Wellmann Imre szerk.: A Magyar Mezőgazdasági Múzeum Közleményei 1971-1972 (Budapest, 1973)
Fenton, Alexander: Early yoke types in Britain
that from Ezinge measuring 146 cm., and the Danish ones ranging up to 180 cm. in length. Head yokes must have a considerable antiquity, and in this respect a comparable yoke-type found at Vinelz (Fig. 3, 1) in Switzerland 8 should be looked at. According to O.-F. GANDERT, this yoke, found is a lake-dwelling, can be dated to 2000 B.C. Though it is perhaps not easy to accept this early date too freely, nevertheless it is likely that head or horn yokes were amongst the earliest auxiliary devices used to adapt animals for draught purposes. Generally speaking, it is probable that withers yokes are somewhat later in date, as Professor VILKUNA has been able to show for Finland. 9 Withers yokes normally have vertical openings placed at each side of the neckpieces Fig. 3. Early yokes from 1. Vinelz, Switzerland; 2. Petersfehn, Oldenberg. After O.-F. GANDERT. to take the upright pins and thongs that encircled the necks of the animals. Withers yokes from the Middle Ages onwards can be easily identified by these features, but unfortunately it is not so easy to categorise earlier specimens, some of which combine features of both head and withers yokes. Possibly some are hybrid forms due to the survival of features of the head yoke in withers yokes. Variations must also be due to the physiological differences between oxen and horses. We still have to learn how these differences should be interpreted in terms of yoke forms. O.-F. GANDERT believes that a withers yoke (Fig. 3, 2), 169 cm. long, found in a moor at Petersfehn in Oldenberg, is as old as 2000—1700 B.C. 10 This date is based on pollen-analysis. One can feel on surer ground, however, with the dating of the yokes from wagon-graves found in South Russia and the Caucasus, 11 from the 14th —13th centuries B.C. At all events, the possibility has to be kept open, that at least certain areas, withers yokes are almost as early as head or horn yokes. S GANDERT, O.-F. Zur Frage der Rinderanschirrung in Neolithikum. Jahrbuch des Römisch-Germanischen Zentralmuseums Mainz V: 1964. 11, 37—38. 9VILKUNA, K. Die Verwendung von Zugochsen in Finnland. Studia Fennica II: 1936. 2. I°GANDERT, O.-F. loc. cit. 38—42. "See PIGGOTT, S. The Earliest Wheeled Vehicles and the Caucasian Evidence. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society XXXIV: 1969. for a recent review of the evidence.
