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From sheep to (some) horses: 4500 years of herd structure at the pastoralist settlement of Begash (south-eastern Kazakhstan)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Michael Frachetti  and
Norbert Benecke
Michael Frachetti
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Washington University in St Louis, 1 Brookings Drive, CB 1114, St Louis, MO 63130, USA (Email: frachetti@wustl.edu)
Norbert Benecke
Affiliation:
Leiter des Referats Naturwissenschaften Archäozoologie, German Archaeological Institute, Scientific Department of the Head Office, Im Dol 2-6, Haus II, 14195 Berlin, Germany (Email: nb@dainst.de)
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Abstract

Does the riding of horses necessarily go with the emergence of Eurasian pastoralism? Drawing on their fine sequence of animal bones from Begash, the authors think not. While pastoral herding of sheep and goats is evident from the Early Bronze Age, the horse appears only in small numbers before the end of the first millennium BC. Its adoption coincides with an increase in hunting and the advent of larger politically organised groups.

Keywords

KazakhstanEurasian steppeBronze Ageprehistoric periodhistoric periodpastoralismhorsesherd structure
Type
Research
Information
Antiquity , Volume 83 , Issue 322 , December 2009 , pp. 1023 - 1037
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 2009

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