Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-27gpq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-27T20:27:26.019Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Horses for the dead: funerary foodways in Bronze Age Kazakhstan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Alan K. Outram
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, University of Exeter, Laver Building, North Park Road, Exeter, EX4 4QE, UK
Natalie A. Stear
Affiliation:
School of Chemistry, University of Bristol, Bristol, BS8 1TS, UK
Alexei Kasparov
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, University of Exeter, Laver Building, North Park Road, Exeter, EX4 4QE, UK Institute for the History of Material Culture, Russian Academy of Sciences, Dvortsovaya nab. 18, St Petersburg 191186, Russia
Emma Usmanova
Affiliation:
Sariarka Archaeological Institute, Karaganda State University named after EA Buketov, Karaganda 100028, Kazakhstan
Victor Varfolomeev
Affiliation:
Sariarka Archaeological Institute, Karaganda State University named after EA Buketov, Karaganda 100028, Kazakhstan
Richard P. Evershed
Affiliation:
School of Chemistry, University of Bristol, Bristol, BS8 1TS, UK
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

The authors examine the role of horses as expressed in assemblages from settlement sites and cemeteries between the Eneolithic and the Bronze Age in Kazakhstan. In this land, known for its rich association with horses, the skeletal evidence appears to indicate a fading of ritual interest. But that's not the whole story, and once again micro-archaeology reveals the true balance. The horses are present at the funeral, but now as meat for the pot, detected in bone fragments and lipids in the pot walls.

Type
Research article
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 2011

References

Anthony, D.W. 2007. The horse, the wheel, and language. Princeton (NJ): Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Anthony, D.W. 2009. The Sintashta genesis: the roles of climate change, warfare, and long-distance trade, in Hanks, B.K. & Lindruff, K.M. (ed.) Social complexity in prehistoric Eurasia: monuments, metals, and mobility: 4773. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anthony, D.W. & Brown, D.R. 2003. Eneolithic horse rituals and riding in the steppes: new evidence, in Levine, M., Renfrew, C. & Boyle, K. (ed.) Prehistoric Steppe adaptation and the horse: 5568. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.Google Scholar
Bolton, L.S. 2007. An investigation into why a selection of Bronze Age pots from Kazakhstan have been repaired with bronze staples. Unpublished undergraduate dissertation, University of Exeter.Google Scholar
Benecke, N. & Driesch, A. von den. 2003. Horse exploitation in the Kazakh steppes during the Eneolithic and Bronze Age, in Levine, M., Renfrew, C. & Boyle, K. (ed.) Prehistoric Steppe adaptation and the horse: 6982. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.Google Scholar
Copley, M.S., Berstan, R., Dudd, S.N., Docherty, G., Mukherjee, A.J., Straker, V., Payne, S. & Evershed, R.P. 2003. Direct chemical evidence for widespread dairying in prehistoric Britain. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 100: 1524-29.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dudd, S.N. & Evershed, R.P. 1998. Direct demonstration of milk as an element of archaeological economies. Science 282: 1478–81.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Evershed, R.P. 2008. Experimental approaches to the interpretation of absorbed organic residues in archaeological ceramics. World Archaeology 40(1): 2647.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Evershed, R.P., Dudd, S.N., Copley, M.S., BERSTAN, R., Stott, A.W., Mottram, H.R., Buckley, S.A. & Crossman, Z. 2002. Chemistry of archaeological animal fats. Accounts of Chemical Research 35(8): 660–68.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Frachetti, M.D. 2008. Pastoralist landscapes and social interaction in Bronze Age Eurasia. Berkeley (CA): University of California Press.Google Scholar
Frachetti, M.D. 2009. Differentiated landscapes and non-uniform complexity among Bronze Age societies of the Eurasian Steppe, in Hanks, B.K. & Lindruff, K.M. (ed.) Social complexity in prehistoric Eurasia: monuments, metals, and mobility: 1946. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frachetti, M.D. & Benecke, N. 2009. From sheep to (some) horses: 4500 years of herd structure at the pastoralist settlement of Begash (south-eastern) Kazakhstan. Antiquity 83: 1023–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kalieva, S.S. & Logvin, V.N. 1997. Skotovody Turgaya v Tret'em Tysyacheletii do Nashej Ehry. Kustanai: Kustanai University.Google Scholar
Kelekna, P. 2009. The horse in human history. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kohl, P.L. 2007. The making of Bronze Age Eurasia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Koryakova, L. & Epimakhov, A. 2007. The Urals and western Siberia in the Bronze and Iron Ages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kristiansen, K. & Larsson, T.B. 2005. The rise of Bronze Age society: travels, transmissions and transformations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Levine, M. 1999. The origins of horse husbandry on the Eurasian steppe, in Levine, M., Rassamakin, Y., Kislenko, A. & Tatarintseva, N. (ed.) Late prehistoric exploitation of the Eurasian Steppe: 558. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.Google Scholar
Levine, M. 2004. Exploring the criteria for early horse domestication, in Jones, M. (ed.) Traces of ancestry: studies in honour of Colin Renfrew: 115–26. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.Google Scholar
Levine, M. & Kislenko, A. 2002. New Eneolithic and Bronze Age radiocarbon dates for north Kazakhstan and south Siberia, in Boyle, K., Renfrew, C. & Levine, M. (ed.) Ancient interactions: East and West in Eurasia: 131–4. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.Google Scholar
Ludwig, A., Pruvost, M., Reissmann, M., Benecke, N., Brockmann, G.A., Castaños, P., Cieslak, M., Lippold, S., Llorente, L., Malaspinas, A.-S., Slatkin, M. & Hofreiter, M. 2009. Coat colour variation at the beginning of horse domestication. Science 324: 485.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Olsen, S.L. 2003. The exploitation of horses at Botai, Kazakhstan, in Levine, M., Renfrew, C. & Boyle, K. (ed.) Prehistoric Steppe adaptation and the horse: 83104. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.Google Scholar
Olsen, S.L. 2006a. Early horse domestication on the Eurasian steppe, in Zeder, M.A., Bradley, D.G., Emshwiller, E. & Smith, B.D. (ed.) Documenting domestication: 245–72. Berkley (CA): University of California Press.Google Scholar
Olsen, S.L. 2006b. Early horse domestication: weighing the evidence, in Olsen, S.L., Grant, S., Choyke, A.M. & Bartosiewicz, L. (ed.) Horses and humans: the evolution of human-equine relations (British Archaeological Reports international series 1560): 81114. Oxford: Archaeopress.Google Scholar
Olsen, S., Bradley, B., Maki, D. & Outram, A. 2006. Community organisation among Copper Age sedentary horse pastoralists of Kazakhstan, in Peterson, D.L., Popova, L.M. & Smith, A.T. (ed.) Beyond the Steppe and the sown: 89111. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Outram, A.K., Stear, N.A., Bendrey, R., Olsen, S., Kasparov, A., Zaibert, V., Thorpe, N. & Evershed, R.P. 2009. The earliest horse harnessing and milking. Science 323: 1332–5.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Panyushkina, I.P., Mills, B.J., Usmanova, E.R. & Cheng, L. 2008. Calender age of Liskovsky timbers attributed to Andonovo community of Bronze Age in Eurasia. Radiocarbon 50(3): 459–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simoons, F.J. 1994. Eat not this flesh: food avoidances from prehistory to the present (second edition). Madison (WI): University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Stear, N.A. 2008. Changing patterns of animal exploitation in the prehistoric Eurasian steppe: an integrated molecular, stable isotope and archaeological approach. Unpublished PhD, University of Bristol.Google Scholar
Usmanova, E. 2005. Mogilnik Lisakovskij: Fakty i Parallyeli. Lisakovsk: Lisakovsk Museum.Google Scholar
Yevdokimov, V.V. & Varfolomeev, V.V. 2002. Ehpoxa Bronzy Central'novo i Cevernovo Kazaxstana. Karaganda: E.A. Bukatov Karaganda State University.Google Scholar
Zaibert, V.F., Tyulevaev, A., Zadorozhnyj, A.V. & Kulakov, U. 2007. Tajny Drevnyej Stepi: Issledovaniya Poseleniya Botaj (2004–2006). Kokshetau: Kokshetau University.Google Scholar