Horváth Attila – H. Tóth Elvira szerk.: Cumania 4. Archeologia (Bács-Kiskun Megyei Múzeumok Közleményei, Kecskemét, 1976)
S. Bökönyi: Szarmata lelőhelyek állatcsont leletei Bács-Kiskun megyéből
As Table 6 shows the withers heights of horses represented by the metapodiils only slightly exceed the 136 to 137 cm average of Migration Period horses in Hungary (Bökönyi, 1974), on the other hand, the horses which the radius and tibia come from are essentially larger than that. One can easily suppose that the individual with 143.2 cm withers height was a plus variant of Sarmatian horses while the other one with 151.7 cm hight in withers had to be something else. It could be a Roman military horse that was bred in Pannónia just as well as in any other province of the Roman empire. The Roman military horses that were improved with Scythian (via the Greeks), Persian and Hispanic blood and which are best represented by the horse of the equestrian statue of the Empeor Marcus Aurelius on the Capitol at Rome had a withers height of 145 to 155 cm. Hilzheimer (1924) and Habermehl (1957) distinguished different horses for soldiers and for officers within the breed; others (Nobis, 1955; Boessneck, 1957, 1958, 1964; Herre, 1958) considered it to be an identical breed. Besides Intercisa— Dunaújváros, also the castrum of Budapest—Albertfalva yielded a skull of this breed in Roman Pannónia (Bökönyi, 1974). Strabon (Geographika,VII. 4—8) wrote the following about Sarmatian horses: ,,The castration of horses is customary with all Scythian and Sarmatian peoples to make the animals obedient; for their horses are small, yet very fiery and disobedient." The small size of Sarmatian horses of the seven sites could already be seen, but there is also a reliable date concerning the occurrence of castrates in the sample. The gracility of extremity bones and the comparatively long dimensions of the distil segments of extremities in geldings are well known. Through the examination of a fair number of Migration Period horses (Bökönyi, 1974) it could be stated that ". . .when the length of metacarpals. . . amounts to at least 23 per cent of the total length of the fore limbs, that is, when the length of the metatarsals is at least 26.7 per cent of the total length of the hindextremities and their slenderness index is below 14.5 and 11.5 respectively, we may suspect a castrated animal". In these Sarmatian sites only single extremity bones occur whose length cannot be determined in relation to the whole length of the limb, however, the slenderness index of the whole metacarpal of Kunszentmiklós—Bak ér is 14.3 thus falling into the range of variation of geldings. At the same time, the same indexes of the two metatarsals are 11.9 and 12.0 respectively that are well outside the range of variation of castrates. Among all species of the seven sites the dog is represented by the best bone sample. Since dogs were seemingly not eaten and the carcasses of dogs died in the settlements were thrown into the garbage pits, the more or less complete skeletons of five adult dogs and a juvenile one — four of them with whole skulls, one with a larger skull fragment, the skull of the juvenile individual was in fragments — and two further adult skulls and two larger skull fragments were unearthed. All dog skulls of the sites have a common characteristic: their teeth are so small that there are gaps between them both in the upper and lower premolar rows. This demonstrates that these Sarmatian dogs were already on a quite high level of domestication when the size decrease of teeth already reached or even surpassed the shortening of skulls and jaws. At the same time, these skulls can be divided into two clearly distinguished groups Strangely or luckily enough both groups occur in each of the three sites containing dog remains proving that none of the groups can be simply local breeds. To the first group each of a skull of Kunszállás — Alkotmány Tsz (Inv. Nr. 74.1.225; Fig. 9), Kunszentmiklós-Bak ér (Inv. Nr. 66.3.100; Fig. 10), and Szabadszállás—Józan (Inv. Nr. 65.2.228; Fig. 11) belong, and also a larger skull fragment of Kunszállás—Alkotmány Tsz (74.1.226) is joined them. They are of medium size, elongated skulls with a well-arched, although, not pa/ustris-like brain-case. Their median crest (crista mediana) is only slightly protruding, the semicircular lines (lineae semicirculares) are flat, and the conspicuously narrow forehead hardly sinks in between them. The distance between the two canthuses is also very small. Particularly typical is the flatness of the oral part of the forehead through which it goes over without any concavity into the almost straight nasal region. The skull of Szabadszállás — Józan is the only one in this group which has its canines in their alveoli, they are conspicuously long and slender. The crowns of the canines are broken off (the left one certainly in vivo since there is a clear sign of wear on its remaining part) in the complete skull of Kunszállás—Alkotmány Tsz, and both can52
