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The Introduction of Horse-Riding to Temperate Europe: A Contributory Note

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 September 2014

T. G. E. Powell
T. G. E. Powell
Affiliation:
Prehistoric Society
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Extract

In his great study of practical ways and means of daily life in prehistoric Europe, our former Hon. Editor, and President, wrote of the archaeology of horse driving and riding as being ‘slight and difficult to interpret’ (Clark, 1952, 301), and these words have remained very true twenty years on. The study of horse drawn vehicles, and of items of bridling and harness, has, nevertheless, received a good deal of attention, and the leading references have been usefully brought together by Piggott (1968, 313–18), and by Littauer (1969, 300). Much more difficult is the matter of the ridden horse in temperate Europe not only for the scarcity of direct skeletal material, and the usually deplorable circumstances of its excavation, but on account of confusion in the application of terminology, zoological and veterinary, no less than in the existence of many traditional assumptions about the identity and characteristics of the earliest horse domesticators, not to speak of the animal itself. From an archaeological point of view, it has been too easy to forget the animal for the trappings, and to appear to assume that any horse could be decked out regardless of shape or size to perform specialized tasks.

In this short contribution, most gladly dedicated to Grahame Clark, an attempt is made to bring together material for an interim statement, and to consider what guide lines in interpretation can be followed in the light of information on horsemanship in adjacent regions of the Ancient World that are considerably better documented.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society , Volume 37 , Issue 2 , December 1971 , pp. 1 - 14
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1971

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References

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