Abstract
This study addresses the description, use-wear analysis, and date of three plate-formed cheekpieces from kurgan 5 at Novoilyinovskiy II, Kazakhstan. They were found in the same context with two sacrificed horses (a stallion and a mare), placed on the bottom of a ritual pit in the “flying gallop” posture. The emergence of horse riding, marking a new type of mobility and warfare, has been traditionally dated to ca 900 BC. However, cheekpieces suggest that this process spanned the entire 2nd millennium BC. They testify to the evolution of horsemanship and the search for the most efficient means of controlling draft and riding horses. Results of the use-wear analysis suggest that all three specimens likely belonged to riding horses’ harnesses. Two AMS radiocarbon measurements referring to kurgan 5 suggest that these cheekpieces are among the earliest used for controlling riding rather than draft horses, implying that horse riding emerged on the Eurasian steppes as early as the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC.
Highlights
Plate-formed cheekpieces and the emergence of horsemanshipThe origin of the horseback riding marks the emergence of new types of mobility and warfare
This study addresses the description, use-wear analysis, and date of three plate-formed cheekpieces from kurgan 5 at Novoilyinovskiy II, Kazakhstan
The development of horsemanship dates back to the 2nd–1st millennium BC (Drews, 2004: 149). This process can be traced back to the Eurasian steppe throughout the entire 2nd millennium BC, as these cheekpieces reflect the evolution in equestrianism, as well as the search for the most effective ways to control horses in various conditions (Kuzmina, 1994: 180)
Summary
The origin of the horseback riding marks the emergence of new types of mobility and warfare. Similar signs of wear are visible on the plate-formed cheekpieces from kurgan 5 at the Komarovka cemetery (Usachuk, 2014), and burial 1, kurgan 2 at the Aksaiman cemetery These signs of wear are closest to those obtained in the experiments with the bridle in which a noseband was attached to the rostral outset (bridle type 2, intended for riding). The multidimensional scaling of a series of cheekpieces (n = 81), with the use of the Gower’s similarity coefficient, has demonstrated that plate-formed cheekpieces form an independent cluster, which is significantly separated from the antler-made shield-like and rod-shaped ones located on the same two-dimensional field, owing to significant morphological differences (Chechushkov, Epimakhov, Bersenev, 2018: 129) It revealed a chronological trend: the earliest artifacts are localized at one edge of the field, and the most recent ones at the opposite. It follows that the plate-formed cheekpieces from Novoilyinovskiy II are some of the earliest artifacts of this kind, which began to be used when the typical shield-like antler-made cheekpieces were not yet obsolete and the skills and traditions of their carving were still maintained (Usachuk, 2014)
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