ANIMAL HUSBANDRY IN EUROPE - EARLY MIDDLE AGES

Animal husbandry was well established by the European Iron Age. Two major cultural influences in the barbarian world merged with classical Mediterranean tradition in the Carpathian basin. Areas west of the Danube had close ties with the rest of Europe, most directly with the Hallstatt culture (type site: Austria), extending to Britain between the ninth and fifth centuries B.C. Celtic tribes expanded from their homeland in northern France and southern Germany toward southern Europe and Asia Minor as well as the British Isles between the eighth and third centuries B.C. Meanwhile, the Great Hungarian Plain east of the Danube fell under the influence of pre-Scythian and Scythian cultures from the northern Pontic (Black Sea) region during the Early Iron Age (late seventh century B.C.). From the first century A.D. waves of additional migrations lashed the eastern frontiers of Europe.

Celtic influences met Scythian tradition in the barbarian world of central Europe. Classicism, represented by ancient Greek, Hellenistic, and Roman cultures, flanked these geopolitical developments from the south. Records on animal husbandry originate from the latter, Mediterranean/Pontic, region. Beginning with the description by the Greek historian Herodotus (in the fifth century B.C.) of ferocious “Scythian nomads” of the steppe, classical stereotypes of mobile pastoralists were recycled and homogenized throughout antiquity. Meanwhile, advanced Roman animal breeding is reflected in seminal works by Marcus Terentius Varro, Pliny the Elder, and Columella (first century B.C. to the first century A.D.)

Most differences between the Celtic, Mediterranean, and steppe types of animal husbandry were rooted in their respective geographical environments. Prehistoric agriculture had reached northcentral and western Europe millennia earlier across the Balkans. Natural habitats in Mediterranean Europe favored the early establishment of cereal cultivation, viticulture, and the keeping of cattle as well as sheep and goats. People in the Celtic homeland (similarly to northern Germanic tribes inhabiting neighboring areas) had long relied on hunting and pigs, ubiquitous in cool and humid forest regions. Steppe peoples adapted to vast, continental plains by developing mobile pastoralism, with little reliance on cultivation and an emphasis on sheep and goat keeping. Their horses also were used for a great variety of purposes.

Animal keeping, however, should not be viewed with rigid environmental determinism. As empires expanded and reached various areas and people moved around, their traditions blended and interacted, so that by the Iron Age all the important domestic animals were kept in these three cultural regions.

CELTS, GERMANS, AND CLASSICAL TRADITION

Owing to the Celts’ sedentary, often urbanized way of life, their animal keeping did not differ markedly from that of the Greeks and Romans. One of the few distinguishing features are the many pig bones at such sites as the Celtic oppidum (fortified urban settlement) of Manching in Bavaria and many smaller sites across Europe. Although beef and mutton also were eaten, pork and boar were of special importance. Pig bones commonly occur in Celtic burials. Pork also played a mythical role in divine feasting in the hall of dead warriors (Bruiden in Irish Celtic and Valhalla in Norse mythology). Wild boar, one of the most dangerous game animals in Europe, accompanies Arduinna, continental Celtic goddess of the moon and hunting, often equated with Diana in Roman mythology. Boars are depicted frequently both as decorative motifs and symbols. In such provinces as Pannonia, boars are shown on the tombstones of Romanized Celts.

The small, unimproved Celtic domesticates that have been reconstructed from bone finds (such as those kept by Germans and other peoples in the Barbaricum) often are contrasted with advanced Roman “breeds.” This term should be used cautiously when evidence for conscious selection is absent, but the large size and great variation of animal bones from Roman sites illustrate advanced animal husbandry, as described by classical authors. Representations such as Trajan’s Column, from A.D. 113, show livestock whose body conformations appear modern, even by today’s standards.

Size differences between the bones from barbarian and classical domesticates are stark. Another sign of developed animal husbandry, a greater diversity in size and shape, is especially striking in dog remains from Roman provincial settlements in present-day Germany and Hungary—lapdogs, greyhounds, and giant forms, exceeding the size of modern-day Alsatians, are represented equally. Such extremes are rare among coeval Celtic dogs in these areas.

“NOMADIC” TRADITION

Peoples from the steppe usually are referred to with the catchall term “nomadic,” disregarding the complexity of pastoral societies. While pasturing is central to such communities, their seasonal patterns of herding and degrees of sendentariness vary broadly. Theoretically, the entire community of “pure” nomads covered long distances meridionally in a never-ending search for seasonal graze, with no land cultivation. Pastoralism in this extreme form is a highly specialized, precarious way of life. Its stability depends on mobility between different natural habitats, determined by the quality and size of pastures in combination with the speed of movements. Sarmatians, Kalmyks, and some groups of Kazakhs lived this way. The majority of steppe communities, however, included contingents of sedentary agriculturalists as well as major power centers. They could be called, at best, seminomadic. Mobile pastoralism, central to their economy, is a common denominator for past communities. Its technical homogeneity has led to functional similarities between the material and spiritual cultures of many peoples in the vast Eurasian steppe, where perpetual motion greatly intensified contacts and exchange between various groups at all levels.

MOBILE PASTORALISM AND CLASSICAL TRADITION

Scythian tribes included both equestrian nomads and sedentary agriculturalists who inhabited the Eurasian steppe north of the Black Sea. Characteristic of their culture were kurgans (burial mounds), many of them in the Dnieper River region, in which Scythian leaders were interred with grave goods of legendary richness, including dozens of horses. Treasures recovered from these graves are decorated with animal motifs showing Greek and Persian influences. Mythical creatures and hunting scenes dominate this artwork, although the evidence for hunting is scarce among the mundane archaeozoological finds.

Scythian settlements between the Dnieper and the Volga region had an overwhelming dominance of domesticates. Sometimes animal husbandry also is represented on precious metal objects. Most famous are the horse-catching scenes on the fourth century B.C. gilded silver amphora from Chertomlyk (near the Dnieper River in the Ukraine) and animals on the gold pectoral from Tolstaya Mogila (some 10 kilometers from Chertomlyk). The latter piece weighs more than a kilogram and has a diameter of more than 30 centimeters. Composed of three excentric circles (joined with the clasp in the back), the outer band of the pectoral is decorated with mythical and wild creatures from griffins to locusts. Separated by a band of floral ornaments, the third, inner band documents the domestic sphere of life. Two Scythians in the center sew a piece of sheepskin, while another milks a ewe. Stylistically, it is likely that a Greek goldsmith in a colonial town in the northern Pontic region made this piece sometime in the fourth century B.C. The figures look Scythian, but it is difficult to tell whether the wild/domestic dichotomy reflects western or eastern traditions.

In a less spectacular form, artifacts decorated in animal style also are known from areas occupied by Scythians in eastern Hungary. Their animal husbandry in the Carpathian Basin can be reconstructed from bone finds at a few rural settlements. In addition to remains of small-bodied cattle, a relatively large number of horse bones (including those of very young foals) occur among the food refuse. The bony cores of large goat horns also point to the eastern pastoral tradition of these communities. A chariot grave with two horses, found at Szentes-Vekerzug on the Great Hungarian Plain, reflects the importance of these animals in all spheres of life.

Having defeated the Scythians in the Pontic region, Iranian-speaking Sarmatian pastoralists reached the Carpathian Basin during the first century A.D., approximately at the time the Romans conquered Celtic areas in its western half, establishing the province of Pannonia. With their westward expansion blocked, Sarmatians and other barbarian tribes spent four centuries in the shadow of the Roman Empire, often in shifting, short-term alliances. This probably strengthened their ethnocultural identity, preserving their eastern pastoral tradition. Small relative frequencies of bones from pig and poultry illustrate this conservative tendency. Although in environmental terms the Great Hungarian Plain represents the westernmost section of the Eurasian steppe, it is far too small for long-distance, nomadic herding. To many steppe peoples who ended up there, it represented a dead end in terms of long-range, annual migrations. Mobility of livestock became less of a priority.

Various written references to the importance of Sarmatian cavalry are in agreement with the high ratio of horse remains in the food refuse at Sarmatian rural sites. (Among these references are those to the mastering by Germanic Quadi of Sarmatian cavalry tactics, a notation of eight thousand Sarmatian horsemen demanded by the Roman Empire following a defeat in A.D. 175, and the delivery of two thousand mounted warriors to the Romans by the defeated alliance of Sarmatians and Germanic Vandals/Suebians in A.D. 270.) Steppe rituals associated with horses are evidenced by intact horse skulls found at various settlements.

It seems that in peacetime Sarmatians traded livestock and animal products with Roman provinces, in exchange for high-quality Roman craft products (e.g., stamped ware and glass). Sarmatian cattle bones look small and nondistinct. Giant horn cores of rams, however, are indicative of impressive individuals in the sheep flocks. It is difficult to tell whether these animals originated from steppe stocks or represent improved Roman “breeds,” adopted by these skillful pastoralists.

POST-ROMAN DEVELOPMENTS

As hordes of Germanic and Asiatic barbarians brought down the Roman Empire in the fifth century A.D., warhorses again best represented barbarian animal husbandry. Mounted warriors literally spearheaded these migrations, in keeping with the tactical necessities of migration through hostile areas. Flavius Vegetius Renatus, in his veterinary handbook on horses, wrote that Hun horses “have large heads . . . with no fat at all on the rump. . . . The leanness of the horses is striking. . . . Their ugly appearance . . . is set off by their fine qualities: sober nature, cleverness and their ability to endure any injury.” Note the striking difference between this description, and the coeval, idealized picture of a royal mount from the steppe region.

Between A.D. 567 and 804 Asiatic Avars occupied the Carpathian Basin, creating an ethnically heterogeneous empire, including the ruins of Roman Pannonia. The custom of burying warriors with their horses has preserved hundreds of complete horse skeletons for study. Most were stallions or geldings, more lightly built than modern ponies, on average 135 centimeters tall at the withers. They probably represent animals selected by the practical necessities of light cavalry. Avar warriors introduced stirrups to Europe, which, together with saddles with high pommels, helped mounted archers rise and fire their short reflex bows in almost any direction.

The composition of food refuse from early Avar settlements often resembles that of the Sarmatians, but the growing contribution of pig and poultry over time in grave goods may indicate an increasingly sedentary lifestyle. In comparison with Slavic settlements, Avar period animal bone assemblages look definitely more nomadic. A summary of animal bone percentages from numerous sites of the seventh to ninth centuries, representing various cultures, shows that the significance of horsemeat decreased in an eastward direction across the steppe. Pork was hardly eaten in the east but was important in sedentary Slavic cultures. Beef and mutton show a less consistent pattern.

The next migrants from the steppe, the Magyars, conquered the Carpathian Basin in about A.D. 895. They waged ruthless equestrian raids, rooted in their mobile pastoralist tradition, into much of civilized Europe for more than fifty years. The horse heads and feet buried in some of their graves probably come from skinned animals. Magyar horses therefore are more difficult to reconstruct than their Avar counterparts, to which they are similar in appearance. This does not mean that the two stocks were related, but they probably were shaped by similar military needs.

Early Magyar meat consumption focused on beef and mutton, with an unusually high average proportion of horsemeat. Pope Gregory III banned hippophagy (horse-eating) in Europe in the eighth century, as Germanic tribes were converted to Christianity. As Magyars established a Christian kingdom in Hungary (A.D. 1000), horse eating gradually declined. Pork also started contributing more to the diet, as it had with the Sarmatians and Avars.

Because Magyars (i.e., Hungarians) survived in the Carpathian Basin, there is much speculation about the genetic continuity of their modern domesticates. A mythical animal of the conquering Magyars was, supposedly, a breed of longhorn cattle, which is today called the Hungarian gray. It is reminiscent of the Marreman breed in Italy, which is said to have been introduced by the Huns. This historical confusion is exacerbated by skull finds showing that all peoples of steppe origin (Sarmatians Avars, and Magyars) kept small, short-horned cattle. Archaeological evidence for long-horned animals comes centuries later in the wake of the Middle Ages. Many pastoral communities kept large guard dogs. The striking similarity between a skull from the period of the Magyar conquest (ninth century) and a modern Hungarian Kuvasz, however, is rooted more in function than genetic continuity. Owing to their high reproductive rates, dog breeds can change especially rapidly.

By László Bartosiewicz  in "Ancient Europe 8000 B.C.–A.D. 1000 : Encyclopedia of the Barbarian World"  Peter Bogucki, Pam J. Crabtree, editors.  Charles Scribner’s Sons (The Gale Group, Inc.) USA, 2004, excerpts volume 2 p. 366-370. Adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.