Anders Alexandra – Lőrinczy Gábor szerk.: A Móra Ferenc Múzeum Évkönyve: Studia Archaeologica 12. (Szeged, 2011)
László BARTOSIEWICZ: Ex Oriente equus... A Brief History of Horses between the Early Bronze Age and the Middle Ages
László BARTOSIEWICZ 2500 BC (ANTHONY 1997). Horse sacrifices, including the interment of entire animals, survived in a variety of forms until the early Middle Ages. Apotropaic horse skull displays were still documented in Hungarian ethnography (Fig. 1, 6) and in Iran during the last third of the 20 t h c. (BÖKÖNYI 1978). Individuals with extreme pathological deformations, such as the near complete fusion of the vertebral column (e. g. in a Germanic burial in Keszthely, Hungary) have sometimes been referred to as "shaman horses", since it is difficult to attribute any practical use to these gravely sick individuals (BARTOSIEWICZ-BARTOSIEWICZ 2002). Modern Day urban mythology, rooted in 19 th late c. romanticism, has regularly confused "nomadic" tradition with 1 6 t h— 19 t h c. open range herding in the Great Hungarian Plain. In addition to a number of functional similarities between equestrian cultures (BARTOSIEWICZ 2009a), the immense mobility brought about by horse domestication had also contributed to the rapid exchange of innovation, goods and fashions among peoples who became able to cover long distances within a very short time. This has probably resulted in the homogenization of certain aspects of material culture (e. g. related to horseback riding or warfare), while symbolic indicators of tribal or ethnic identity may have attained increased impotance. Technical innovation, however, was not always adopted if it was not consonant with traditional attitudes toward horses. Although the spur was used already by the Celts during the La Téne period beginning in the 5 t h c. BC, it did not seem to gain rapid popularity in the "conservative" equestrian cultures of the Eurasian Steppe belt. A distant analogy is worth considering here. The Plains Indians of North America were riding their newly introduced horses without spurs at a time when spurs were known and widely available. Already by the 16 t h c. spurs found their way to Mexico with the Spanish conquistadors. In North America, the use of the spur spread northward only with the demand of horses for the nascent US Cavalry. BIBLIOGRAPHY ALEKSEEV ET AL. 2010 Alekseev, A. Yu. - Bokovenko, N. A. - Boltrik, Yu. - Chugunov, K. A. Cook, G. - Dergachev, V. A. - Kovalyukh, N. Possnert, G. - van der Plicht, J. - Scott, E. M. Semeetsov, A. - Skripkin, V. - Vasiliev, S. Zaitseva, G.: Chronology of Eurasian Scythian Antiquities Born by New Archaeological and I4C Data. Radiocarbon 43, No 2B (2001) 1085-1107. ANTHONY 1997 Anthony, D. W.: Let Them Eat Horses. Newsletter - Institute For Ancient Equestrian Studies, No. 4/Summer, 1997. ANTHONY ET AL. 2006 Anthony, D. W. - Brown, D. R. - George, C.: Early horseback riding and warfare , the importance of the magpie around the neck. In: Horses and Humans. The Evolution of Human-Equine Relationships. Eds.: Olsen, S. L. Grant, S. - Choyke, A. M. - Bartosiewicz, L. BARInternational Series 1560. Oxford 2006, 137-156. BARTOSIEWICZ 2006 Bartosiewicz, L. : Phenotype and age in protohistoric horses, a comparison between Avar and Early Hungarian crania. In: Recent Advances in Ageing and Sexing Animal Bones. Ed.: Ruscillo, D. Oxford 2006, 204-215. BARTOSIEWICZ 2009 Bartosiewicz, L.: Skin and Bones, Taphonomy of a Medieval Tannery in Hungary. Journal of Taphonomy 7/2-3 (2009) 95-111. BARTOSIEWICZ 2009a Bartosiewicz L.: Gondolatok a „lovas nomád" hagyományról. — Thoughts about the „equestrian nomadic" tradition. In: Csontvázak a szekrényből. Válogatott tanulmányok a magyar archaeozoológusok visegrádi találkozóinak anyagából 2002-2009. — Skeletons from the cupboard. Selected Studies from the Visegrád Meetings of Hungarian Archaeozoologists 20022009. Szerk.: Bartosiewicz L. - Gál E. - Kováts I. Budapest 2009, 73-82. BARTOSIEWICZ-BARTOSIEWICZ 2002 Bartosiewicz, L. - Bartosiewicz, G.: "Bamboo spine " in a Migration Period horse from Hungary. Journal of Archaeological Science 29:8 (2002) 819-830. BARTOSIEWICZ-GYÖNGYÖSSY 2006 Bartosiewicz, L. - Gyöngyössy, M.: The Khan's Mule. In: Horses and Humans. The Evolution of HumanEquine Relationships. Eds.: Olsen, S. L. - Grant, S. - Choyke, A. M. - Bartosiewicz, L. BAR-International Series 1560. Oxford 2006, 289-299. BARTOSIEWICZ-GÁL 2010 Bartosiewicz, L. Gál, E.: 9. Living On The Frontier, "Scythian "And "Celtic" Animal Exploitation In Iron Age Northeastern Hungary. In: Anthropological Approaches to Zooarchaeology: Colonialism, Complexity, and Animal Transformations. Eds.: Campana, D. Crabtree, P. - deFrance, S. D. - Lev-Tov, J. Choyke, A M. Archaeozoology and Social Complexity. Oxford 2010, 115-127. BÖKÖNYI 1952 Bökönyi, S.: Les chevaux scythiques du cimitiére de Szentes-Vekerzug. Acta ArchHung2 (1952) 171-183. 132
