Horse skulls revisited. Analyses of selected deposits from the territory of Poland

Abstract

The article presents results of the most recent study on three assemblages of horse skulls and bones presented in older publications as early medieval deposits. In the course of the project “Horse in Poland in the Times of the Early Piasts and Internal Fragmentation. AnInterdisciplinaryStudy”, they were subjected to multifaceted archaeozoological analyses as well as AMS carbon-14 dating. Owing to the findings of these analyses along with a critical culture-related assessment of the earlier interpretations, the custom of using horse skulls for magical rituals in the Late Medieval and in modern times. The custom from the pagan era was still practiced in folklore culture and its magical, non-Christian manifestations. The presented results show that dating animal deposits using the AMS carbon-14 method is necessary whenever they become an element of a qualitative-cultural interpretation. They are also an example of merging methods and findings from different specialties in interpreting zoological deposits resulting from human activity. Moreover, the considerations contained in this paper suggest also that there is a need for reinterpreting theses that have been long in use in the subject literature.