Understanding early horse transport in eastern Eurasia through analysis of equine dentition

Abstract

Across Eurasia, horse transport transformed ancient societies. Although evidence for chariotry is well dated, the origins of horse riding are less clear. Techniques to distinguish chariotry from riding in archaeological samples rely on elements not typically recovered from many steppe contexts. Here, the authors examine horse remains of Mongolia's Deer Stone-Khirigsuur (DSK) Complex, comparing them with ancient and modern East Asian horses used for both types of transport. DSK horses demonstrate unique dentition damage that could result from steppe chariotry, but may also indicate riding with a shallow rein angle at a fast gait. A key role for chariots in Late Bronze Age Mongolia helps explain the trajectory of horse use in early East Asia.

Early Iron Age cavalry? Evidence of oral and thoracolumbar pathologies on possible warhorses from Iron Age, Denmark

“…A significant bevel has been observed on horses IA3 and IA4 (Figure 4). In three horses (A1, A2, and NY1), registration was hampered by abnormal wear, including waved mouth (IA1 and NY1), stressing that bevel measurements should only be used when the complete dentition is available (Benecke & von den Driesch, 2003; Levine et al, 2000; Taylor et al, 2021). Horse HJ1 did not exhibit any bevel or other types of bit wear (Table 2).…”

“…Three types of dental wear on the anterior‐most premolars (P2) have been associated with bit use and were identified in the present study: beveling (cf. Anthony & Brown, 1989, 2011; Brown & Anthony, 1998; Taylor et al, 2015, 2021), smoothing of the occlusal surface (loss of the “Braille” or “Greaves' effect”; cf. Cook, 2011; Olsen, 2006), and wear of the anterior (rostral) edge of LP2 (Bendrey, 2007a) (Tables 2 and S1).…”

“…beveling (cf. Anthony & Brown, 1989, 2011Brown & Anthony, 1998;Taylor et al, 2015Taylor et al, , 2021, smoothing of the occlusal surface (loss of the "Braille" or "Greaves' effect"; cf. Cook, 2011;Olsen, 2006), and wear of the anterior (rostral) edge of LP2 (Bendrey, 2007a) (Tables 2 and S1).…”

“…The significance of horseback riding and mounted warfare is also evident in the zooarcheological literature, which has seen a significant growth in paleopathological studies related to the history of equestrianism during recent years. These include pathologies related to bit wear (Albizuri et al, 2019;Anthony & Brown, 2011;Bendrey, 2007aBendrey, , 2007cBendrey et al, 2013;Li et al, 2020;Outram et al, 2009;Taylor et al, 2021), osseous changes to the mandible and cranium due to bridling (Bendrey, 2007a;Cosack, 2013;Onar et al, 2013;Taylor et al, 2015), studies of intervertebral ankylosis or spondylitic changes (Bartosiewicz & Bartosiewicz, 2002;Bulatovi c et al, 2014;Janeczek et al, 2014;Li et al, 2020;Lignereux & Bouet, 2015), and vertebral endplate lesions (Baron, 2018;Bendrey, 2007c;Levine et al, 2000Levine et al, , 2005Li et al, 2020;Pluskowski et al, 2010). Together, these studies have greatly contributed to the development of new methodologies and to our knowledge of the use of horses in prehistoric and protohistoric times.…”

They fought on horseback, didn't they?

“…The pathological studies they present can be tied closely to a tight archaeological context and artifactual record in terms of harness equipment, to provide a useful control dataset for comparison to other archaeological records. It adds to an increasing array of methods and situated case studies (e.g., Bindé et al, 2019; Taylor et al, 2021) to provide zooarchaeologists with the toolkit and comparanda to be able to effectively reconstruct the past.…”