Papers by Katherine Kanne
Science advances, Mar 22, 2024
This paper reports a high-resolution isotopic study of medieval horse mobility, revealing their o... more This paper reports a high-resolution isotopic study of medieval horse mobility, revealing their origins and in-life mobility both regionally and internationally. The animals were found in an unusual horse cemetery site found within the City of Westminster, London, England. Enamel strontium, oxygen, and carbon isotope analysis of 15 individuals provides information about likely place of birth, diet, and mobility during the first approximately 5 years of life. Results show that at least seven horses originated outside of Britain in relatively cold climates, potentially in Scandinavia or the Western Alps. Ancient DNA sexing data indicate no consistent sex-specific mobility patterning, although three of the five females came from exceptionally highly radiogenic regions. Another female with low mobility is suggested to be a sedentary broodmare. Our results provide direct and unprecedented evidence for a variety of horse movement and trading practices in the Middle Ages and highlight the importance of international trade in securing high-quality horses for medieval London elites.
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Nature, 2024
Horses revolutionized human history with fast mobility. However, the timeline between their domes... more Horses revolutionized human history with fast mobility. However, the timeline between their domestication and widespread integration as a means of transportation remains contentious. Here we assemble a large collection of 475 ancient horse genomes to assess the period when these animals were first reshaped by human agency in Eurasia. We find that reproductive control of the modern domestic lineage emerged ~2,200 BCE (Before Common Era), through close kin mating and shortened generation times. Reproductive control emerged following a severe domestication bottleneck starting no earlier than ~2,700 BCE, and coincided with a sudden expansion across Eurasia that ultimately resulted in the replacement of nearly every local horse lineage. This expansion marked the rise of widespread horse-based mobility in human history, which refutes the commonly-held narrative of large horse herds accompanying the massive migration of steppe peoples across Europe ~3,000 BCE and earlier. Finally, we detect significantly shortened generation times at Botai ~3,500 BCE, a settlement from Central Asia associated with corrals and a subsistence economy centered on horses. This supports local horse husbandry before the rise of modern domestic bloodlines.
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Frontiers in Human Dynamics , 2024
Animal husbandry was of fundamental consequence in the planning and development of larger and mor... more Animal husbandry was of fundamental consequence in the planning and development of larger and more permanent communities. Pastoralism is often assumed to be highly mobile when considering social institutions and political formations, despite the diversity of husbandry practices that are either wholly, or largely, tethered to relatively sedentary social aggregations. Key tenets of more settled animal husbandry are intensive social relations between people, and between people, animals, and landscapes. This entails reciprocal, multispecies cooperative efforts to decide how to utilize pastoral resources, choose where to settle, and how to organize settlements with an eye for the animals. Yet, scholars have rarely considered how the logistics and social dynamics of pastoralism shaped the transition to sedentism and, particularly, the development of collective forms of governance in prehistory. In this paper, we re-center pastoralism in narratives of settling down, in order to recognize the critical ways that relations with animals shaped how humans learned to move and dwell in emergent grazing landscapes. We take an institutional approach to the concept of "the commons," demonstrating the dynamics through 19thcentury Irish rundale, then draw on case studies from Southern Scandinavia and the Carpathian Basin to consider the commons as a multispecies institution which resulted in variable sociopolitical formations of the European Bronze Age.
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Current Anthropology, 2022
Horses have had a singular impact on human societies. Beyond increasing interconnectivity and rev... more Horses have had a singular impact on human societies. Beyond increasing interconnectivity and revolutionizing warfare, reconfigurations of human-horse relationships coincide with changes in sociopolitical formations. How this occurs is less well understood. This article proposes that relationships of equestrianism transform people and horses reciprocally, generating new possibilities for both species. Focusing here on human benefits, equestrianism affords differential and increased mobility, access, and experience for people, which translate horse power into human power. This has particular consequences for how political authority is negotiated. I use the tell societies of Bronze Age Hungary (ca. 2300/2200-1600/1500 BC) to model how horses were harnessed in resistance to centralized rule and social inequality as much as they were used to assert power. This interpretation challenges traditional grand narratives for the European Bronze Age, which see male elite warriors driving chariots, desirous of bronze, and instituting hierarchical, complex societies. Rather, ordinary women and men riding horses built these long-lived communities and were variously able to resist chiefly authority because of the power offered by horses. The theory starts disentangling mechanisms between local equestrianism and long-term historical changes.
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Book Chapters by Katherine Kanne
Historical Practices in Horsemanship and Equestrian Sports, 2022
If you met a horse and rider from 4000 years ago, would they look familiar? Thanks to the recent ... more If you met a horse and rider from 4000 years ago, would they look familiar? Thanks to the recent revolution in the archaeogenetics of the past several decades, which combines the study of ancient DNA (aDNA) with archaeology, the picture of the earliest domesticated horses and riders is coming into focus with greater resolution. This chapter reviews the state of knowledge about the origins, movements, and appearance of domesticated horses, starting with what is known about how the earliest true horses in the Ice Age looked, through the manifestations of early equestrianism in the Eurasian Bronze Age in the third to second millennium BC. The first bits, their distribution, and possible bridle reconstructions, are examined along with discoveries of the earliest likely riders.
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Conference Papers by Katherine Kanne
1st ICAZ MWG meeting, Bergen, Norway, 2022
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European Association of Archaeologists 28th Annual Meeting, 2022
This paper presents the results of a comparative study of equestrianism of the Bronze Age of Hung... more This paper presents the results of a comparative study of equestrianism of the Bronze Age of Hungary, which integrates strontium isotope analysis of horses from seven tell settlements, with the analysis of human and horse remains and their bridle bits. Strontium isotope analysis was a key component in establishing mostly regionally local horse production, but a that few horses were either ridden or traded into tell societies far from their birthplace. This supports increased equestrian interconnectivity at a supra-regional level, which is discussed in light of the most recent horse ancient DNA (aDNA) results. Used alone, this could support existing theoretical models of the European Bronze Age. However, when included with all lines of research, the isotope evidence supports local use, travel on, and trade in horses that was not under the auspices of an elite class of warrior rulers. In this case, the methodological integration of stable isotope analysis with multiple lines of evidence forces a re-examination of Bronze Age narratives of human-horse relationships that have particular consequences for expressions of political authority. This confirms the need to have a detailed comparative and contextual understanding of the animals and humans involved in biogeochemical studies when used in the formation of broad narratives of European Prehistory.
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European Association of Archaeologists 28th Annual Meeting, 2022
Medieval horses worked hard in a variety of roles, from ‘Great Horse’ to cart horse, and often ha... more Medieval horses worked hard in a variety of roles, from ‘Great Horse’ to cart horse, and often have pathologies and injuries that testify to how they were used and treated. The study of use, pathology, and injury in archaeological horses has had a somewhat contentious history which has been hampered by the lack of large comparative datasets. This paper presents the results of pathologies and injuries recorded from the largest sample of horses compiled from the late Saxon to Tudor period (c. AD 800–1600) in England. This data is used to detail types and rates of injury by body part, site, and period, and subsequently to infer use (ridden, draught, or mixed), and to identify individuals as likely warhorses. With this interdisciplinary study, the injuries can be contextualized by genetics and metrics (traditional and geometric morphometrics), stable isotope analyses, as well as medieval textural and iconographic evidence for veterinary care. The results then are compared to other known instances of use, injury, and care of horses in the archaeological record, providing examples how this robust dataset that can be utilized in additional studies.
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Modèles d’occupation du sol à l’âge du Bronze en Europe / Models of land use during the Bronze Age in Europe : Colloque international initié par l’Association pour la Promotion des Recherches sur l’Âge du Bronze (APRAB), 2022
The Bronze Age was a period of revolutions, one of which was equestrian. The massive structural, ... more The Bronze Age was a period of revolutions, one of which was equestrian. The massive structural, cultural, and economic transformations of the 2nd to 1st millennium BC are thought to be related to the increased mobility and interaction provided by domesticated horses (Equus caballus). The emergence of equestrianism has been linked to the first period of globalization– the ‘travels, transmissions, and transformations’ of Bronze Age Europe (Kristiansen and Larsson 2005). Bronze metallurgy, ore extraction, and trade of raw and finished goods required enhanced mobility as a defining feature of complex societies, their economies, and cultural identities. A key aspect of the advent of equestrianism with the spread the modern domestic lineage of the 2nd millennium a.C was the creation of equestrian infrastructures that moved people, goods, and ideas across incredible distances. This paper explores the development of Bronze Age equestrian infrastructures in Europe which altered the landscape in new ways, including in settlement patterns and overland travel and trade routes, ultimately transforming the ways in which societies could be organized and governed. A model for equestrian infrastructure is introduced based on Bronze Age horses and people in the Carpathian Basin, where the bioarchaeology of both species is integrated with strontium isotope data, bit distributions, and horse abundance in this important region with early domestic horses (Fig. 1; Kanne In Press). Several large continental datasets are utilised, including the distribution of bit types, horse abundance, and ore locations, to map how equestrian infrastructures came into being as equestrianism expanded in all directions, modifying landscapes and linking Afroeurasia into a massively more connected network by the onset of the 1st millennium a.C. As a result, equestrianism may have empowered the development of a range of socio-political formations and extended social relations that facilitated geographical and political expansion, and the emergence of greater wealth disparities in Europe after the Bronze Age (Kohler et al. 2017).
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Despite that riding is typically gendered female in the present, equestrianism is almost always g... more Despite that riding is typically gendered female in the present, equestrianism is almost always gendered male in the past. In this paper, I take a deep dive into the archaeological record to excavate relationships between women and horses. These relationships have a thoroughly ancient history that has been poorly acknowledged. Ancient DNA (aDNA), stable isotope analyses, and sexing of burials based on human remains, rather than grave goods, allows us to appreciate the antiquity of female equestrians as the norm, rather than the exception. I explore how women regularly rode through time, beginning with my research documenting the earliest riders from the Hungarian Middle Bronze Age (2020-1730 cal BC). I then draw together large datasets of equestrian burials, and famous cases like the Pazyryk ‘Princess of Ukok’ from the Siberian Altai of the 5th century BC, and the Birka Warrior from the 10th century AD in Sweden, to reposition women as vanguards of early equestrianism, and of equestrianism more broadly.
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In models for the European Bronze Age, horses have been placed at the heart of political economie... more In models for the European Bronze Age, horses have been placed at the heart of political economies, at the intersections of transport and control of trade, warfare, warrior institutions, and ideologies (Earle, Kristiansen 2010; Kristiansen, Larsson 2005). In this paper, I synthesize the results of my research of equestrianism and the origins of complex societies in the Hungarian Bronze Age (Kanne in press). I view equestrianism as a locus for sociopolitical and economic change, demonstrating how the presence of fully domesticated horses, likely riders, new riding bits, long-distance movement of horses, and shifts in horse demography coalesced within the early centuries of of the Hungarian Middle Bronze Age (2020-1730 cal BC), at the founding of tell societies.
While equestrianism helped to instigate the broad changes in culture, genes, and probably language, seen in the European Bronze Age, it does so in unexpected ways in Hungary. By allowing increased interconnectivity, aiding in building expansive exchange networks with the transport of raw materials and finished goods, and accelerating the movement of people and ideas, equestrianism here also apparently worked against the institution of social hierarchies and centralized governance thought to be inherent to the European Bronze Age. I establish that horses were vital to create tell societies in Hungary. However, because riding was relatively widespread, and not restricted by class or sex, horses first acted more as leveling mechanisms to limit social difference. I explore the movement of people and horses based on strontium isotope analyses, horse and bridle bit distributions, locations of ores and mines, and known trade routes, to present a model of how equestrianism helped to prevent exclusionary rule. By the terminal Late Bronze Age, in the face declining agropastoral productivity, and dissolving tell communities, equestrianism becomes more typically embedded in expressions of overt political authority and territorial defense. This work positions equestrianism as a key feature of the adaptability of human societies in the Metal Ages, affording the relatively sudden transformations that characterize the beginning of the Bronze Age, whilst enabling the resilience to cope with the changes that mark its end.
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Riding is a borderland; variously blurring, demarcating, and transcending the boundaries between ... more Riding is a borderland; variously blurring, demarcating, and transcending the boundaries between human and horse. This hybrid beast, born in the Eurasian Bronze Age (c. 2000-1000 BC), becomes increasingly and necessarily bound to the making, defense, and seizing of geographical borders. In this paper, I explore the novel boundary crossings between human and horse that are conjoined while mediating new cognitive and physical geographies mapped in the Bronze Age. Borderlands are scarred with interactions, evidenced by the osteopathologies of people and horses, and the material culture of their negotiations, the bridle bits. Combining this multi-stranded data with the geospatial expansion of equestrianism, I track the shifting frontiers traversed by the human and horse couple through the European Bronze Age. This integration of bodies, behaviors, sociality, and experience resulted in a new way of being, transforming both species as it unfolded. Equestrianism afforded new ways of life, increased interconnectivity, and ways to resist, consent to, or assert political power. Once the equestrian leaps forth from Pandora’s box, however, political and terrestrial boundaries become ever signaled by the centaur.
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I present the results of a comparative study of equestrianism in the Hungarian Bronze Age which i... more I present the results of a comparative study of equestrianism in the Hungarian Bronze Age which integrated strontium isotope analysis of horses from seven tell settlements with the study of human and horse remains and their related material culture. Strontium isotope analysis was a key component in establishing regionally local horse production, but that a few horses were either ridden or traded into tell societies far from their birthplace. This supported increased equestrian interconnectivity at a supra-regional level. Used alone, this could support existing theoretical models of the Hungarian Bronze Age. However, when included with all lines of research, the isotope evidence suggested local use, travel on and trade in horses that was not under the auspices of an elite class of warrior rulers. In this case, the methodological integration of stable isotope analysis with multiple lines of evidence forced a reexamination of Bronze Age narratives of human-horse relationships that have particular consequences for traditional explanations of political authority. There has long been the assumption of horses driving the development of the complex tell societies of the Hungarian Bronze Age, as part of a ‘chariot package’ that allowed for warrior aristocracies to rule the tells and control the bronze trade. The lack of any obvious linkages of horses with elites, the lack of any evidence of chariots, and the fact that riding was widespread and not restricted by class or gender forces a reinterpretation of the roles that horses played in the Hungarian Bronze Age. This confirms the need to have a detailed comparative and contextual understanding of the animals and humans involved in biogeochemical studies when used in the formation of broad narratives of European Prehistory.
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The origins of riding have been an elusive and contentious subject for archaeologists. Recent res... more The origins of riding have been an elusive and contentious subject for archaeologists. Recent research in archaeology and ancient DNA (aDNA) have begun to clarify early riding and the genetic make-up of the first domesticated horses. In this paper, I pull together evidence from horse bones, human remains, the first bits, and aDNA of people and horses to explore what riding may have been like around 2000 BC. The function of early bits, bit-wear, horse size and conformation are examined with reference to archaeological finds and experimental study to produce a picture of what an early riding horse may been like and, along with human remains, how riding may have been practiced. This is augmented by aDNA information regarding coat color and what early people may have been selectively breeding for in horses. The form and function of the earliest bits will be familiar to most equestrians, as will the osteological changes in people and horses that occur from riding. I draw parallels to modern bits and bitting traditions to elucidate how basic practices of horsemanship have great antiquity. I conclude with a discussion about how the language between people and horses through horse training may have been part of the domestication process itself.
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Dissertation by Katherine Kanne
People and horses have a deep, co-constructed, and co-evolutionary history. This dissertation eva... more People and horses have a deep, co-constructed, and co-evolutionary history. This dissertation evaluates sociopolitical change of the Hungarian Bronze Age (2800 – 800 BC) in the context of long-term shifts in human-horse relationships. In the Bronze Age, horses are assumed to mount the development of complex polities ruled by elite, chariot driving warrior aristocracies which transformed the Old World. Equestrians are placed at the core of the political economy at the intersections of transport and control of trade, warfare, warrior institutions, and ideologies. In this dissertation, I test the political economy model, challenged with a multispecies archaeology, to investigate the role of novel human-horse interactions suspected to undergird these
transformations.
With an integrated methodology, the first to combine zooarchaeology, bioarchaeology, stable isotope analysis, material culture study, and GIS mapping, I analyzed data I collected from seven settlements and ten cemeteries. I found the earliest horseback riders in history, the earliest postcranial pathologies in horses, the earliest evidence of specialized breeding and exchange in horses, and no evidence of chariotry. The earliest riding was not restricted by class or sex, and there is little indication of elite control of horse production, ownership, or use in the Hungarian Bronze Age. This creates an interpretive problem for the political economy approach, which anticipates that horses were co-opted by aspiring elites in their attempts to create wealth and finance rule. This phase of human-horse relationships was not yet defined by equestrian power as overarching sociopolitical power. Equestrianism came early in the Bronze Age; the politicalization of horses came later. Not until the very end of the Bronze Age were horses clearly incorporated into pursuits of power and in warfare. Even then, horses emerge as important in resistance to centralized power as a vehicle to consolidate it.
The results of this dissertation undermine the proposed widespread dissemination of chariot warrior aristocracies at the beginning of the European Bronze Age. Dismounting the elite male warrior from his chariot complicates an old but persistent Bronze Age grand narrative that has at its heart an elite androcentric mastery of nature, animals, women, commoners, rural dwellers, and others through time. Ordinary horseback herders, commoners, and women made equal contributions to the development of complex societies of the European Bronze Age with and through horses.
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Book Reviews by Katherine Kanne
Cheiron: The International Journal of Equine and Equestrian History , 2021
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Papers by Katherine Kanne
Book Chapters by Katherine Kanne
Conference Papers by Katherine Kanne
While equestrianism helped to instigate the broad changes in culture, genes, and probably language, seen in the European Bronze Age, it does so in unexpected ways in Hungary. By allowing increased interconnectivity, aiding in building expansive exchange networks with the transport of raw materials and finished goods, and accelerating the movement of people and ideas, equestrianism here also apparently worked against the institution of social hierarchies and centralized governance thought to be inherent to the European Bronze Age. I establish that horses were vital to create tell societies in Hungary. However, because riding was relatively widespread, and not restricted by class or sex, horses first acted more as leveling mechanisms to limit social difference. I explore the movement of people and horses based on strontium isotope analyses, horse and bridle bit distributions, locations of ores and mines, and known trade routes, to present a model of how equestrianism helped to prevent exclusionary rule. By the terminal Late Bronze Age, in the face declining agropastoral productivity, and dissolving tell communities, equestrianism becomes more typically embedded in expressions of overt political authority and territorial defense. This work positions equestrianism as a key feature of the adaptability of human societies in the Metal Ages, affording the relatively sudden transformations that characterize the beginning of the Bronze Age, whilst enabling the resilience to cope with the changes that mark its end.
Dissertation by Katherine Kanne
transformations.
With an integrated methodology, the first to combine zooarchaeology, bioarchaeology, stable isotope analysis, material culture study, and GIS mapping, I analyzed data I collected from seven settlements and ten cemeteries. I found the earliest horseback riders in history, the earliest postcranial pathologies in horses, the earliest evidence of specialized breeding and exchange in horses, and no evidence of chariotry. The earliest riding was not restricted by class or sex, and there is little indication of elite control of horse production, ownership, or use in the Hungarian Bronze Age. This creates an interpretive problem for the political economy approach, which anticipates that horses were co-opted by aspiring elites in their attempts to create wealth and finance rule. This phase of human-horse relationships was not yet defined by equestrian power as overarching sociopolitical power. Equestrianism came early in the Bronze Age; the politicalization of horses came later. Not until the very end of the Bronze Age were horses clearly incorporated into pursuits of power and in warfare. Even then, horses emerge as important in resistance to centralized power as a vehicle to consolidate it.
The results of this dissertation undermine the proposed widespread dissemination of chariot warrior aristocracies at the beginning of the European Bronze Age. Dismounting the elite male warrior from his chariot complicates an old but persistent Bronze Age grand narrative that has at its heart an elite androcentric mastery of nature, animals, women, commoners, rural dwellers, and others through time. Ordinary horseback herders, commoners, and women made equal contributions to the development of complex societies of the European Bronze Age with and through horses.
Book Reviews by Katherine Kanne
While equestrianism helped to instigate the broad changes in culture, genes, and probably language, seen in the European Bronze Age, it does so in unexpected ways in Hungary. By allowing increased interconnectivity, aiding in building expansive exchange networks with the transport of raw materials and finished goods, and accelerating the movement of people and ideas, equestrianism here also apparently worked against the institution of social hierarchies and centralized governance thought to be inherent to the European Bronze Age. I establish that horses were vital to create tell societies in Hungary. However, because riding was relatively widespread, and not restricted by class or sex, horses first acted more as leveling mechanisms to limit social difference. I explore the movement of people and horses based on strontium isotope analyses, horse and bridle bit distributions, locations of ores and mines, and known trade routes, to present a model of how equestrianism helped to prevent exclusionary rule. By the terminal Late Bronze Age, in the face declining agropastoral productivity, and dissolving tell communities, equestrianism becomes more typically embedded in expressions of overt political authority and territorial defense. This work positions equestrianism as a key feature of the adaptability of human societies in the Metal Ages, affording the relatively sudden transformations that characterize the beginning of the Bronze Age, whilst enabling the resilience to cope with the changes that mark its end.
transformations.
With an integrated methodology, the first to combine zooarchaeology, bioarchaeology, stable isotope analysis, material culture study, and GIS mapping, I analyzed data I collected from seven settlements and ten cemeteries. I found the earliest horseback riders in history, the earliest postcranial pathologies in horses, the earliest evidence of specialized breeding and exchange in horses, and no evidence of chariotry. The earliest riding was not restricted by class or sex, and there is little indication of elite control of horse production, ownership, or use in the Hungarian Bronze Age. This creates an interpretive problem for the political economy approach, which anticipates that horses were co-opted by aspiring elites in their attempts to create wealth and finance rule. This phase of human-horse relationships was not yet defined by equestrian power as overarching sociopolitical power. Equestrianism came early in the Bronze Age; the politicalization of horses came later. Not until the very end of the Bronze Age were horses clearly incorporated into pursuits of power and in warfare. Even then, horses emerge as important in resistance to centralized power as a vehicle to consolidate it.
The results of this dissertation undermine the proposed widespread dissemination of chariot warrior aristocracies at the beginning of the European Bronze Age. Dismounting the elite male warrior from his chariot complicates an old but persistent Bronze Age grand narrative that has at its heart an elite androcentric mastery of nature, animals, women, commoners, rural dwellers, and others through time. Ordinary horseback herders, commoners, and women made equal contributions to the development of complex societies of the European Bronze Age with and through horses.