the confusion of do-mestication with intensification and theuse of a single criterion to classify complexhuman–animal relationships. Then, eth-noarchaeological and archaeozoologicalmethods are used to provide an alterna-tive approach. A range of behaviors,based on archaeological, ethological, andethnographic data, are drawn on to de-velop a series of models describing arange of possible strategies and tacticsagainst which the archaeological data canbe tested.

1.1. The Concept of the Earliest Date

1.1.1. Biogeographic Range

C. Grigson’s paper, “The Earliest Do-mestic Horses in the Levant? New findsfrom the Fourth Millennium of the Ne-gev” (1993), illustrates what is probablythe most fundamental problem associatedwith the study of early horse domestica-tion—the search for the earliest date. Shemight well be correct, on the basis of itslarge size relative to the ass (Equus asinus)and the onager (Equus hemionus), that

quus caballus was present in the Levantarlier than had been believed. However,er conviction that this horse must haveeen domesticated is apparently basedolely on the assumption that the geo-raphical range of the wild horse couldot have extended into the Levant: “Al-

hough the horse (Equus caballus) was aember of the Pleistocene fauna of the

evant, it died out before the end of theeriod” (Grigson 1993, p. 646). In fact, re-ent research suggests that the naturalistribution of the Holocene horse mightave been much wider than had been for-erly believed (Azzaroli 1985; Clason

988; Clutton-Brock 1992; Groves 1986;erpmann 1990). In any case, the absencef horse remains from archaeological de-

hey were extinct. Grigson would haveeen on firmer ground had she entitleder paper: The Earliest Horses in the Le-ant? New Finds from the Fourth Millen-ium of the Negev.

.1.2. The Search for the Earliest Date

This kind of problem arises partly out ofhe tendency of archaeologists and ar-haeozoologists to ask certain kinds ofuestions, for example, when and whereas the horse (or, for that matter, cow,

heep, goat, pig, etc.) first domesticated?hich came first: the invention of theheel or the bit (Anthony and Brown

991)? The whole issue of earliest dates isred herring, especially in a situation

uch as this, in which the number of well-xcavated and absolutely dated sites isery small and the criteria used to proveomestication are not very convincing.actors completely unrelated to ancientuman behavior that will significantly in-uence identification of the “earliest” site

nclude the following:

natural taphonomic factors: the destruc-ion or preservation of sites, bones, andrtifacts made from organic materials;decisions, which may be political, finan-

ial, or strategic, about where and howarefully to excavate;

decisions about whether bones shoulde studied or discarded;decisions about who will study the

ones, whether their primary training iss an archaeologist, zoologist, veterinar-an, etc.;

the specialist’s country of origin, sinceducational traditions influence the ana-ytical methods used;

criteria chosen by the specialist as evi-ence of domestication.

Scholars looking for earliest dates com-only use only one line of evidence (e.g.,

iogeography, size, morphology, bitwear)rom which to draw their conclusions.

This approach, simplifying human and dalenian horses were smaller than those

31ORIGINS OF HORSE DOMESTICATION

animal behavior, as it does, is ultimatelyunsatisfying.

1.1.3. Size and Homogeneity

Setting the search for the “earliest date”as a primary research goal makes it rathereasy to use inadequate criteria for the de-termination of domestication. This is be-cause the search for a date does not re-quire anything to be said about the actualrelationship between animals and people.For instance, a decrease in size and anincrease in heterogeneity are taken asproof of domestication by many scholars.Uerpmann claims that “Grossenreduktioneinerseits und Zunahme der Variabilitatandererseits sind klassische Domestika-tionsindikatoren” (Uerpmann 1990, p.127).1,* Such factors as age and sex struc-ture are rarely taken into account. How-ever, a size change could also result froma change in the technique of exploitation.For example, a hunting method thatculled primarily stallions from familygroups would take larger horses than onethat focused on bachelor groups, whichmight well be epiphyseally mature but notyet full grown, or one that focused onfemales, which are smaller than equal-agemales. Environmental change, geographi-cal isolation, and genetic drift are all con-nected with size change. Moreover, ta-phonomic factors can also influence sizerange and variability. For example, as ananimal ages, even after its epiphyses arefully fused, the bones continue to increasein density. All other things being equal,the denser the bone, the better its chancesof surviving in an archaeological context.Poor preservation conditions thereforetend to result in an assemblage of rela-tively homogeneous and large bones. Atthe French Upper Palaeolithic site of So-lutre, both the Aurignacian and the Mag-

* See Notes section at end of paper for all foot-notes.

from the intervening Upper Perigordianlevel. No one could seriously suggest thatthis is evidence that the former were do-mesticated while the latter were wild (Le-vine 1979, 1983).

A decrease in size accompanied by anincrease in heterogeneity might be asso-ciated with domestication, but it couldhave other causes. It is, on its own, insuf-ficient as an explanation. Other corrobo-rative evidence must be obtained. Even iftoo few teeth were available for a full-blown population analysis, a study thatcompared aging data from a series of rel-atively small samples would surely be justas meaningful as one comparing morpho-metric data from a series of small samples.The latter, but not the former, are used byUerpmann and others (e.g., Uerpmann1990; Benecke 1993).

1.1.4. Bitwear

Another example of this commitment toan earliest date is Anthony’s argumentthat the domesticated horse was presentin the Ukraine earlier than in Kazakhstan.His evidence for this comes from bitwearstudies of two samples of lower secondpremolars from two Eneolithic sites, Botaiin northern Kazakhstan (5 from a total of19 teeth) and Dereivka in the Ukraine (2from a total of 6 teeth). He implies fromthis that horse domestication spread fromwest to east (Anthony 1995).

Relatively little archaeozoological re-search has been carried out in theformer Soviet Union, including both Ka-zakhstan and the Ukraine, and relativelyfew absolute dates are available (regard-ing the Ukraine, see Levine and Rassa-makin 1996). Botai and Dereivka do notconstitute representative samples ofsites within the vast regions in question.They cannot, therefore, be used to an-swer questions about origins and earli-est dates. Moreover, serious doubts havebeen raised about the stratigraphic loca-

tion of the “ritual” skull from Dereivka,

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32 MARSHA A. LEVINE

the basis of Anthony and Brown’s theoryof the origins of early horse domestica-tion (Rassamakin 1994). These doubtsseem to be confirmed by the mean cali-brated radiocarbon date recently ob-tained for that skull, 2915 B.C., morethan 1000 years later than most of theother dates for that site (Table 1) (Tele-gin 1986).

1.2. METHODOLOGICAL PROBLEMS

1.2.1. Conventional Approaches

The theoretical framework used untilrecently for interpreting the archaeozoo-logical data was seriously flawed (for amore detailed discussion see Levine 1990,1993). For example, the criteria used byvarious researchers as evidence that thehorses from Dereivka were domesticatedincluded the following: (1) the absence ofold horses; (2) the presence of a large pro-portion of male skulls; (3) the presence ofobjects identified as bridle cheekpieces;(4) the results of a morphological analysiscomparing the Dereivka horses with otherequid material; (5) their association withother domesticates—cattle, sheep, goat,pig, and dog; (6) the relatively large per-centage of horse bones and teeth in thedeposit (Bokonyi 1978, 1984; Bibikova967, 1970, 1969; Telegin 1986). However,n the basis of archaeological, ethno-raphic, and ethological comparisons, thebsence of old individuals is much moreikely to indicate hunting than herdingLevine 1982, 1990). Males would outnum-er females if either bachelor groups ortallions protecting their harems were tar-eted in the hunt. The cheekpieces mightot have been cheekpieces at all (Dietz992; Levine and Rassamakin 1996). Theorphological study involved very small

nd disparate samples and produced con-radictory results. The association oforses with other assumed domesticates

s not evidence of horse domestication. In

any case, they were also found with theremains of wild animals (Levine 1990,1993). The only species from Dereivka to

Dereivka Radiocarbon Dates

KI 5488: 4330 6 120 years B.P. (“ritual” skull)ean calibrated date: 2915 B.C.s; range 3092–2784 B.C.

3293 (0.03) 3277 3268 (0.05) 3240 3105 (0.75) 28652809 (0.12) 2750 2724 (0.05) 2699

2 s; range 3347–2610 B.C.3339 (0.78) 2838 2828 (0.02) 2650 2650 (0.02) 2619

UCLA 1671A: 4900 6 100 years B.P. (bone)Mean calibrated dates: 3692, 3670 B.C.1 s; range 3783–3548 B.C.3892 (0.01) 3889 3796 (0.86) 2633 3577 (0.14) 3535

2 s; range 3946–3383 B.C.3946 (0.13) 3832 3829 (0.84) 3503 3417 (0.03) 3383

KI 2197: 5230 6 95 years B.P. (shell)ean calibrated dates: 4033, 4025, 3998, B.C.s; range 4221–3959 B.C.

4221 (0.11) 4193 4154 (0.89) 3959

2 s; range 4320–3799 B.C.4317 (0.02) 4292 4256 (0.89) 3902 3882 (0.09) 3802

OXA 5030: 5380 6 90 years B.P. (bone fromcemetery)ean calibrated date: 4237 B.C.s; range 4337–4048 B.C.

4334 (0.58) 4216 4201 (0.28) 4141 4120 (0.14) 4087

2 s; range 4435–3985 B.C.4362 (1.00) 3988

KI 2193: 5400 6 100 years B.P. (shell)ean calibrated dates: 4310, 309, 4249 B.C.s; range 4346–4086 B.C.

4345 (0.63) 4216 4201 (0.25) 4141 4120 (0.12) 4087

2 s; range 4456–3985 B.C.4451 (0.03) 4420 4396 (0.02) 4374 4369 (0.92)

4030 4030 (0.04) 3994

UCLA 1466a: 5515 6 90 BP (bone)Mean calibrated date: 4350 BC1 sigma; Range 4457–4260 BC4458 (.83) 4317 4291 (0.17) 4256

2 sigma; Range 4527–4155 BC4540 (.94) 4218 4198 (0.4) 4145 4115 (.01) 4093

Source. Dates from Telegin, personal communica-tion, and conference abstract from Telegin (1995).Calibration from Stuiver and Reimer (1993).

be studied in detail was the horse. Be- 1.2.2. The Identification and Significance of


cause almost all the bones and teeth fromthis site have unfortunately been dis-carded, it is impossible for them to bereassessed. However, a preliminary exam-ination of the faunal assemblage from thenew excavations at Molukhov Bugor, an-other Dereivka culture site,2 has producedsome interesting, but extremely tentativeresults. No bones that could only havecome from domesticated animals andmany that must have come from wildones, for example, birds, tortoise, beaver,deer, have been identified, while the cattleand pigs were suggestively enormous.Much more work needs to be done on thisassemblage, but the initial results lendsupport to the far more detailed analysesalready carried out on the material fromDereivka (Levine 1990, 1993). On the onehand, there is little or no evidence that theDereivka culture people were pastoralists,while on the other hand, there is a goodreason to believe that they were hunter-gatherers (Levine and Rassamakin 1996).

Horses are relatively uncommon inEuropean Mesolithic and Neolithic ar-chaeological deposits. It has, therefore,commonly been held to be the case thatthey could not have been domesticatedduring those periods. On the otherhand, relatively large quantities of horsebones and teeth have been recoveredfrom Eneolithic sites on the central Eur-asian Steppe. Characteristics of toothmorphology, population structure, ta-phonomy, and taxonomic distinctionsbased on measurements, have beencredited as evidence for horse domesti-cation. Until recently, however, the mostimportant criterion had been that of in-creased relative abundance, which couldbe explained as well, or even better, byincreased hunting rather than bydomestication (Bokonyi 1978, 1984;Bibikova 1967, 1970, 1969; Petrenko 1984;Levine 1990, 1993).

Bitwear

As an analytical method, bitwear anal-ysis should make a valuable contributionto the study of horse domestication (An-thony and Brown 1991). However, it hasimportant limitations:

1. Tamed, as well as domesticated,horses could wear bits.

2. A horse can be ridden without a bit.3. Anthony and Brown have themselves

observed that bitwear traces will wear offif a horse is not bitted regularly over arelatively long period recently before itsdeath.

4. The question of whether the wearpattern described by Anthony and Browncould have had other causes has not beenadequately addressed. Their unbittedsample of feral horses consisted of 20 in-dividuals from two North American pop-ulations (mustangs from the mountains ofNevada and barrier island ponies fromthe Atlantic Coast). They have generalizedfrom this small sample that unbittedhorses could not manifest the wear pat-tern they describe as unique to bitwear.On the other hand, Angela von den Dri-esch (personal communication) has ob-served that similar, if not identical, wearon the lower second premolar can resultfrom abnormal occlusion with the uppersecond premolar.

As far as we know, then, beveling on theanterior part of the lower P2 masticatorysurface could be caused by bitwear or ab-normal occlusion. Either a domesticatedhorse or a wild one that had been tamedcould be bitted. The absence of bitwearcould indicate that a horse had not beenridden recently or regularly before itsdeath, that it was ridden unbitted, or thatit never was ridden. We must concludefrom this that bitwear should not be usedwithout corroboration as proof of domes-tication. This is not to say that bitwearstudies should not be carried out. On the

contrary, their use should be much more example, biomolecular analyses, stable

34 MARSHA A. LEVINE

widespread, but in conjunction with othermethods of analysis.

1.2.3. Sample Size and Innovation

Archaeologists and archaeozoologistscontinually lament the inadequacy oftheir samples. The assumption beingthat if only large enough datasets wereavailable, they would be able to find theanswer to any practically any question.However, this might not be the case.Considering the skills needed for man-aging large numbers of horses and con-sidering the small-scale nature of tam-ing, from which, as will be argued later,domestication is most likely to haveevolved, the key to the origins of horsedomestication might well lie with smallsamples. Archaeozoologists must faceup to this and develop methodologiesthat can cope with this reality. To regardsmall samples only as a problem is tomiss an opportunity.

1.3. A MULTIDIMENSIONALAPPROACH

The common thread, connecting all as-pects of the project, out of which this pa-per has evolved is the question of the or-igins and evolution of horse husbandry,its social and ecological implications—whether, for example, it arose out of agri-cultural, pastoral, or foraging communi-ties—how the domestication of the horsealtered the balance of power in ancientcommunities, and its impact on forest–steppe and steppe ecosystems. In thebroadest sense, my goal is to evaluate theways in which environmental, social, andeconomic changes are interrelated and totry to understand the role of the horse inthe equation. Such a complex problemrequires a multidimensional attack withammunition provided through the devel-opment of new analytical methods. Inter-disciplinary collaboration, including, for

isotope studies, paleopathology, ethnoar-chaeology, ethology, and paleoenviron-ment research as well as more conven-tional archaeological methods, is crucial tothis approach. The goal of this paper is totake a step in that direction by using acombination of ethnoarchaeological, etho-logical, and archaeological analyses tolook at the archaeological and archaeo-zoological data. But this is only the begin-ning.

2. POPULATION STRUCTURE ANDMODELS OF HORSE EXPLOITATION

The particular aspect of horse hus-bandry to be examined here is populationstructure. Survivorship and mortality pat-terns of recent horse herds are comparedwith various models and with assem-blages from Eneolithic and Iron Age/Ro-man archaeological sites. The methodol-ogy used integrates taphonomy andbutchery evidence with morphometrical,paleopathological, and population struc-ture analyses. All of these are interpretedwith reference to ecological, ethological,ethnoarchaeological, and contextual data(Levine 1979, 1982, 1983, 1990).

2.1. Relationships between Horsesand People

People can have a wide variety of dif-ferent types of relationships with horses.Horses can be wild, feral,3 or domesti-cated. Wild or feral horses can be huntedfor their meat and other body parts, ortamed as pets or beasts of burden. Do-mesticated animals can be raised forriding, traction, meat, milk, and otherproducts. Moreover, even within one so-ciety any combination of these relation-ships can coexist.

Though customarily defined as the con-trolled breeding of plants or animals byhumans, the real distinctiveness of do-mestication lies in the fact that it involvesownership and thus results in a com-

pletely different level of human commit- have a good laugh. There is no reason why


ment than does hunting (Levine 1979).Horse taming also involves ownership,but it seems likely from the historical andethnographic evidence so far availablethat the social and economic implicationsof horse taming would have been, at most,relatively superficial and localized andwould have disappeared with the death ofthe animals involved, while the repercus-sions of domestication would have rever-berated throughout the whole society.Our goal should not, therefore, be simplyto identify horse riding, traction, milking,and meat eating in the archaeologicalrecord, but, additionally, to find evidenceof horse breeding and taming, which are,as such, archaeologically invisible. How-ever, they may be approached indirectlythrough investigations of population struc-ture, archaeological context, and othercharacteristics of the data.

Historical and ethnographic accounts,as well as new ethnoarchaeological re-search, are all employed here to gain ac-cess to that variability. However, it is im-portant to observe at the very outset ofthis discussion that these kinds of datasources have their own particular prob-lems. For example:

1. Inaccuracy. Particularly in the case ofinterviews relating to past practices, wecan expect lapses of memory to distortevents that took place in the past. For ex-ample, in the case of interviews dealingwith the period before collectivization,4

my informants could not recall details ofherd population structure.

2. Distortions resulting from the infor-mant’s own personal agenda. It is wellknown among anthropologists that infor-mants may have their own reasons forwhat they say. For example, they may un-der- or overestimate the size of theirherds, if they think that there is an eco-nomic or political advantage to do so.Moreover, many people will say what isexpected of them to please or simply to

the motivations of the informant shouldbe any less complicated than those of theinterviewer.

3. Which brings us to the distortionsarising from the interviewer’s shortcom-ings. For example, phrasing a questionclearly, but not leadingly, can be particu-larly difficult. Imperfect knowledge of theinformant’s native language is a seriousproblem. The horse husbandry andbutchery vocabularies of most interpret-ers are not ideal. Moreover, it is impossi-ble to ask about everything. Certain limitsmust be placed in respect for the time andpatience of the informant. Therefore, thechoice of which questions to ask is critical.They need to be unambiguous and di-rected specifically toward solving archae-ological problems.

4. Then, assuming that we have takeninto account and minimized all these dif-ficulties, we still have to deal with prob-lems associated with the use and misuseof ethnographic analogy, by its naturehighly complicated and potentially bi-ased, to interpret the archaeological evi-dence— equally complex and probablyeven more biased, for example, by tapho-nomic factors.

Archaeologists have been known tothrow up their arms in despair at the dif-ficulties encountered with ethnographicanalogy and, indeed, some say that it canonly lead to tears. However, to interpretarchaeological data we must have someunderstanding of how human beings ac-tually behave. The unsatisfactory natureof the work carried out until recently re-garding horse domestication has clearlydemonstrated this problem (Levine 1990,1993). Without minimizing the difficultiesinvolved, it is therefore necessary to learnhow to use ethnographic and historicaldata. Consequently, the objective of thisethnoarchaeological study is not the directinterpretation of archaeological data fromethnographic and historical accounts, but

rather, an exploration of the range of ex- mounted on swift horses, and kill them

36 MARSHA A. LEVINE

tant possibilities, without assuming thatno others could have existed in the past.

2.1.1. Capturing and Taming Horses

According to Clutton-Brock, “A tameanimal differs from a wild one in that it isdependent on man and will stay close tohim of its own free will” (1987, p. 12).Aboriginal hunter-gatherers and horticul-turists throughout the world are known totame all kinds of wild animals to keep aspets (Serpell 1986, 1989).5 There is no rea-son to think that this would not have beenthe case at least from the time of the ear-liest anatomically modern Homo sapiens,and when the need arose, taming couldwell have been the first step toward do-mestication (Galton 1883; Clutton-Brock1987; Serpell 1989). Wild horses, particu-larly as foals, can be captured and tamedand, as such, ridden or harnessed and, atthe end of their lives, if necessary, slaugh-tered and eaten.

2.1.1.1. Taming the Przewalski’s horse. His-torical records also show that the capture,taming, and eventual captive breeding ofwild horses was dependent on the accu-mulation of knowledge about their behav-ior and on the development of techniquesto exploit that behavior. Perhaps the ear-liest record of a horse captured by thesemeans dates from 113 B.C.:

A Chinese . . . near Tun-huang, on the north-west frontier, frequently saw a horse . . . drink-ing in the river along with a number of wildhorses. He tamed the strange horse by putting atthe water-side a dummy figure of a man inwhose hands were bridle and halter. When thehorse was used to this sight he substituted him-self for the dummy, captured the horse. (Waley1955, pp. 98–9)

In another example Mohr refers to thedescription by John Bell, an 18th-centuryScottish doctor and traveler, of Przewals-ki’s horse hunting from horseback: “theseanimals are often surprised by the Kal-mucks; who ride in among them, well

with broad lances. Their flesh they esteemexcellent food; and use their skins to sleepupon” (Mohr 1971, p. 27).

According to 19th-century records,there were two methods of capturing Pr-zewalski’s horse foals. One was to trapthem in pits dug near waterholes. Theother was for mounted men to chase andcapture them with the arkan (a long polewith a noose fastened to one end). Whenthe pursuer came close enough to his tar-get, he would drop the noose over its headand neck (Mohr 1971). Grum-Grshimailodocuments another method: “During thefoaling season the Kalmucks take twohorses into the desert. As soon as theyhave found a herd, they chase them untilthe exhausted foals fall over. These foalsare picked up and placed in the domesti-cated herd” (Mohr 1971, p. 68). Przewals-ki’s horses were also captured by driving,though it is not clear whether the beaterswere on foot or horseback: “Even in 1750 itwas said: ‘The entire land around Lyau-tong is a wilderness; the emperor huntsthere with three thousand beaters, whoput up the game and drive it towards him,so that in one day 200 to 300 horses,amongst others may be caught’” (Mohr1971, p. 27).

The early 20th-century collectors foundthat their greatest difficulty was not incatching the horses, but rather in keepingthem alive in captivity. Attempts to feedunweaned foals on sheep and goat milkwere not successful. The solution to thisproblem was to foster them with domes-ticated mares (Bouman and Bouman1994). According to Frederick von Falz-Fein, one of the early collectors:

In 1897 a number of young wild horses werecaptured, but they all died because the catchwas not done as it should have been. I workedout the fullest details of the method and laidmuch stress on the importance of the animalsnot being chased before capture, but rather byshooting their mothers. As we could not getmilking mares from the Mongolians living in the

area, we had to buy them in Bijsk, and have

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old son . . . to sit on his back” (Mohr 1971,


them covered so that they foaled at the sametime as the wild mares.. . . Since these rules werenot obeyed—the catch was again unsuccessfuland all the animals died. We told Assanoff againto stick to the rules and thereafter there were nomore failures. (Mohr 1971, 95–96)

Przewalski’s horse mares currently incaptivity usually wean their young fromthe age of 1 year until just before the birthof their next foal, or even for several yearsif they do not give birth every year (Houptand Boyd 1994). Berger observed of theGreat Basin feral horses that 34 of 40 (85%)were weaned before the age of 1 year and27 (79%) of those were not observed tosuckle after their ninth month. “Becauseof winter-related stresses and because thelast trimester of pregnancy demands themost nutritionally . . . mothers weaned their

ffspring during winters” (Berger 1986, p.16). Foals can be weaned much earlier.owever, there is a cost to pay: “Evidence

or the importance of milk versus highlyutritious food for early growth rates istill sparse, but animal scientists haveound that orphaned foals experiencetunted development despite provision-ng with high planes of nutrition” (Berger,986, p. 119). Berger mentions a mustangrom the Granite Range (Nevada), or-haned at the age of 2 months. Despiteccess to good-quality grazing, even at thege of 3 years, he was only the size of aearling. Similarly a captive Przewalskioal, orphaned at the age of 21

2 months,survived but lagged in growth behind hisunorphaned paternal half-siblings untilthe age of 3 years despite supplementalfeeding (Houpt and Boyd 1994).

Taming and riding Przewalski’s horsescaptured from the wild was at one timeconsidered to be practically impossible(Mohr 1971). However, Erna Mohr refersto a 6-month-old Przewalski horse that“had become so far tame that it was easilyled and went quietly up the granite stair-case to the second story of the castle, wasled into a room and allowed the 7–8 year

p. 69). She also describes how an “untam-able” wild stallion was tamed and ridden:“In Askania Nova however, he found hismaster and within a month he was beingridden by his south Russian groom and onthe command would lie down like a Cir-cassian horse” (Mohr 1971, p. 69).

This has important implications for the-ories concerning early horse taming. Itseems likely that before the availability ofdomesticated mares to foster capturedfoals, there would have been both lowerand upper limits to the ages at which tam-ing would have been successful. Althoughvery few data relevant to this questionseem to be available, the lower limit mighthave been at around the age of 2 months.We can only speculate about a possibleupper limit on the basis of comments inthe literature referring to the difficulty orimpossibility of taming adults (Mohr 1971).However, other factors, which would alsohave been critical, include the skills of thecaptor and the personality of the horse.

2.1.1.2. Taming North American feralhorses. Some parallels between centralEurasian and North American aboriginalhorse capture and taming techniques areparticularly interesting because they sug-gest that certain aspects of the human–horse relationship are not culture-bound,but are rather mediated by both species’natural patterns of behavior in a muchmore fundamental way. For example, ac-cording to Ewers (1955), northern Plainspeoples such as the Blackfoot and theCree were not very skilled at taming mus-tangs, the North American feral horses.Most of the few adult feral horses cap-tured by them died after they reachedcamp. However, some colts and yearlingswere caught by “horse medicine men,”specialist feral horse tamers, whose tam-ing technique was described as follows:

A man who possessed horse medicine for use incatching wild horses rubbed it on his hands, feet,and rope. Then he circled the wild horse up windso that the odour of the medicine would be carried

to the nostrils of the wild one. When the wild tion of a corral apparently used by the

38 MARSHA A. LEVINE

horse smelled the medicine it came to him. Heroped it by the front feet and threw it down. Onlyhorse medicine men were said to have had successin capturing wild horses. (Ewers 1955, p. 274)

According to Ewers, the southern andcentral Plains tribes were much moreskilled than the northern tribes at captur-ing mustangs. The former had more andearlier experience of horses and they hadbigger herds, which suggests that theywere more familiar with horse behavior.However, all the Plains groups were inagreement that mustangs were difficult tocatch. According to George Catlin:

There is no other animal on the prairies so wildand so sagacious as the horse; and none other sodifficult to come up with. So remarkably keen istheir eye, that they will generally run “at thesight,” when they are a mile distant; being, nodoubt, able to distinguish the character of theenemy that is approaching when at that dis-tance; and when in motion, will seldom stopshort of three or four miles. (Catlin 1841, Vol. 1,p. 57).

The two main tools used for capturingferal horses were the lasso with a runningloop and the lasso loop fixed to a longstick, very much like the Mongol arkan(Ewers 1955). In conjunction with an inti-mate knowledge of horse behavior and afit, well-trained mount, these could beused successfully to capture and breakmustangs (Catlin 1841; Ewers 1955; Grin-nell 1923; James 1823; Wallace and Hoebel1952). A number of methods of capturinghorses have been described in the ethno-graphic literature:

1. Corralling: This method was used ex-tensively by the Kiowa and occasionallyby the Commanche6 and Cheyenne. Wal-lace and Hoebel (1952) speculate that itcould have evolved out of antelope andbison hunts, but the same technique wasalso used by the Spanish for huntinghorses. On one occasion in 1852, 400 to 500horses were driven into an enclosure bythe Commanches (Wallace and Hoebel1952). Grinnell gives a detailed descrip-

Cheyenne:

[I]n the year 1836, members of Cheyenne warparties . . . in what is now Oklahoma, found agreat corral which had been used for catchinghorses. This pen was situated in a park or open-ing in the black-jack timber . . . This pen was notcircular in shape, but was oval, the opening be-ing at one end. The fence . . . was a stockadeformed of black-jack posts set on end in theground and close together. On the outside of thefence brush and the limbs of trees were piledagainst the stockade. The wings of underbrushwere heaped up high and wide, so that a horsecould neither see through nor jump overthem . . .

. . . the Kiowas explained to the Cheyennes thepurpose and the manner of use of the structure.Of the horses driven into this corral the bestyoung ones were roped and dragged out to beused, while the older and otherwise less usefulanimals were butchered for their flesh andhides. The Kiowas used horse-hide for all pur-poses for which the skins of large animals areemployed. (Grinnell 1923, p. 292)

2. The Chase: All other things beingequal a man on horseback is no match fora free-running mustang. Therefore, theIndians developed variations on the chasetheme that would enable them to capturestrong, healthy animals.

a. Chasing animals in a weakenedstate: The ethnographic literature is notalways clear about details of how horseswere captured. However, the most wide-spread method seems to have involvedrunning down the mustangs on horsebackand dropping a noose over their head.This method was employed by the Man-dan and the Osage (Catlin 1841), the Com-manche (Wallace and Hoebel 1952), andthe Cheyenne (Grinnell 1923). As ob-served by Wallace and Hoebel, all otherthings being equal, this method could besuccessful only for weak animals, for ex-ample, foals and pregnant or sucklingmares, since a strong horse should be ableto run faster than a horse and rider. How-ever, things were not always equal. Forexample, using a well-fed riding horsegave the captor an advantage in the winter

or early spring when most feral horses dency to circle to the left when being fol-


were in poor condition. On the otherhand, a fit horse could be used to rundown fat horses in summer or to chase“waterlogged” horses just leaving the wa-terhole (Wallace and Hoebel 1952; Grin-nell 1923).

b. Chasing in relays: This method wasexpensive in terms of energy consump-tion, but would have resulted in the cap-ture of the very best animals, includingstallions. It was used by the Osage (James1823) and the Commanche (Wallace andHoebel 1952).

In capturing the hard-to-take stallions . . . thebest way was to stalk them with a team of co-operating hunters. Each herd tended to moveabout within a limited range of territory; whenflushed, it was likely to travel in a circle, return-ing eventually to or near the spot where it wasoriginally found. To accomplish this end, one ormore horsemen kept the herd continuously onthe move without allowing it either to eat or todrink . . . the stalkers, by remaining on the in-side of the circle, travelled a much shorter dis-tance than the herd. When their own mountswearied, the riders were replaced by others orwere supplied with fresh mounts. This proce-dure was continued without let-up for two orthree days or until the herd became exhausted,when a number of riders on fresh mounts rodein and lassoed their pick of the wild horses.”(Wallace and Hoebel 1952, p. 44)

c. The surround: On the open plains,mustangs would be surrounded by agroup of riders. When a horse would try tobreak away, a noose was dropped over itshead (Wallace and Hoebel 1952).

d. Chasing on foot: According to Catlin,the Cheyenne, who captured more mus-tangs than any other tribe, frequentlyused this method. A horseman wouldstart out by “plunging” into a band of wildhorses, forcing one animal out of thegroup, whereupon he would dismountfrom his own animal and set out on footafter the panicked individual. This is an-other method that exploits the horse’s ten-

lowed:

The Indian seeing the direction in which thehorse is “leaning,” knows just about the pointwhere the animal will stop, and steers in astraight line to it, where they arrive nearly at thesame instant, the horse having run a mile, whilehis pursuer has gone but half or three-quartersof the distance. (Catlin 1875, p. 113).

He would thus keep it on the move until itwas so exhausted that he could throw alasso over its head.

3. Capturing with decoys: Both theCheyenne and the Commanches targetedbachelor groups by sending out a few old,gentle mares as decoys (Wallace andHoebel 1952; Grinnell, 1923). According toGrinnell, “after a time the herd could beapproached, driven together, and perhapsmany of the young horses caught” (Grin-nell 1923, p. 295).

2.1.1.3. Taming captured mustangs. Someof the ethnographic reports are ratherself-contradictory in that they suggest, onthe one hand, that taming feral horses wasvery difficult while, on the other hand,they describe the process as if it were verysimple. For example, regarding the ab-original inhabitants of the Great Plains,Catlin states that “Scarcely a man in theseregions is to be found, who is not theowner of one or more of these horses; andin many instances of eight, ten or eventwenty, which he values as his own per-sonal property” (Catlin 1841a, p. 142).Moreover, with regard to the acquisitionof a mustang by a Frenchman, raised in anOsage village, he remarks: “the wholething, the capture, and breaking, all hav-ing been accomplished within the space ofone hour, our usual and daily halt at mid-day” (Catlin 1841b, p. 60). This paradox ispartly explained by the diverse origins ofthe sources referred to here, but perhapsalso by the talent that experts have tomake the most difficult activities appearsimple. In other words, it is possible thatthe European observers overstated their

understanding of the events taking place Interestingly this method employs the

40 MARSHA A. LEVINE

around them. This ignorance is well illus-trated by Catlin’s account of his own mis-begotten attempt to capture a feral horse:

[W]e would try the experiment of “creasing”one . . . which is done by shooting them throughthe gristle on the top of the neck, which stunsthem so that they fall, and are secured withhobbles on the feet; after which they rise againwithout fatal injury. This is a practice often re-sorted to by expert hunters. . . . My friend Joeand I . . . having both levelled our pieces at thewithers of a noble, fine-looking iron grey, wepulled trigger, and the poor creature fell. . . .Weadvanced speedily to him, and had the mostinexpressible mortification . . . to find that one ofour shots had broken the poor creature’s neck,and that he was quite dead. (Catlin 1841b, p. 58)

Despite its shortcomings, it is useful toconsider some of the documentation re-ferring to the process of breaking andtaming feral horses. According to Catlin,the affect of the lasso on the horse was toconstrict its air passage until it fell over,whereupon its captor hobbled its forefeettogether, fitted a halter with a noose thattied under its jaw, and loosened the lassoso that it could breathe. Then,

by a great many useless struggles to rise, thehorse remaining yet in its sitting posture, andthe Indian approaching nearer and nearer (inchby inch) to its nose, on the shortened halter, andyelling as loud as he can, the animal’s fear isincreased to the highest degree. The Indian stilladvances nearer on the tightened halter, and atlength begins patting the horse on the nose, andgradually slipping his hand over its eyes, beginsbreathing in its nostrils, their noses being to-gether.

After a few breaths exchanged in this manner,the relaxation of the horse’s muscles and itsother motions, show that its fears are at an end—that it recognises a friend instead of a foe, in itscaptor; and this compromise being effected, theIndian is seen stroking down its mane, and oth-erwise caressing it; and in fifteen or twenty min-utes he is seen riding it quietly off!

. . . the excess of fatigue, of fright, and actualpain, followed by soothing and kindness, seemsto disarm the spirited animal, and to attach it atonce, in a mysterious way, to its new master.(Catlin 1875, p. 109–110)

same kind of psychological approach asthat recently developed by Monty Robertin which the safe space or “comfort zone,”occupied by the gentle but dominanttrainer, is opposed to the dangerous spaceaway from him, in which the horse feelsthreatened and isolated (Bayley and Max-well 1996). This training method takes ad-vantage both of the horse’s instinctiveflight response and of its natural sociabil-ity.

One Commanche and Cheyenne methodof taming involved tying the choked cap-tive to the tail of a gentle mare (Wallaceand Hoebel 1952; Grinnell 1923):

Three or four days later . . . it was set free, andthereafter followed her about wherever shewent. The mare was then used to tame anotherhorse, and if the party was out for a long timesome mares might have eight or ten capturedhorses following them about. These wild horseswere readily broken to the saddle. While theywere “tailed” to the mare, the owner would oc-casionally go up to the mare, pat her for a littlewhile, and then pass on to the young horse,handling it and gentling it. In this way it becameaccustomed to the sight and smell of man, andno longer feared him. Sometimes after the horsehad become somewhat gentle, a young manwould spring on its back and at once jump offagain. The wild horse soon learned that it wasnot to be hurt. The man who mounted wouldpresently sit on the horse for a little while, andthen the old mare might be led about by some-one while the young man was sitting on the wildhorse’s back. Thus the work of breaking it to ridewas not long. (Grinnell 1923, pp. 294–295)

Unfortunately, no survival rates areavailable for any of these methods. Butsome were, apparently, brutal enough toexplain the difficulty some groups experi-enced in keeping captives alive. Other rel-evant factors could well have been theage, sex, constitution, and personality ofthe horse as well as the skill of the captor.

2.1.2. Modelling Horse Use

During historical times both the NorthAmerican Plains tribes and the Mongols

used the arkan, lasso, or herd drive to cap- age. The first mares placed with the stallion


ture wild or feral horses to eat or to tame.Horses taming was regarded as a skillmost successfully carried out by special-ists, whose most important tool was theirintimate knowledge of horse behavior. Onthis basis I would like to propose a possi-ble scenario for the development of horsehusbandry.

As a working hypothesis, I would like tosuggest that horse taming probably firstarose as a by-product of horse hunting formeat. Orphaned foals, captured betweenthe ages of perhaps 2 months and 1 year,or possibly somewhat later, would some-times have been adopted and raised aspets. Eventually, and perhaps repeatedly,the discovery was made that these petscould be put to work. This knowledgecould have been acquired and lost manytimes from the Pleistocene onward. But itwas, apparently, only during the Holo-cene—possibly between the Neolithic andthe Early Bronze Age—that it began toinfluence human social developments.

Initially the difficulties involved inkeeping captured wild horses alive wouldhave set limits to their impact as workanimals on human society. Furthermore,considering the problems encountered bymodern collectors trying to breed Przew-alski’s horses, it seems likely that horse-keeping would have had to have beenrelatively advanced before controlledbreeding, and thus domestication, wouldhave been possible: “Failure to considerthe typical social organization of the spe-cies can result in problems such as pacing,excessive rates of aggression, impotenceand infanticide” (Boyd and Houpt 1994, p.222). To breed wild horses successfully incaptivity, their environmental, nutritional,and social requirements must be met:

In zoos, juvenile male Przewalski’s horsesshould be left in their natal bands for at least ayear so that they can observe mating behaviour.They should be placed in bachelor herds whenremoved from the natural band, and not givenharems until they are at least four or five years of

should be younger than he and the harem sizeshould be kept small until the stallion gains ageand experience. (Boyd and Houpt 1994, p. 226)

That capturing wild horses and stealingtamed or domesticated ones were re-garded by the Plains tribes as preferableto breeding them supports the scenarioproposed here. If it is correct, it seemslikely that there would have been a rela-tively long period when new horses wouldhave been recruited from wild popula-tions. This could have been carried out bytrapping, driving, and chasing, as docu-mented for the Mongols and North Amer-ican Plains tribes.

This leads me to hypothesize that horsedomestication could have taken a rela-tively long time to develop and might wellhave depended on the taming of individ-uals predisposed to breed in captivity.Horse domestication would thus, in asense, have been initiated by the horsesthemselves. Also significant is the possi-bility that human understanding of horsebehavior had developed to such a degreethat horses finally could breed in captiv-ity. Perhaps the most likely scenario isthat the human and equine parts of theequation would have evolved together.The development of horse breedingwould, of course, have had particular sig-nificance outside the natural range of thewild horse.

2.2. An EthnoarchaeologicalInvestigation of Equine Pastoralism

Scholars from Russia and other parts ofEastern Europe have carried out im-mensely valuable ethnographic researchon central Eurasian equine pastoralism.However, this work does not usually di-rectly address the questions of particularrelevance to the study of the origins ofhorse domestication. The project to bediscussed below has been designed spe-cifically to deal with issues connected withthat problem. It presents some resultsfrom an ongoing ethnoarchaeological

mmtcdipid

TABLE 2

DJMSK

42 MARSHA A. LEVINE

study of equine pastoralism on the Eur-asian steppe. The data have arisen princi-pally in the course of five interviews, con-ducted between 1989 and 1992, withpeople involved with horse husbandry inMongolia and northern Kazakhstan in therecent past or present.

2.2.1. The Interviews

Although the interviews covered all as-pects of horse husbandry—from thoserelated to riding and traction to those con-nected with milk, meat, and hide produc-tion—this paper concentrates on thoseassociated with population structure. It at-tempts to demonstrate how certain ar-chaeozoologically visible characteristics ofhorse husbandry, such as age and sexstructure, fit into the overall picture ofpastoral life. It also gives some indicationof the variability of possible behaviors re-lated to equine pastoralism. Although thedata collected are not generally appropri-ate for direct translation into life tables,they can be used for the development ofmodels and in general comparisons.

The word traditional is used here pri-arily to describe precollectivizationethods of horse husbandry. Collectiviza-

ion took place—or perhaps more signifi-antly, took hold—in different places atifferent times. In northern Kazakhstan it

s dated to the 1930s, but it was not im-osed on Mongolia until 1955. Since my

nformants’ accounts are entirely depen-ent on their memories, the earliest pe-

Informant’s Back

Informant Location Ec

amdin E. Mongolia Stepambalsuren C. Mongolia Mou

ursabaev N. Kazakhstan Forehavardak N. Kazakhstan Foreozakhmetov N. Kazakhstan Fore

riod discussed here will be that of theirchildhood or as far back as their parents’reminiscences. Thus, traditional, as de-fined here, extends from the end of the19th century to the 1930s in the case ofKazakhstan and to the 1950s in the case ofMongolia.

2.2.1.1. Background information (Table2). The first two interviews were carriedout in Cambridge in 1989 and 1990. Theinformants, Damdin and Jambalsuren, werevisiting scholars at the Mongolian and In-ner Asian Studies Unit (Cambridge).

Damdin, a senior lecturer in the Depart-ment of Foreign Languages (Ulan BatorUniversity, Mongolia), grew up on thesteppe in the extreme eastern part ofMongolia, in the Jargalant district of theDornod province during the late 1930sand 1940s. He was from a family of pasto-ral nomads belonging to the Khalkha clan.Since collectivization did not take place inDornod until 1955, the way of life he de-scribes was still rather traditional. Impor-tant characteristics of this lifestyle includethe absence of permanent dwellings (theylived in felt tents, known as yurts), andyear-round migrations, seasonal in char-acter, in search of grazing for their herdsof horses, sheep, goats, cattle, and camels.

Jambalsuren (Academy of Sciences, In-stitute of Language, Ulan Bator, Mongo-lia) grew up in the mountainous region ofcentral Mongolia during the 1950s. His fa-ther was a carpenter and his family wassettled. Until the age of 16 years Jambal-suren was a yak herder. Because his father

und Information

stemHusbandry

typeEconomic

system

Traditional Nomadicins Traditional Settledteppe Modern Ranchingteppe Modern Settledteppe Traditional Semi-nomadic

gro

osy

pentast–sst–sst–s

was a craftsman and because of the moun- TABLE 3


tainous terrain, his family did not havemany horses. He, therefore, had only alimited knowledge of horse husbandry.

The next three interviews took place in1992 in the forest–steppe zone of northernKazakhstan, where the informants live.

Dastan Chalievich Murzabaev, presidentof the trade union at the Kirov sovkhoz inthe Dzhambul region of North Kazakhstan,discussed contemporary horse ranching atthe state farm where he worked.

Yurii Ivanovich Shavardak works forthe Burlukskii sovkhoz (Volodarovskiidistrict, North Kazakhstan). He herds allthe horses from Nikolskoe, a village nearthe archaeological site of Botai. Most ofthe horses are owned privately by the Ka-zakh inhabitants of the village, but somebelong to the sovkhoz. Shavardak grew upin Nikolskoe and, although he is Russian,he was trained to herd and butcher horsesusing a mixture of modern, that is, post-collectivization, and traditional Kazakhmethods. Collectivization took place inthis region during the 1930s.

Mamet Kozhakhmetovich Kozhakhme-tov, born in 1915, is a former herdsmen,then schoolteacher, and finally, at the timeof the interview, a pensioner. He was bornand brought up at Botai aul7 (Karatalskiisovkhoz, Volodarovskii district, North Ka-zakhstan). With the help of EslyambeyZakir’yanovich Zakir’yanov, his relativeand headmaster of the school in Nikols-koe, he described horse husbandry as itwas in his childhood, before collectiviza-tion. The people from Botai aul are per-manently settled now, but before collec-tivization they were seminomadic. Theyspent the cold months of the year in thepermanent dwellings of the aul. In thesummer, however, they moved onto thesteppe. Each household had traditionalrights to a particular territory and to a plotof land where they could set their yurteach year.

A relatively wide variety of ecosystems

(steppe and forest–steppe) and husbandrystrategies (nomadic, semi-nomadic, andsettled) are represented in these inter-views. The diversity of the data givessome idea of the range of possible strate-gies available to horse herders in thesteppe and forest–steppe regions of cen-tral Eurasia. It is hypothesized that simi-larities and differences arising from thatdiversity might have some value in eluci-dating some of the fundamental elementsof equine pastoralism. Of course, caremust be taken in generalizing from such asmall sample. Moreover, throughout themillennia waves of change have repeat-edly swept across Eurasia, drawing peopletogether and tearing them apart, remind-ing us that history is no bit player in thisstory.

2.2.1.2. Number of horses per household(Table 3). Generalizations about thequantity of horses in settled householdsare not very useful, but it is quite interest-ing to compare figures obtained fromDamdin and Kozhakhmetov concerningthe period before collectivization. Takingcare not to read too much into a sample of2, it does seem that concepts relating toherd size were very similar for both thenomadic Mongols and semi-nomadic Ka-zakhs interviewed. To carry out seasonalmigrations at least 10 horses were neces-sary. An average household had about 20to 40 and a rich household might havekept hundreds or even thousands ofhorses. These figures are in line withthose given by Khazanov (1984), Tokta-baev (1992), and Krader (1955). Shavard-

Number of Horses per Household

Informant Minimum Average Maximum

Damdin 10 20–301 100s–1000sJambalsuren 1/person 40 3000Mursabaev 1 — —Shavardak 1 — 10Kozhakhmetov 4–10 40 300

TABLE 4

44 MARSHA A. LEVINE

ak’s herd comprises about 100 horses,around 15 of which belong to the statefarm, while the rest are privately owned.Nearly all the Kazakh households in Ni-kolskoe have at least one horse, whilesome have as many as 10.

2.2.1.3. Population structure (Table 4). Thenatural reproductive unit of thehorse is the family group, composed of astallion, his mares, and their young up tothe age of about 2 to 4 years. It may com-prise up to 21 mares, although the averageis usually much less, perhaps around 2 to4 and usually no more than 5 or 6 (Berger1986; Klingel 1969, 1974; Bouman and Bou-man 1994, Houpt and Boyd 1994). The stal-lion normally starts his own family groupat the age of 5 or 6 years, although hemight not be successful at holding oneagainst attacks from other males until theage of 7 (Klingel 1969; Berger 1986; Mon-fort et al. 1994; Houpt and Boyd 1994). Thesecond natural type of horse social unit isthe bachelor group, made up entirely ofmales from the age of 2 years until theirdeparture from the group to form theirown bands and, less commonly, of oldermales who have lost theirs to strongerstallions. The bachelor group may com-prise up to 15 individuals, but the averageis much lower, about 2 to 4 (Klingel 1969;Berger 1986).

The structure of the wild herd is rele-vant here because all the horse husbandrypatterns, described by my informants, ex-

Herd Popul

Informant Reproductive unit Gelding st

Damdin Family group With familJambalsuren Family group Near famil

Mursabaev Stallions 1 mares In separateShavardak Family group In separateKozhakhmetov Family group In separate

a Figures in parentheses refer to his own family’s

ploit to some extent the natural tendencyof horses to structure themselves intofamily groups. That is, the pastoralist re-productive unit mimics the natural familygroup, composed of a stallion, his mares,and their young. However, the structureof the pastoralist herd is, in all cases, dis-torted by the artificially large number ofmares assigned to each stallion. This ismost extreme for the nontraditional herd-ers. The ratio of 1 stallion to 15 to 20 maresis remarkably constant in the traditionalcontext. This is particularly interesting inthe light of an observation by Houpt andBoyd that “Przewalski’s stallions with har-ems of thirteen to eighteen females havebecome overly aggressive toward theirmares or apathetic about breeding” (Boydand Houpt 1994, p. 226). That the domesticmare:stallion ratio is only a little greaterthan the Przewalski ratio, attests both tothe consistency of horse behavior and tothe herders’ knowledge. Geldings are thedomestic equivalent of equine bachelors.All males surplus to breeding require-ments are castrated.

In the Mongolian cases all age and sexclasses graze more or less together. InDamdin’s pastoral nomadic example, thegeldings graze in their natal familygroups. According to Jambalsuren, geld-ings graze together near the family groupbut apart from it. The Kazakh herd struc-ture seems generally to be more compli-cated. According to Murzabaev’s ranching

n Structure

ture

Herd sex composition

Stallions Mares Foals Geldings

roup 1 15–20 15–20 15–20roup 1 15 15 10

(0)a (1) (0) (4)oup 1 25 ? ?oup 1 45 45 15oup 1 15–20 20 ?

ses.

atio

ruc

y gy g

grgrgr

hor

level, controlled by its biology and itsTABLE 5

BLE


example, all foals are taken from theirmothers at the age of about 6 or 7 months,when they are weaned. They are then keptin a separate herd, composed entirely ofyoung horses. The family group describedby Shavardak is composed of the stallion,mares, young of the year, yearlings, and afew 2- to 3-year-olds (Table 5). In Kozha-khmetov’s semi-nomadic herd, foals un-der 1 year and yearlings were left withtheir mothers in the family group. All the2- to 3-year-olds from the aul grazed to-gether in a separate herd. The geldingswould graze with the 2- to 3-year-olds un-less there were too many, in which casethey constituted a herd of their own.

2.2.1.4. Reproduction (Table 6). The fe-cundity of the horse is, at its most basic

Shavardak’s Herd: Population Structure

Age(years) Frequency Sex

0–1 40 Male:female ratio approx 1:11–2 30 Male:female ratio approx 1:12–3 2–3 Females only

3–5 8–10Females only, have had first

birth5–10 10 Females only

10–15 10 Females only15–20 8 Females only.20 10 Females only30 1 Stallion

120.5 Excludes geldings

TARepro

Informant

Age begin breeding(years)

Stallions Mares

Damdin 4–5 4–5Jambalsuren 4 (?) 4Mursbaev 2 2Shavardak 4 2–3a

Kozhakhmetov 4 3–4

a The most frequent age is in boldface.

ethology, so that divergence from the nat-ural situation is of considerable interest.Horses are generally most productive be-tween the ages of 4 and 15 years.

Przewalski’s mares are capable of con-ceiving by 2 years of age; however, mostdo not breed until their fourth year. Theyusually remain fertile until around the ageof 20 years, though one is known to havegiven birth at 24 years (Montfort et al.1994). Granite Range feral mares havebeen known to bear their first young at theage of 2 years, which means that somebecame pregnant as yearlings. They cancontinue to produce foals at least until theage of 22 years; however, the period ofgreatest productivity is between the agesof 5 and 17 years:

About 37% of the two-year-olds and 40% of thethree-year-olds produced foals, while femalesfour years and older were more successful atproducing foals . . . for the most part, femalesbetween five to seventeen years of age enjoyedthe greatest success in foal production . . . Atleast 83% of (p.79) females within this age cohortgave birth to four foals over a five year period.(Berger 1986, p. 80–81)

When he looked at some other mustangpopulations, Berger discovered that 2-year-olds did not produce young. The 3-year-olds did, but percentages ranged from 11to 25%. Five-year-olds were found to bemore fecund than 4-year-olds in all pop-ulations. The rates for each cohort were

6ction

Age cease breeding(years)

Foals/year/mareStallions Mares

Old 14–16 Almost 110–15 (?) 101 (?) Around 1 (?)

15 15 130 30–35 Almost 120 20–30 1

du

TABLE 7

46 MARSHA A. LEVINE

lower than those in the Granite popula-tion, which is growing. Berger also ob-served that foaling rates for North Amer-ican feral horses were generally higherthan those of South African thorough-breds (Berger 1986).

Wild and feral stallions usually startbreeding later than mares, at around 5years of age, but can continue longer. Theoldest known successfully breeding Prze-walski stallion was 36 years old. Experi-ence with breeding captive Przewalskimales suggests that “immature males (upto four years of age) may be incapable ofbreeding because they either are subordi-nate to older stallions/mares or exhibit in-competent sexual behaviour” (Montfort etal. 1994, p. 188). Apparently none of theGranite Range males under 5 years of agesucceeded in producing young. Of those 5years old or less, 71% (5 of 7) lost their firstmares, while none 6 years or older did.The stallions that fathered the greatestnumbers of offspring were 7 to 10 yearsold and the next most productive were 11to 13 years old. The oldest stallion thatsucceeding in siring offspring was about22 years of age (Berger 1986).

Domesticated Mongol and Kazakh stal-lions begin breeding earlier than the wildand feral ones. Moreover, while all thedomesticated females begin to breed ataround the same age as free-living ones,the Mongol mares start later than those of

Ri

Informant

Which rid

Geldings Stallio

Damdin Ya yJambalsuren Y ?Mursabaev y ?Shavardak Y nKozhakhmetov Y (3–5c) n

a Y, most frequently ridden; y, ridden not as frequb Age most usually broken.c Number of riding horses/household.

the Kazakhs. According to Berger, thecauses of this kind of variability are un-known (Berger 1986). However, such factorsas the availability of high-quality forageand favorable environmental conditionsare probably important.

The age at which stallions cease breed-ing is similar in all the populations dis-cussed here. For mares, however, it ismuch more variable. Kazakh mares maycontinue producing young until the age of20 to 35 years. However, according toDamdin, after the age of 15 or 16 years,Mongol mares are no longer able to pro-duce strong enough foals. They are there-fore slaughtered at that age. Since most ofthe foals from the Kazakh populations dis-cussed here are raised for meat ratherthan to ride, their quality is not as impor-tant as their quantity. It might also besignificant that environmental conditionsin northern Kazakhstan are generally lessharsh than those in eastern Mongolia.

2.2.1.5. Riding (Table 7). Generalizingfrom the five interviews discussed here, itis clear that, although stallions and maresas well as geldings are ridden, the latterare most important for this purpose.Horses are usually broken at around 2–3years of age, but are not ridden hard untilthey are approximately 3–4 years old. Theparticular arrangements described byeach of the informants relate to the ways

g

?Age broken for riding

(years)Mares

y 1 (2b)–3y 1–3y 2n 3y 2

ly as Y; n, not usually ridden.

din

den

ns

ent

in which horse husbandry fits into their TABLE 8


local environments and economies.The nomadic pastoralists described by

Damdin ride mainly geldings; however,mares and stallions are also broken andtrained. It is the attitude of these peoplethat all the horses in a herd must be rid-den; otherwise they might as well be wild.It is only a bad herdsman who does notuse all his animals. This is, no doubt, aresponse to the harshness of the easternMongolian steppe environment. Impor-tant as they are for meat and other pur-poses, survival depends on having enoughmounts. Breaking horses here is a rela-tively gradual process. At the age of 1 thefoal is trained to wear a halter and is bro-ken to the saddle when it is 2 to 3 years ofage. This job is carried out by boys from 10to 16 years of age. Initially the younghorses are ridden only near the yurt bychildren.

Settled Mongols like Jambalsuren ap-parently rode both male and female horses,though geldings again were most impor-tant. Jambalsuran’s family did not breedhorses and kept them mainly for riding.Their three mounts, one for each memberof the family, were purchased from friendsand neighbors.

According to Shavardak, the ridinghorses in Nikolskoe are almost exclusivelygeldings. Mares are used almost entirelyfor breeding, milk, and meat production,while the stallion was used only for breed-ing. Likewise in Kozhakhmetov’s semi-nomadic pastoralist example, the individ-uals selected for riding or traction weremost usually geldings. It was not consid-ered necessary to break all horses forriding. Three to five mounts would usu-ally be enough for a household. Marescould be broken as work animals, but itwas regarded as better to save them forbreeding. The difference between theseKazakhs and the Mongols, described byDamdin, is probably at least partly refer-able to the shorter distances traveled and

less extreme climatic conditions in north-ern Kazakhstan by comparison with east-ern Mongolia.

2.2.1.6. Milk, meat, fat, and other products(Table 8). In both northern Kazakhstanand Mongolia horses are slaughteredfrom late November to late December orJanuary, while their fat content is stillhigh. Because of the long and intenselycold winters in this region, meat can bestored outdoors without refrigeration. Ex-cept for special occasions like weddingsand funerals, horses are almost neverslaughtered during the rest of the year.According to Damdin, unlike beef, horse-meat cannot be dried, so that in his regionit is always eaten fresh. However, innorthern Kazakhstan the usual practice isto smoke any fresh meat left over at theend of the winter.

Horse milk, meat, and fat are valuableand highly valued resources for the Turkic(including Kazakh) and Mongolian inhab-itants of the Asiatic steppe (Levine 1998a).Medicinal as well as nutritional propertiesare attributed to them. These traditionalbeliefs are, in fact, supported by scientificresearch. Horse flesh is an important sourceof vitamins, minerals, essential amino ac-ids, and essential fatty acids (Gunga 1976;Rossier and Berger 1988). By comparisonwith that of ruminants such as cattle andsheep, equid flesh is high in protein andlow in fat (particularly saturated andmono-unsaturated fat) (Gade 1976). Table9 shows that horse meat and milk are pro-portionately much richer in essential fattyacids (particularly linoleic and a-linolenic

Milk, Meat, and Fat

Informant Milk Meat Fat valued?

Damdin No Yes HighlyJambalsuren Yes Rarely HighlyMursabaev Yes Yes As bovidaeShavardak Yes Yes HighlyKozhakhmetov Yes Yes Highly

TABLE 9

48 MARSHA A. LEVINE

acid) than ruminant meat and milk (Sin-clair 1964; Williams and Crawford 1987;Rossier and Berger 1988). Even the meat ofold horses is relatively tender and, bycomparison with ruminant flesh, highlydigestible (Gade 1976; Rossier and Berger1988). This difference is also reflected inthe behavior of the Hadza, hunter-gather-ers from Tanzania (James Woodburn, per-sonal communication). According to Wood-burn, traditionally the Hadza hunted awide variety of herbivores of which themost important numerically were impalaand zebra. Zebra was preferred, becauseof the nature and abundance of its fat. TheHadza, like many other traditional hunt-ers, value fat more highly than protein(Speth 1983). They classify fat as eitherhard (high in saturated fat, as in the caseof bovids) or soft (high in polyunsaturatedfat, as in the case of equids). Because ofthe importance of soft fat as a weaningfood, an adult male zebra is an idealHadza prey.

Horse flesh is regarded by both Kaza-khs and Mongols as especially importantin winter or when they must travel. Ac-cording to Damdin, a person who eatshorse flesh for breakfast can work

Fatty Acid Composi

Fatty acid

Depot fat (% by

Cow Sheep Horse Human

SaturatedC14 and below 3 3 5 6Palmitic (C16) 29 25 26 25Stearic (C18) 21 28 5 6C20 and above 1 0 Trace 1

Mono-unsaturatedPalmitoleic (C16:1) 3 1 7 7Oleic (C18:1) 41a 37a 34 45

Polyunsaturated:Linoleic (C18:2) 2a 5a 5 8Linolenic (C18:3) 0 0 16 0Arachidonic (C20:4) Trace 1 2 2C22 and above Trace 1 2 2

a Mainly trans-isomers in linoleic acid and partly iSource. Reprinted, with permission, from Sinclair (

throughout the whole day. Animal fat isconsidered by steppe pastoralists to bevery good for human health and, of all thedomesticates, that of the horse is regardedas best. Horse fat is eaten on its own orwith meat, boiled or in sausages. In Kaza-khstan it is thought to be good for treatingtuberculosis and is of particular impor-tance as a weaning food for babies. Ac-cording to Bulat Kanafin, a Kazakh fromPetropavlovsk, babies were traditionallyweaned on pasta mixed with fat from oneof three sources: (1) fat from the hump ofa camel is used in the south, (2) ram’s tailfat boiled in milk is used everywhere, (3)fat from over the horse’s sternum or cer-vical vertebrae is also used everywhere.

Of the three, camel fat and horse fat areconsidered by both children and adults tobe the best by far because of their superiortaste and digestibility. The horse fat over-lying the cervical vertebrae is regarded byall my Kazakh informants as a great deli-cacy to be given to honored guests. Ac-cording to Damdin, in eastern Mongoliathe fat skimmed off boiled horse meat canbe added to the fodder of exhausted live-stock or fed to dogs. It is also used as a

of Some Animals

ight) Milk (% by weight)

ig Chicken Whale Cow Horse Human Whale

1 1 9 25 22 15 830 25 15 25 16 23 1716 4 4 9 3 7 20 0 1 1 0 1 0

3 7 14 4 7 5 641 43 33 30a 19 36 18 (?)

7 18 0 4a 8 8 ?0 0 4 0 16 0 9 (?)2 1 12 Trace 5 3 26 (?)2 1 8 Trace 5 3 13

leic acid.4).

tion

we

P

n o196


face ointment to protect against the coldand wind.

Of all the people discussed here, onlyJambalsuren’s settled yak breeders do notvalue horse flesh as food. Sheep and yakare their preferred meat animals. More-over, their whole approach to horse meatconsumption is at variance with that of allthe other groups discussed here. Horsemeat in this non-horsebreeding region isrelatively cheap. Therefore, it is eatenmainly by poor families. Moreover, whilein the other regions, the ratio of males tofemales slaughtered for meat is eitherequal or favoring males, in this mountain-ous region it is primarily females that areslaughtered. Geldings are not eaten at all.Jambalsuran said that he himself wouldnot eat horse meat, that the smell wasterrible, and that people in this regionpreferred not to eat horse meat out ofrespect for horses. Those who did eat it, toavoid its bad smell, did so in winter whenthe weather was cold. This prejudiceagainst horse meat consumption seemsmost likely to be referable to the need inthis non-horsebreeding region to keephorses as much as possible for riding and,

FIG. 1. Milking at Botai aul. The foal must

where this is not possible, to slaughteranimals least used for riding, that is, fe-males.

Horse milk production apparently takesplace everywhere on the steppe whereverecological conditions are favorable (Fig. 1).(Dakhshleiger 1980). Of all my informantsonly Damdin came from a place wherevery little milk was produced. He said thatthe milk from his region is of very poorquality: it does not ferment well, perhapsbecause of the climate or grazing condi-tions. Unfortunately he could not elabo-rate further on the ecological conditionsnecessary for horse milk production. Ac-cording to Krystyna Chabros (personalcommunication) horse milk production isparticularly important in central Mongo-lia. Horses are sometimes milked in thewest, but not in the semi-desert regions,where there are relatively few horses. Fer-mented horse milk, kumys, “plays an ex-tremely important role in Kazakh every-day life. It is to Kazakhs what bread is toRussian peasants. It is not only a palatabledrink, but also sometimes their only food”(Toktabaev 1992, p. 11). According to aKazakh proverb, “Kumys cures 40 dis-

present for the mare to let down her milk.
be

TABLE 10

D

J

LE

50 MARSHA A. LEVINE

eases” (Toktabaev 1992, p. 12). In fact,mare’s milk is much higher than that ofcow in linoleic, a-linolenic, and arachi-donic acid (Table 9). For this reason don-key milk, which has a similar composition,has been used in France in preference tocow’s milk for feeding preterm human ba-bies (Michael A. Crawford, personal com-munication).

The horse is used extensively in Kazakhfolk medicine (Toktabaev 1992). Horse fat,excrement, bone, hair, liver, kidney, andstomach are used in the treatment ofmany ailments. Horse sweat is said to curegastric diseases, ulcers, typhoid fever,plague, fever, and cancer of the gullet.Back problems were treated by wrappingthe sufferer in a fresh horse skin.

Horse milk, fat, and meat are importantfoods in central Eurasia (Levine 1998a).

Usual Cau

Informant

Stallions/consecrated

geldings Mares

amdin Natural causes Slaughter

ambalsuren Natural causesNatural causes

slaughterMursabaev Slaughter SlaughterShavardak Slaughter SlaughterKozhakhmetov Slaughter Slaughter

a The most probable cause is in boldface.

TABAge a

Informant

Age at de

Stallions/consecratedgeldings M

Damdin 161 1Jambalsuren 301 4Mursabaev 15–20 ? 1–1.5Shavardak 25–30 2–5Kozhakhmetov 201 1–

a Age/sex classes preferred for slaughter are in bo

However, they are not consumed every-where within that region. Some curbs areclearly ecological; in Damdin’s region milkcannot be produced for human consump-tion. Others are apparently cultural; in Jam-bulsuren’s region horse meat is regarded asdisgusting. However, this reaction mighthave an ecological origin. In the mountains,horses cannot be bred in large numbers;their most important use is for transport.The British taboo against eating horse meatprobably combines religious, cultural, his-torical, and ultimately ecological factors(Gade 1976). Although this subject is ofgreat relevance to our understanding of thedynamics of human adaptations, it has, withthe notable exception of Gade (1976), as yetreceived little attention.

2.2.1.7. Mortality (Tables 10 and 11). Ac-cording to my informants, horses not used

of Death

Geldings/malefoals Season of slaughter

Slaughter Late autumn to winter

Natural causes Late November to DecemberSlaughter Especially DecemberSlaughter Late autumn to early winterSlaughter November to December

11eath

(years)a

Maximum agees Geldings/male foals

6 15–16 or more 2711 301 33–20 ? 1–1.5/15–20 ? 30–30 2–5/25–30 35–4001 1–3/251 30

ce.

se

a/

t D

ath

ar

4–1/30/15/253/2

ldfa

for meat are allowed to die of old age, but point of view of both human and beast,


on the steppe this is clearly exceptional.There are two main periods of slaughter,relevant in varying degrees to both Kaza-khstan and Mongolia. The first extendsfrom the ages of around 2 to 4 years and isusually biased toward males. The secondperiod usually takes place between theages of 14 and 20 years and is biased to-ward females.

In the pastoral nomadic context de-scribed by Damdin, geldings consecratedto the spirits and all stallions die of naturalcauses. Other horses are slaughtered onlywhen they are no longer productive, usu-ally after the age of 14 to 16 years. Becausethe main use of mares is for producingyoung and (in some regions) milk, afterthey have been barren for 2 or 3 yearsrunning, they are slaughtered. Geldingsare usually killed later than mares sincethey are productive longer. In the modernsituation 2- to 3-year-old horses might beslaughtered because their meat is moretender than that of older animals, but thatis not usually the case traditionally. InJambulsuren’s region horses are usuallyallowed to die of natural causes, whichmight be after the age of 30 years. In thatcontext, only females, around 4 years ofage, are slaughtered for meat.

All my Kazakh informants describedtwo culling periods for horses. The firstincludes young animals between the agesof 1 and 4 years, surplus to breeding andwork requirements, and is biased towardmales. The second comprises individualsthat are no longer productive, betweenthe ages of 15 and 30 years, and is biasedtoward females. The relative longevity ofKazakh horses by comparison with bothfree-living horses and Mongol poniesmight be at least partly explained by thefact that the horses in a Kazakh breedingherd are not normally exposed to thestresses of being ridden or used for trac-tion. The less extreme environmental con-ditions of northern Kazakhstan, from the

might also be a relevant factor.According to Murzabaev, in the modern

context horses are butchered either at 1 to11

2 years, when horse meat is most tender,or at around 15 to 20 years. Young horsesare usually slaughtered for family needs,while old ones are sold to the meat fac-tory. As far as young animals are con-cerned, males are selected in preferenceto females for slaughter.

The structure of Shavardak’s herd is nottraditional. The horses he cares for are nothis own, but rather, belong to the variousKazakh households of Nikolskoe and tothe collective farm. His aim is not to in-crease the size of the herd, but rather toprovide meat for its owners. Since the ma-ture horses in the herd are not used forriding or traction, but only for breeding,they have a relatively long life span, al-though they rarely die of natural causes.Breeding animals are usually slaughteredat about 25 years of age, but some liveuntil around the age of 30 years. Geldingsare usually slaughtered when they can nolonger be used for riding and traction, by25 years of age. Most horses used formeat, both male and female, are slaugh-tered between the ages of 2 and 5 years.By their third year, only 2 to 3 individualshad survived out of a cohort into whichapproximately 40 foals had been born (Ta-ble 5). Meat from young horses is usuallyconsumed by its owners, while that fromold ones is usually sold to state farms. Forexample, the meat from Nikolskoe’s oldhorses is sold to a nearby polar fox farm.However, in earlier years this meat wouldalso have been consumed by the family.

In the traditional pastoralist context, de-scribed by Kozhakhmetov, horses did notnormally die of natural causes. Some-times, of course, they died of illness orfrom an injury and, very seldom, werekilled by wolves. However, they were usu-ally slaughtered either after the age of 20years, when they were no longer useful

for breeding or for work, or between the or method of exploitation is characterized

52 MARSHA A. LEVINE

ages of 1 and 3 years, when their meat wasmost tender. The decision to slaughter ahorse was based on a household’s needfor meat. Although the meat and fat fromall slaughtered horses were consumed,those from young horses were preferredand were served in particular on specialoccasions, for example, when guests cameto the house. Males were culled beforefemales, since far fewer of them wereneeded for breeding and milk production.

2.2.2. Importance of the Horse in Mongoland Kazakh Life

Of all the livestock species available tosteppe pastoralists, none is as welladapted to the human and natural envi-ronment as the horse and none is held insuch high esteem. The horse can moverapidly and easily long distances overhard ground, providing its owners withboth mobility (riding, packing, traction)and nourishment (milk, meat, fat). Otherproducts, such as bone, hoof, hair, hide,excrement, and even sweat, are also val-ued, for example, as fuel, raw materials forthe fabrication of tools, utensils, musicalinstruments, and other objects, and formedicinal purposes.

The horse occupies a position in thegrazing succession that complements thatof other steppe livestock: cattle, sheep,goats, camels, yaks. It can subsist on long,dry, relatively poor-quality herbage, thusencouraging the growth of the shorter,more nutritious grasses, on which bovids(cattle, sheep, goats) depend (Bell 1969). Itdoes not need as much water as cattle.Moreover, it can find its own food underdeep snow by digging to it with its hoofs,thereby making it available to the bovids,which cannot do so for themselves (Mohr1971).

2.3. Population Structure Models

As regards relationships between peo-ple and horses, each pattern of behavior

by its own typical, though not necessarilyunique, sex and age structure. Thesestructures can be used as models to whichthe archaeological data can be compared.The development of these models—fromethnographic, ethological, and archaeo-logical data—has been detailed in Levine(1979, 1983, 1990). Although the informa-tion obtained from the interviews de-scribed above is by no means complete, itdoes partly fill some gaps in the data usedin the construction of the models. In con-junction with information from ethologi-cal, ethnological, archaeological, and his-torical sources, the ethnoarchaeologicaldata thus facilitate interpretation of targetarchaeological equid assemblages in termsof human behavior.

The raw material for this method ofanalysis is the aged horse teeth from ar-chaeological deposits. Determination ofan individual’s age at death is based on ananalytical technique that employs mea-surements of crown height and assess-ments of eruption and wear. The methodhas been described in considerable detailelsewhere (Levine 1979, 1982, 1990). Oncethe teeth from a deposit have been aged,the next step is to determine what the agedistribution of that whole assemblagemeans in terms of human behavior. Theage at which an individual animal dies isin itself of limited interest. What is impor-tant is the pattern manifested by the pop-ulation as a whole and how it compareswith the various population structuremodels to be discussed below.

2.3.1. The Attritional Assemblage Model

The mortality distributions for naturalattrition, scavenging, and livestock hus-bandry, where meat production is of sec-ondary importance, are all similar to theattritional assemblage model (Fig. 2).Mortality is low for adults during theirreproductive years, and high for juvenilesand senescent individuals (Caughley 1966;


Dahl and Hjort 1976). This is essentiallythe pastoral nomad kill-off pattern re-vealed to me by Damdin. As explainedearlier, where meat production is of sec-ondary importance, individuals not dyingof natural causes will probably not beslaughtered until after the age of 15 or 16years.

As yet, no equid assemblage from a pas-toral nomadic context has become avail-able for analysis. However, it has beenpossible to study an assemblage from an-other kind of context in which mobility,rather than meat production, was of pri-mary importance: Thornhill Farm, an IronAge and early Roman settlement, from theThames Valley (Gloucestershire) (Fig. 3).From the relatively undamaged conditionof the bones, it is pretty clear that horsesfrom this site were not eaten, but werecertainly used as riding, traction, or packanimals. The assemblage is small, withonly 160 ageable horse (and possibly somemule) cheek teeth and a dental minimumnumber of individuals (MNI) of 17 (Fig. 4).This includes 53 loose cheek teeth and 20

FIG. 2. Attritional assemblage model. The purof the curve might be biased by the differential

jaw fragments with ageable teeth. Thesmall size of the assemblage probably ac-counts for the jaggedness of the distribu-tion. An initially disconcerting feature ofthe assemblage is the relatively large pro-portion of horses dying during their ap-parently prime reproductive years, at leastby comparison with the pattern describedby my Kazakh and Mongol informants.Roman horses were broken at about thesame age as Mongol and Kazakh horses,and as with the Mongols, the most impor-tant use the Romans made of them was fortransport. However, it seems that the Ro-man horses had a much shorter expectedlife span than the Mongol ponies (Hyland1990). The explanation for this might lie inthe different attitude of the Romano-Brit-ish agriculturalists toward their horses.

Ann Hyland, in Equus, the Horse in theRoman World, argues that Roman equidscommonly sustained injuries that wouldhave been caused by poor living condi-tions and gross overwork (Hyland 1990, p.59). She estimates that a horse was ex-pected to last only about 3 years in active

e of the broken line is to suggest how the shapestruction of immature teeth.

posde

(

emh

54 MARSHA A. LEVINE

military service and, on average, 4 years asa post horse (Hyland 1990, p. 86, 88).Moreover, the breeding period was alsocomparatively abbreviated, with maresbeing considered past their prime at 10years of age, though some did breed until15 (Hyland 1990, p. 238). The relativelyhigh incidence of pathology, as well as thepopulation structure, seems to confirmthis pattern at Thornhill Farm. A similar,but even more extreme, distribution hasbeen revealed for the Roman cemetery atKesteren in The Netherlands, dated fromthe first to the third centuries A.D.8 (Fig. 5)Lauwerier and Hessing 1992).

These differences might be referable tocology. That is, unlike the Romans, no-adic pastoralist Mongols depend on

orses for their hour-to-hour survival.

FIG. 3. Map showing lo

Horses permeate every aspect of their ex-istence. As a result of this, they are held inhigh respect and treated with great care.For the Romans, horse production waslargely a commercial enterprise and anyloss was for the most part financial. How-ever, the possibility that the picture de-scribed to me by Damdin might have beensomewhat idealized must be recognizedand awaits further investigation.

2.3.2. The Carnivorous Husbandry Model

A mortality curve resembling the car-nivorous husbandry model (Fig. 6) mightbe generated if the slaughter of individu-als at around the age of 2 to 4 years weresuperimposed on Damdin’s pastoral no-madic attritional pattern (Levine 1990). At

ion of Thornhill Farm.
cat


that age the meat is still at its most tender(Rossier and Berger 1988). Moreover, bythat time a horse’s growth rate wouldhave decreased substantially, while its en-ergy needs would continue to increase(Fig. 7) (Willoughby 1975, pp. 40–43). Itwould, therefore, be most efficient toslaughter horses, surplus to a herd’sbreeding and work requirements, be-tween the ages of 2 and 4 years. This was

FIG. 4. Thornhill Farm age structure: adjustedhas been applied to compensate for the probabdetails see Levine 1979, 1983). To obtain the avefrom birth to the age of 5 years, the frequencymultiplied by 1/0.23 1 0.17 (age). “Age” refers to

FIG. 5. Thornhill Farm a

the pattern described by my informantsfrom Kazakhstan and by Jambalsuran.Such a slaughter pattern has also beenobserved for modern Mongolia (Damdin,personal communication).

A very similar age distribution was pro-duced from information provided by YuriShavardak, the semi-traditional horseherder from northern Kazakhstan (Table5). Unfortunately, the data on which the

d unadjusted. A hypothetical adjustment factorunderrepresentation of immature animals (fore adjusted frequency of teeth for each age class

teeth in each age class (from 0 to 5 years) iserage age; for example, 0.5 is used for 0–1 year).

Kesteren age structure.

anle

ragof

av

nd

56 MARSHA A. LEVINE

distribution is based are incomplete.There is almost no information about in-fant mortality. The ages given are approx-

FIG. 6. Carnivorou

FIG. 7. Hors

imate and the eight geldings, associatedwith the herd, are excluded from the dis-tribution. Moreover, it is not clear either

usbandry model.

rowth rate.

s h

e g


that the population was stable or the agestructure static. On the other hand, itssimilarity to the carnivorous husbandrymodel is noteworthy, as is its differencefrom the life assemblage model (Fig. 8).

FIG. 8. Age structur

FIG. 9. Life as

2.3.3. The Life Assemblage or Catastrophe Model

The life assemblage model (Fig. 9) isrepresentative either of a living popula-tion, a catastrophe assemblage, or an as-

f Shavardak’s herd.

blage model.

e o

sem

58 MARSHA A. LEVINE

semblage in which all age classes are rep-resented as they would be in the livingpopulation because of completely randomsampling (Caughley 1966; Dahl and Hjort1976). This would also be the age structureof a living Khalkha Mongol herd. Herddriving or any hunting technique thatwould randomly sample a wild-livinghorse population would probably producethis mortality pattern or that of the familygroup variant.

2.3.4. Social Group Models (Variants of theLife Assemblage Model)

2.3.4.1. The family group model. Themain difference between the life assem-blage model and the family group model(Fig. 10) is the relatively small proportionin the latter of individuals 3 to 6 years ofage, marking the absence of bachelormales (Levine 1979, 1983).

This is the kind of pattern producedby the western European, Upper Pleis-tocene material previously studied, par-ticularly when an adjustment factor hasbeen applied to compensate for the

FIG. 10. Fami

probable under-representation of im-mature animals (Levine 1979, 1983). Fig-ure 11 shows the population structure ofthe horse teeth from Jaurens, a naturaldeposit, formed when a catastrophicevent or series of events, probablyfloods, overcame and swept its victimsinto a cave. Figure 12 shows the agedistribution of the pooled assemblagesfrom 10 Paleolithic sites. Some of thedeposits included, for example, those atSolutre, were formed by herd drives,and others, probably by the hunting ofsingle family groups or random individ-uals.

2.3.4.2. The bachelor group model. Themost important characteristic of the horsebachelor group, the absence of females,may be difficult to detect in the archeaologi-cal record, since few anatomical elementsshow much sexual dimorphism (Levine1979, 1983). The most archaeologically visi-ble feature of the bachelor group modelmight, therefore, be the absence of individ-uals less than about 2 years of age (Fig. 13).From the age of about 5 or 6 years, someleave the bachelor group to build up their

roup model.
ly g


FIG. 12. Pooled Paleolithic sites age distribution.

FIG. 11. Jaurens age distribution.

60 MARSHA A. LEVINE

own family groups (Berger 1986). Stallionsthat have lost their harems will either rejoina bachelor group or remain solitary. Bache-lor group hunting might, in the archaeolog-ical context, be indistinguishable from thestalking of prime adults.

FIG. 13. Bache

FIG. 14. St

2.3.5. The Stalking Model

Stalking (Fig. 14) is a selective huntingtechnique in which the prey is approachedby stealth and killed (Levine 1983). Chasingindividual prey from horseback would also

group model.

ng model.

lor

alki


be included in this category, since the initialapproach would be by stealth and the selec-tion based on the preferred rather than themost vulnerable individual. Hunting mainlyprime adults should produce a distributionapproximating a bell-shaped curve. This isthe kind of pattern that would result fromthe Hadza decision to select large fat malezebra as their preferred prey (see Section2.2.1.6).

The population structure of the horsesfrom the Ukrainian settlement site, De-reivka, best fits the stalking model (Fig.15)(Levine 1990, 1993). The relevant de-posits are Eneolithic (Sredni Stog IIa),9

with calibrated radiocarbon dates rangingfrom around 3095 to 4570 BC, of which themajority fit within the second half of the

FIG. 15. Map

fifth millennium BC (Table 1) (Telegin1986). The mortality distribution of thehorses from Dereivka is characterized byvery small percentages of individuals lessthan 4 years old and more than 8 or 10years old (Fig. 16). More than half diedbetween the ages of 5 and 8 years (50.1%,unadjusted), when they would have beenmost useful, both reproductively and aswork animals, had they been domesti-cated. It is most unlikely that herderswould have slaughtered their horses atthat age.

It therefore seems reasonable to con-clude that the vast majority, if not thetotality, of the horses from Dereivka werewild and, because of the relatively largeproportion dying during their most pro-

the Ukraine.
of

62 MARSHA A. LEVINE

ductive years, the mortality distributionthat they best fit is the stalking model or amixture of the stalking and random indi-vidual or family group models. The factthat 9 of 10 sexable tooth rows came frommales might indicate that bachelor groupswere hunted or that somewhat inexperi-enced stallions with family groups wererelatively easy to kill. Studies of equid be-havior have shown that when a familygroup is attacked, the stallion will turnand fight to protect his mares and young(Damdin, personal communication; Mohr1971; Kruuk 1972).

According to G. and M. Grshimailo (inMohr 1971, p. 67),

a wild stallion when he scented danger, he in-formed his herd by snorting and at once theywere off in single file, a young colt in the leadand the foals in the middle between the mares.As long as the herd was on the move and thehunters were to the side, so the stallion stayed tothat side and kept his herd going in the directionhe had chosen . . . As soon as the horses hadbroken through the chain of hunters who nowhunted them from behind, so the stallionchanged his position and was now on guard inthe van and in the way of those following him.

Clemenz (1903) observed (as reportedby Mohr 1971, p. 68) that

the stallion remains behind and watches hispursuers. . . . The nearer the hunters approach

FIG. 16. Dereiv

the more uneasy is the stallion and he keepsbetween the herd and those pursuing it . . . Butwhen the terrible enemy horses with their two-legged riders press the herd, then the stallionturns to attack his pursuers and is the first to fallto a bullet.

Hunters from Dereivka might well havetaken advantage of the tendency of stal-lions to defend their bands. It is also pos-sible that the inhabitants of the settlementalready had domesticated or tamed horsesand that they were used for hunting wildones, as has been recorded for the CentralAsian Kalmucks and some of the NorthAmerican, central, and southern Plainstribes (Mohr 1971; Ewers 1955). This pos-sibility seemed to have been supported byAnthony and Brown’s (1991) apparent dis-covery of bitwear on the teeth of the so-called ritual skull from Dereivka. How-ever, it is worth reaffirming that there isconsiderable doubt now about the datingand stratigraphic position of that skull(Rassamakin 1994; Telegin, personal com-munication).

That being said, it must be emphasizedthat interpretation of population structureshould not be made with reference tomortality data alone. For example, accord-ing to Fig. 17, the age distribution of thehorses from the Roman site of Kesteren is

age structure.
ka

cs


rather similar to that at Dereivka. The pro-portions of horses dying between the agesof 5 and 8 years are particularly close,50.1% at Dereivka and 46.3% at Kesteren,whereas at Thornhill Farm it is only 26.2%.However, a much larger proportion atboth Kesteren (31.5%) and Thornhill Farm(49.9%) die between the ages of 8 and 14years than at Dereivka (18.6%). The aver-age life expectancy is lower at Dereivka(7.7 years) than at either Thornhill Farm(9.3 years) or Kesteren (8.3 years). More-over, contextual data leave little doubtthat the horses from Kesteren were do-mesticated and suggest that they mightwell have been used for military purposes(Lauwerier and Hessing 1992). AlthoughDereivka’s context is less straightforward,it nevertheless seems to support the prop-osition that horses from that site were pre-dominantly, if not entirely, wild (Levine1990, 1993 and below).

3. BOTAI

Botai is an Eneolithic settlement site lo-ated in Kokchetau Oblast in the forest–teppe region of northern Kazakhstan10

(Fig. 18) (Zaibert 1993; Kislenko 1993). Thesite covers approximately 15 hectares,

FIG. 17. Kesteren and

around 10,000 m2 of which have been ex-cavated, on the high, right bank of theIman-Burluk, a tributary of the river Ishim(Fig. 18). Although some remains of Pleis-tocene mammals have been discoverederoding out of the river bank, the prehis-toric human occupation of Botai appar-ently extended only from the Mesolithic tothe Eneolithic. Substantial Neolithic re-mains are probably present, but excava-tion has so far been confined largely to theEneolithic occupation, dated to around3500 B.C. (Table 12) Levine and Kislenko1997).

Botai comprises around 300 polygonal“dwellings,” which show up on the sur-face of the ground as rows of shallow de-pressions. They are packed close togetherin a kind of honeycomb pattern, and areoriented in parallel rows on either side of“streets,” 4 to 8 m wide. More than 140 ofthese structures, each ranging in areafrom 30 to 70 m2, have been excavated sofar (Kislenko 1993). More than 40 first pha-langes, mainly of horse, polished and cov-ered with geometric designs, have beenfound in various dwellings, as has acarved human figurine. Although no cem-etery has been discovered at Botai, some

reivka age structure.
De

64 MARSHA A. LEVINE

human remains have been recoveredfrom the settlement, including a tre-panned human skull covered with ochre,found in a niche in a wall; a sawn piece ofoccipital bone; and a skeleton in a pit sur-rounded by horse skulls. It has been esti-mated that, during the 15 years of Botai’sexcavation, more than 300,000 artifactsand 10 tons of bones (99.9% of which be-longed to horse) have been uncovered(V. F. Zaibert, personal communication).Two short papers have been publishedabout the bones, one by Kuz’mina (1993)and the other by Ermolova (1993). Theformer concludes from a morphometricalanalysis of 428 bones and teeth that thehorses from Botai were domesticated,while the latter maintains in her veryshort, though broadly based, study ofmore than 300,000 anatomical elements,that they were wild.

FIG. 18. Map show

3.1. Site 31

During July and August 1992, the NorthKazakhstan Archaeological Expedition, un-der the overall direction of V. F. Zaibert (A.Kh. Margulana Institute of Archaeology,Petropavlovsk), excavated Botai, Site 31 (Fig.19). A. M. Kislenko (A. Kh. Margulana Insti-tute of Archaeology) and N. S. Tataryntseva(North Kazakhstan Regional History andEthnography Museum) directed the excava-tion.11 Its aim was to provide me with afaunal assemblage to which my analyticalmethods could be applied.

Site 31 is situated in the southwesternpart of Botai, adjacent to the present riverbank. This locality was chosen because ofits very high density of cultural remainsby comparison with other parts of the set-tlement, resulting from its longer periodof use. It includes two structures, the hex-

location of Botai.
ing

TABLE 12


agonal Dwellings 26 and 29 (the latter par-tially dug in 1981); a possible earlier, rect-angular structure, Dwelling 29a; andvarious ditches and pits, both inside andoutside of the structures (Fig. 20). The 1992excavation covered 96 m2, of which about18 m2 had been eroded away by a gully.The site was divided into 2 3 2-m squares,which were further subdivided into metersquares. These were dug in arbitrary10-cm spits and all finds, including bonesand teeth, were located within these units.All osteological material, including verte-brae and unidentifiable bone fragments,was collected.

Large concentrations of bones werefound within Dwellings 26, 29, and 29a: ontheir floors and in the post-occupational fill,

Botai Radio

Oxford AcceleOxA-4315 Botai: 4630 6 75 years B.P. (b1 s3611 B.C. (0.02) 3602 B.C. 3512 B.C. (0.3221 B.C. (0.07) 3193 B.C. 3156 B.C. (0.

2 s3625 B.C. (0.07) 3572 B.C. 3538 B.C. (0.

OxA-4316 Botai: 4620 6 80 years B.P. (b1 s3508 BC (0.46) 3403 B.C. 3386 B.C. (0.23228 BC (0.13) 3186 B.C. 3159 (0.11) 31

2 s3625 BC (0.06) 3572 B.C. 3538 B.C. (0.9

OxA-4317 Botai: 4630 6 80 years B.P. (b1 s3613 B.C. (0.03) 3601 B.C. 3513 B.C. (0.3224 B.C. (0.09) 3190 B.C. 3157 B.C. (0.2 s3628 B.C. (0.08) 3566 B.C. 3540 B.C. (0.

OtheIGAN-432 4340 6 120 years B.P. (boneIGAN-449 3530 6 160 years B.P. (charIGAN-4234 4900 6 50 years B.P. (boneIGAN-4235 4160 6 40 years B.P. (boneIGAN-4236 4540 6 60 years B.P. (boneIGAN-4237 4430 6 60 years B.P. (bone

a From Zaibert and Kislenko (personal communica

and between the dwellings and within pitsand trenches both inside and outside ofthem. Around 40,000 anatomical elementsand almost 5000 artifacts—including ceram-ics, bone, and stone tools, and an engravedhorse first phalange—were recovered fromSite 31 (Figs. 21 and 22). More than 99% ofthe bones and teeth recovered were fromhorse. A cursory glance at the rest of thefauna suggests that the other bones werelargely if not wholly from wild taxa. Herbi-vores, carnivores, and birds were present.Several fragments of human bone were alsorecovered, including a piece of sawn cra-nium.

Such dense bone concentrations arecharacteristic in particular of the dwell-ings located near the river bank. Various

bon Dates

or Laboratorye)

3397 B.C. 3391 B.C. (0.28) 3332 B.C.3134 B.C.

3262 B.C. 3242 B.C. (0.22) 3101 B.C.

e)

327 B.C. 3321 B.C. (0.03) 3309 B.C..C.

095 B.C.

e)

3396 B.C. 3392 B.C. (0.27) 3331 B.C.3133 B.C.

3258 B.C. 3245 B.C. (0.23) 3099 B.C.atesa

l)

n).

car

raton

56)06)

71)

on

7) 325 B

4) 3

on

54)07)

69)r D)

coa))))

tio

66 MARSHA A. LEVINE

theories have been proposed to explainthe formation processes involved. For themoment, I believe that the best explana-tion is that, as a “dwelling” fell into decayand was abandoned, it was converted intoa dump for the bones and carcass parts ofhorses butchered for consumption. Thiswould explain why the bone concentra-

FIG. 19. Plan of Botai, s

tions were found at various levels abovethe floor, mixed with the clay of whichwalls were apparently constructed. It ishoped that new light will be thrown onthis problem by a micromorphologicalanalysis of the deposits being carried outby C. A. I. French (Department of Archae-ology, Cambridge).

ing location of Site 31.
how

3.2. Botai Age Structure (6.5 years).13 Only about 33% of the horses


The analysis of the osteological materialfrom Site 31 has so far been concernedmainly with the population structure ofthe assemblage, based on tooth eruptionand wear. Because a detailed stratigraphicstudy of the site has not yet been com-pleted, for the purposes of this paper, allosteological data have been pooled. Theremains studied to date come almost en-tirely from F, X, CH 35-37, and T 38, that is,from Dwellings 26, 29, 29a, pit 4, and thedeposits between the dwellings (Fig. 20).5556 bones and teeth (excluding ribs andunidentifiable bones) have been exam-ined and constitute all the equid materialrecovered from those units.

The age structure of the material exam-ine from Botai so far is based on the studyof 526 cheek teeth,12 some loose, some injaws, with an MNI of 29, based on upperD2s and P2s. Table 13 shows that the teethfrom Botai, Thornhill Farm, and Dereivkaare all very similar in size to those used inthe design of the aging system employedhere. The age distributions produced bythis means should, therefore, be compa-rable (for details of aging method see Le-vine 1979, 1982, 1983, 1990).

As in the case of Jaurens and the pooledPalaeolithic data previously described, themortality distribution of the teeth fromBotai is comparable with the life assem-blage or catastrophe model, particularlywhen it is adjusted to compensate for theunder-representation of immature indi-viduals (Figs. 11, 12, 23). That is, all ageclasses are represented approximately asthey would have been in the living popu-lation.

A comparison of the data from Botaiwith those from Dereivka and ThornhillFarm (Fig. 24) shows that the horses fromThornhill Farm, despite the probable illtreatment as manifested by high inci-dences of bone pathology, had a longeraverage life expectancy (9.3 years) thanthose from Dereivka (7.7 years) and Botai

at Thornhill Farm died between the agesof 3 and 8 years, while the figure for De-reivka was 63% and that for Botai was55%. Approximately 55% of the horsesfrom Thornhill Farm died between theages of 8 and 16 years, as against 20% forDereivka and 24% for Botai.

The age distributions for both Botai andDereivka fit hunting models, but the dif-ferences between them strongly suggestthat different hunting techniques wereused (Fig. 24). For example, although themortality rates for both Botai and De-reivka are very similar from the age of 8years and onward, the rates for youngerhorses are distinctly divergent. At De-reivka mortality is concentrated betweenthe ages of 5 and 8 years, while at Botai itextends back at least to 3 years. The dif-ference is even greater when the distribu-tion is adjusted. While the horses fromDereivka were probably stalked, it seemsthat those from Botai were killed in herddrives.

3.3. Other Supporting Data

This interpretation is supported byother characteristics of the assemblages.For example, the sex ratios at the twosites are very different. At Dereivka theratio of males to females is 9:1 (on thebasis of jaw bones), which is compatiblewith stalking; while at Botai the ratio isalmost 1:1 (7:6 for jaw bones and 17:20for pelves), which is best explained by anon-selective technique, such as herddriving. The small proportions of patho-logical bones at Dereivka and Botai bycomparison with Thornhill Farm alsosupport the theory that the horses at theformer two sites were wild (Levine, inpreparation).

Herd driving is a better paradigm forwhat was happening at Botai than othernon-selective hunting techniques for var-ious reasons. Herd drives necessitatelarge-scale human cooperation and at

FIG

.20.

Plan

ofex

cava

tion,

F-X

-Ch-

T.R

edra

wn

from

Kis

lenk

oan

dT

atar

ynts

eva

(unp

ublis

hed)

.

68 MARSHA A. LEVINE


least seasonal aggregation. Although thesize of the population at Botai at any onetime is not known, available evidence sug-gests that it probably was relatively large.Herd drives usually result in the deaths oflarge numbers of animals. The quantity ofhorses killed at Botai was immense. Addi-tionally, such a large-scale slaughter, ac-cording to ethnographic and archaeologi-cal evidence, often results in very wastefulunder-utilization of carcasses. The rela-tively high incidences of articulated limbbones and vertebrae at Botai, the largeconcentrations of bones apparently dis-carded together, the undamaged state ofmany anatomical elements, and the rela-tively small proportion of unidentifiablefragments suggest that large numbers ofanimals were killed more or less simulta-neously and that flesh was plentifulenough to be wasted.

Dereivka was, by comparison, a smallsettlement, comprising probably threedwellings at most. Fewer than 5000bones and teeth of all taxa were recov-ered, about 60% of which were fromhorse. Its population, almost certainlynever consisting of more than a few fam-

FIG. 21. Botai b

ilies, would not have been sufficient forthe huge kills sustained at Botai. Therelatively small size of the settlementand faunal assemblage at Dereivka, aswell as its age and sex structure, is com-patible with the stalking model.

4. DISCUSSION

4.1. Speculating about the SocialImplications of Horse Hunting Methods

There is, according to Anthony (1995),evidence of bitwear on some of the teethfrom Botai. Leaving methodological ques-tions aside, in view of the important ar-chaeological and osteological differencesbetween the two sites, it is interesting tospeculate about the social implications ofstalking and chasing from horseback ver-sus herd driving at Botai and Dereivka.Care must, of course, be taken when in-voking ethnographic parallels to interpretarchaeological data. Nevertheless, eventaking into account the behavioral differ-ences between horses and bison, an exam-ination of Ewer’s study of the Blackfootcan take us down some interesting and

concentration.
one

70 MARSHA A. LEVINE

unexpected paths into Eneolithic centralEurasia (Ewers 1955).

According to Ewers, there were basi-cally two methods of bison hunting fromhorseback, the surround and the chase:

The surround method employed a considerablenumber of horsemen to encircle a herd of buf-falo, start them milling in a circle, and shootdown the frightened and confused animals asthey rode around them.

The chase was a straightaway rush bymounted men, each hunter singling out an ani-mal from the herd, riding alongside it and killingit at close quarters, then moving on to anotheranimal and killing it in like manner. The Black-foot seem to have virtually abandoned the sur-round in favor of the chase around the middle ofthe 19th century. During the last two decades ofbuffalo hunting the chase alone was employedas a method of killing buffalo from horseback.(Ewers 1955, p. 154)

Ewers hypothesized that the surroundmethod had evolved out of the pre-horsecommunal herd drive. This hunting tech-nique was dependent both on the sea-sonal aggregation of usually small scat-tered bands into large camps and on thebison’s high population density, particu-

FIG. 22. Engraved p

larly in early winter. The whole commu-nity would have cooperated in driving thebison herd down V-shaped approaches intocorrals or pounds or over cliffs. When suc-cessful, it could produce huge surpluses,permitting inefficient exploitation of thecarcasses. However, “buffalo hunting onfoot in the Pedestrian Culture Period musthave been exceedingly dangerous, ardu-ous, time consuming, and sometimes un-successful” (Ewers 1955, p. 304).

According to Ewers, the acquisition ofthe horse eventually transformed thecommunal herd drive into the surround:“In the mounted surround the Indianssimply took advantage of the horse’sgreater mobility to expedite the kill.Horsemen also replaced footmen in driv-ing and luring buffalo into pounds or overcliffs” (Ewers 1955, p. 304).

The chase represented a further step inthe development of bison hunting. It wasmore flexible, efficient, and less hazard-ous than the surround; any number ofhunters could participate; it was less timeconsuming; and it facilitated the slaughter

ange from Botai 31.
hal

TABLE 13


Tooth Size Comparison

Tooth JawHeight(1mm)

MeanM-D

Pal.(X)SDPal.

No.Pal.

M-DDer(x) z Der

M-DBot(x) z Bot

M-DFTF(x) z FTF

P2 U 250–300 377 11.9 5 323 20.45350–400 374 26.7 14 406 1.20 362 20.04

361 20.05550–600 389 23.3 17 368 20.90 347 20.18

383 20.26 354 20.1537 20.52

L 250–300 339 18.2 16 333 20.33347 0.44

300–350 340 18.6 23 293 22.53 344 0.22 343 20.02450–500 335 18.7 25 307 21.50 340 0.27 328 20.04

344 0.48 335 0.00 290 20.24500–550 325 16.6 11 331 0.36 303 0.06

P3 U 350–400 299 14 9 309 0.71307 0.57277 21.57

450–500 302 12.8 17 301 20.08312 0.78

650–700 314 13.5 10 295 21.41700–750 314 15 8 297 21.13 282 20.21

324 0.67 281 20.22P4 U 450–500 287 11.4 12 294 0.61 258 20.25

266 21.84 259 20.25750–800 298 15.7 10 287 20.70

L 350–400 273 13.4 4 267 20.45400–450 293 3.6 3 242 21.42

247 21.28M1 U 350–400 258 11.7 7 264 0.51

400–450 257 21.8 16 229 20.13231 20.12

650–700 274 10.8 16 259 21.39266 20.74

700–750 283 25.3 5 268 20.59 275 20.04274 20.04

M2 U 700–750 270 12.4 9 258 20.97259 20.89

750–800 280 18 16 273 20.39 268 20.07267 20.07

L 400–450 279 20.3 4 232 20.23241 20.19

750–800 288 6.3 4 284 20.63M3 U 400–450 300 25.8 9 295 20.02

286 20.05L 350–400 322 21.7 32 332 0.46 301 20.1

317 20.23 325 20.01309 20.60

a Measurements to 0.1 mm. Der, Dereivka; FTF, Thornhill Farm; Bot, Botai. No. Pal., number of specimens inPaleolithic sample; SD Pal., standard deviation of Paleolithic sample; height 5 tooth height from division of theroot; M-D, mesio-distal diameter of tooth; X, sample mean of the Paleolithic teeth; x, the sample (individual teethfrom Bot, FTF or Der) mesio-distal diameter to be compared with the Paleolithic mean; z, number of standarddeviations x is from the sample mean (z 5 x 2 X/SD) (61.0 SD indicates that x is not significantly different in sizefrom X, 62.0 SD indicates that they might belong to two separate populations, 63.0 SD indicates that they aresignificantly different). None of the z scores from Der, FTF, or Bot are more than 3 SD from the mean of thePaleolithic material and only one is more than 2SD, which means that, for the purposes of aging, they can betreated as if they belonged to one population.

72 MARSHA A. LEVINE

of selected individuals. According to Ew-er’s informants, in the course of a singlechase, no more than four or five bisoncows would have been killed. Less skilledhunters or those with inferior horseswould capture no more than one or two(Ewers 1955, p. 159).

4.2. Botai and Dereivka

Although Ewers was talking about thebison hunt, we know (Section 2.1.1.2) thatferal horses can be captured by driving,surrounding, chasing, or stalking. There

FIG. 23. Botai age structu

FIG. 24. Botai, Dereivka, and

are obvious parallels between Botai andthe herd drive or surround and betweenDereivka and the chase or the stalk. Thisinterpretation is supported not only by thepopulation structures of the two sites, butalso by other features, such as the settle-ment and assemblage size and the sexstructure. However, it would be foolhardyto try to draw too many conclusions froma sample of only two sites, particularly inview of the fact that Botai is roughly 2400km away from and, apparently, 1000 years

adjusted and unadjusted.

ornhill Farm age structure.

re:

Th

later than Dereivka. However, new re- Different hunting techniques were em-


search suggests that the Eneolithic level atDereivka, in fact, extends from TripolyeB-II/C-I to C-II and therefore should bedated to 3700–3150 B.C., not 4000–4500B.C. as suggested by Telegin (Rassamain1994; personal communication). If this istrue, then Botai (at around 3500 B.C.)could be contemporary with or even ear-lier than Dereivka. The archaeology ofthese two regions is still open to revisionso that it would be a unwise to take any ofthis too seriously. Nevertheless, it is worthconsidering for a moment why one hunt-ing method rather than another mighthave been selected.

Perhaps Ewers was wrong in conclud-ing that the herd drive was more danger-ous, time consuming, and generally inef-ficient than the chase. Maybe these werenot the prime considerations determiningwhich method of hunting should be em-ployed. Possibly the horses at Dereivkawere stalked on foot rather than chasedfrom horseback. Factors quite different—ecological, social, economic, or cultural—than those inspiring the Blackfoot couldhave been crucial to the decision aboutwhich method to use. For example, theherd drive could have been the magnetused to draw together the large numbersof people needed for other activities. Theadvantages thus obtained might well haveoutweighed those derived from the moreindividualistic chase. Social or environ-mental instability might well have favoredsuch a scenario. Tradition could haveacted as a brake to progress, maintainingtechnologically obsolete, but culturallyuseful practices. In other words, it seemsmost likely that horse hunting did not somuch evolve as adapt.

5. CONCLUSION

The results of the analyses carried outon the data from Dereivka and Botai sug-gest that the vast majority of the horsesfrom those sites were killed in the hunt.

ployed at each of them: stalking or chas-ing at Dereivka and driving or surround-ing at Botai. The possibility that some ofthe horses might have been tamed or do-mesticated, as suggested by Anthony andBrown’s bitwear studies, is certainly notexcluded. However, the possibility thatthe wear pattern they define as bitwearcould have other causes has not been dis-proved.

Although the study of population struc-ture is a crucial step in the analysis ofalmost any faunal assemblage, it shouldnot be the only step. If, as is often the case,an assemblage were composed of a pal-impsest of exploitation methods, it mightnot be possible by means of the popula-tion structure alone to disentangle thewhole range of component patterns. If, forexample, a relatively small number ofhorses at Botai or Dereivka were ridden,their age distribution would be swampedby that of the much larger number ofhunted animals. Complementary analyti-cal methods must, in that case, be selectedthat will identify, out of the whole assem-blage, poorly represented but importantactivities.

Some such methods are quite simple,just requiring application of known tech-niques. For example, the presence of sheddeciduous teeth within, and contempo-rary with, enclosures might suggest thatyoung animals were being raised and pos-sibly that controlled breeding had beentaking place. But unless careful sievingwere carried out, it is unlikely that theseelements would be recovered. Various sci-entific methods, currently being devel-oped, could also be applicable to the studyof horse exploitation. For instance, thecurrent hope is that it will be possible touse ancient DNA to distinguish popula-tions and to identify genetic variabilityand change. One application of thismethod would be to determine whetherspecimens with “bitwear” belonged to the

same population as those without it. proached with an open mind and a sense

A

A

B

74 MARSHA A. LEVINE

Lipid, stable isotope, and trace elementanalyses could be used to look at anotheraspect of population variability—diet.14 Ithas been hypothesized that a homoge-neous horse population would have had ahomogeneous diet. Different methods ofexploitation could affect the natural pat-tern either, for example, by mixing to-gether individuals from various popula-tions or by controlling access to food sothat domesticated or tamed animalswould have a different isotopic signaturethan wild ones (Henry Schwarcz, personalcommunication). Micromorphologicalanalyses of site formation processes canalso contribute to our understanding ofhuman– horse relationships. Since wildand feral horses are notoriously shy ofhuman begins, the identification of an-cient horse dung heaps within a settle-ment could indicate that tamed or domes-ticated horses had been living at the siteor nearby. The dung, a by-product of in-timacy between people and horses, couldhave been collected as a building material,for fuel, or for fertilizer (C. A. I. French,personal communication15). Another ap-proach is the study of horse paleopathol-ogy. On the one hand, the incidence ofpathology among wild horses is likely tobe lower than that among domesticates.On the other hand, the kinds of patholo-gies found in horses ridden or used fortraction should also be indicative of thekind of work to which they were put. Pre-liminary work on the osteological materialfrom Botai, Dereivka, Thornhill Farm, anda sample of modern and Scythian compar-ative material supports these hypotheses16

(Levine 1998b).As new analytical techniques become

available, we must consider how we canexploit them to suit the purposes of ourresearch. The potential for the study of thebeginnings of horse domestication andpastoral nomadism to yield new and ex-citing results is almost unlimited, if ap-

of adventure.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I could not possibly name all the people, particu-larly from the former Soviet Union, whose supportand hospitality contributed to the production of thispaper. Those to whom I am most indebted includeA. M. Kislenko, N. S. Tataryntseva, V. F., Zaibert, A.Bayov, and V. Rutter for their help in Kazakhstan;and D. Y. Telegin, Y. Y. Rassamakin, and the lateN. G. Belan for their help in Kiev. I also acknowledgethe kindness and patience of my informants: Dam-din, Jambalsuran, D. Ch. Murzabaev, Y. I. Sha-vardak, M. K. Kozhakhmetov, E. Z. Zakir’yanov, andB. Kanafin. From my small army of interpreters andtranslators I, in particular, thank N. Musina, N.Zhabrovets, G. Zerova, G. L. Barnes, K. Chabros, andH. Lewis. I am particularly grateful to M. K. Jones forhis unfailing support of this project and for readingand commenting on this paper. I also thank, for theirsupport, A. C. Renfrew, P. A. Jewell, A. G., Sherratt,G. N. Bailey, L. B. Jeffcott, J. Clutton-Brock, M. Leg-gatt, and J. Rippengal. I am grateful to the OxfordAccelerator Laboratory for providing me with radio-carbon dates. I thank G. Owen and A. Baker (Had-don Library, Cambridge) for their help with the pho-tography. I also thank John O’Shea and myreviewers, particularly R. W. Redding, for their valu-able comments and suggestions. I gratefully ac-knowledge the following organizations for fundingthis research: the McDonald Institute for Archaeo-logical Research, the Wenner–Gren Foundation, theBritish Academy, the Leakey Foundation, the OxfordArchaeological Unit, and the Natural EnvironmentalResearch Council.

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65(246):22–38.zzaroli, A.1985 An Early History of Horsemanship. E. J. Brill,

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NOTES

1 “Reduction in size on the one hand and increasein variability on the other are classic indicators ofdomestication” (Uerpmann 1990, p. 127).

2 Excavated in 1994 and 1995 by Tatiana Neru-denko, Scientific Director of the Chigirin State His-torical Park, Ukraine.

3 Clutton-Brock (1992, p. 19) defines feral animals“as those that live in a self-sustained populationafter a history of domestication.”

4 Collectivization refers to the socialisation of ag-

riculture, by which food production was transferred

tT

12 Teeth less than half complete are excluded fromt

cttaTL

VCrflRotu

Ca

opbc

78 MARSHA A. LEVINE

from private farms to collective and state farms (re-spectively, kolkhozes and sovkhozes). This processbegan in Russia in 1927 (Zaleski 1984).

5 Following Serpell, “The Oxford English Dictio-nary (OED) defines a pet as “Any animal that isdomesticated or tamed and kept as a favourite, ortreated with indulgence and fondness.” In practice,however, the word tends to be used more loosely asa blanket description for animals that are kept for noobvious practical or economic purpose” (Serpell1989, p. 10). Since the former definition may be im-possible to apply to archaeological and ethnographiccontexts, the latter is be used here.

6 Also written as “Comanche.”7 An aul is a Kazakh village.8 Age determinations from Lauwerier and Hessing

(1992).9 According to a new typology, it belongs to the

Dereivka culture within the Sredni Stog region (Ras-samakin 1994).

10 Botai is located at 53°109 north latitude, 67°409east longitude. The central part of the settlement is238 m above sea level.

11 All the site information presented here is fromhe excavation notes of A. M Kislenko and N. S.ataryntseva.

he population structure analysis.13 Although increased age is associated with in-

reased incidences of certain types of pathologies,he age difference between the horse populations athese two sites is unlikely to be great enough toccount for the observed pathological differences.his is the subject of ongoing research by M. A.evine, G. N. Bailey, and L. B. Jeffcott.

14 I am collaborating with R. P. Evershed and S.aughan (Organic Geochemistry Unit, School ofhemistry, Bristol) on an analysis of lipids in pot

esidues and bone from Botai and from bones andesh from Ak-Alakha 3; and with T. O’Connell and. E. M. Hedges (Research Laboratory for Archaeol-gy and the History of Art, Oxford) on a stable iso-ope study of material from Ak-Alakha 3, Botai, Mol-kov Bugor, and other Ukrainian sites.

15 C. A. I. French (Department of Archaeology,ambridge) is carrying out a micromorphologicalnalysis of sediments from Botai.

16 In collaboration with G. N. Bailey (Departmentf Archaeology, Newcastle) and L. B. Jeffcott (De-artment of Clinical Veterinary Medicine, Cam-ridge), I am working on a NERC funded projectoncerned with horse palaeopathology.

jaa article

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