ARCHAEOZOOLOGICAL COMPLEXES OF SCYTHIAN BARROWS

Abstract

Archaeozoological studies of the complexes of the Scythian burial mounds Babina and Vodyana Mohyly, the Berdyansk Kurhan and barrow group 1 near the town of Kamenka-Dneprovska allow to make the following generalizations. As the studied materials show, the horse was widely used in the funeral rites of the Scythians. Parts of the carcasses of horses were placed in the burial as a farewell food, meat horses were used for conducting funeral rites, horses were buried with their owners. Sheep and cattle were also used as food. During the funeral rites parts of the carcasses of wild animals — European deer and wild boar — were used as well.

In some cases sex and age of animals that were selected for ritual and funeral rites can be established. Commonly the horses of two age categories — young (4—5 years) and middle age (9—10 years), were used in funeral rites.

The vast majority of the horses belonged to the groups of stunted (128—136 cm at the withers) and medium growth (136—144 cm) horses according to their sizes. The exception are the horses from the Vodyana Mohyla: the Mare from burial 3 (very small, height 118.96 cm); the horse from the ditch and horse  2, which had above-average growth and belong to the group of tall.

According to the indices of massiveness of metacarpal and metatarsal bones, horses belonged to the groups of thin-legged (2 specimens), half-thin-legged (8 specimens) and medium-legged (4 specimens) horses, that is, most animals were half- thin-legged.

Horse 2 and horse from the ditch of the Babina Mohyla: moved fast gaits (trot and gallop) quite often, whereas horse 1 rarely resorted to it. Horse 1, obviously, a significant part of the first half of life could graze in the herd, where it formed a type of movement slow gait. This horse could inherit the massiveness of the leg from their ancestors, which were brought from another region. Horses from the Vodyana Mohyla: probably has moved mostly at a slow pace — by-step and slow trot.

Horses from the Berdyansk Kurhan were half-thin-legged, small and medium height at withers. They were formed on fairly hard and dry soils, and their type of movement was mainly fast.

Horses from the tumulus 1 of Kamenka-Dneprovska was a thin-legged and half-thin-legged, mostly — average growth and was approaching the horses running type.

A mixture of features, which are characteristics of horses of various types and, respectively, adaptation of animals to different types of movement may be indicative of their content in the herds for a long time. As a rule, such mixture of signs characterizes the wild animals that do not fall under targeted selection. However, in this case we can talk about large portion of the population of the Scythian horses, which is not selected «under the saddle» of persons of high social status.