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Riding, Ruling, and Resistance
Equestrianism and Political Authority in the Hungarian Bronze Age
Katherine Kanne
Horses have had a singular impact on human societies. Beyond increasing interconnectivity and revolutionizing warfare, re-
configurations of human-horse relationships coincide with changes in sociopolitical formations. How this occurs is less well un-
derstood. This article proposes that relationships of equestrianism transform people and horses reciprocally, generating new pos-
sibilities 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 tra-
ditional grand narratives for the European Bronze Age, which see male elite warriors driving chariots, desirous of bronze, and in-
stituting 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.
Horses give people power. On horseback, people are taller,
faster, and more imposing. Time and space compress. Physical
and cognitive geographies expand, giving riders increased ac-
cess to people, places, and goods. Horse power is assumed to
translate into political dominance, and horses are viewed as an
index of elite wealth (Kohler et al. 2017). In the European
Bronze Age, horses have been linked to developing sociopolit-
ical complexity, institutionalized inequalities, centralized rule,
and the rise of warrior elites (Earle and Kristiansen 2010; Earle
et al. 2015; Kristiansen 1999, 2000; Kristiansen and Earle 2015;
Kristiansen and Larsson 2005; Treherne 1995; Turchin et al.
2013; Vandkilde 2014). Recent research of the Hungarian
Bronze Age (2600/2500–900/800 cal BC) documents highly
variable political centralization, social differentiation, and for-
eign influences (Brück and Fontijn 2013; Dani et al. 2019; Duffy
2015; Jaeger 2018; Kienlin 2015, 2017; Nordquist and Whittaker
2007; Quinn 2017). My research examines roles of horses in
Bronze Age Hungary as related to political formations and
inequality.
People became equestrian in the Bronze Age (Kanne 2018).
Equestrianism is a new way of living made possible by social
and physical relations of people and horses. Horses give people
tremendous autonomy but bind people to horses, shaping
human history in horse-specific ways. By reciprocal contract,
the possibilities and constraints, cooperation and compliance,
of human-horse relationships mirror conflicting narratives of
dominance versus collectivity. Dichotomies between eques-
trian power of individuals versus a dominant segment may
explain why differing interpretations exist of the Hungarian
Bronze Age in terms of how unequal or centralized it was.
For this paper, I develop a theory of human-horse rela-
tionships where I articulate how equestrianism is a locus for
social change. I model how equestrian political authority is
expressed and suppressed under certain conditions, using as
my case studies the tell societies of the Hungarian Bronze Age,
spanning from the advanced Early Bronze Age (EBA) to the
Middle Bronze Age (MBA), from 2300/2200 to 1500/1450 cal
BC (Dani et al. 2019; Fischl et al. 2015). I present a comparative
assessment of horse production, use, and exchange to dem-
onstrate the importance of equestrianism in these societies. I
establish that horses were vital to create Bronze Age tell soci-
eties but that riding was widespread and not restricted by class
or sex. Here equestrianism illustrates how people were able to
resist the development of centralized authority and hierarchical
social differentiation. These cases reveal general processes in
human-horse relationships and dynamic and variable ways in
which political power can be reckoned with, through, and on
horses. Ultimately, I argue that horse power is translated into
power of individuals as they become equestrian as much as, and
generally before, it can be manifested into elite dominance.
Background of People and Horses
of the Hungarian Bronze Age
Spanning two millennia, the Bronze Age was a transformative
period in European prehistory and human-horse relationships
(figs. 1, 2). A massive genetic, cultural, and linguistic shift at
the transition from the Late Copper Age (LCA; 3500/3400–
2600/2500 cal BC) to the EBA (2600/2500–2000/1900 cal BC)
Katherine Kanne is Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Archaeology at the University of Exeter (Streatham Campus, Room
101, Laver Building, Exeter EX4 4QEK, United Kingdom [k.kanne@exeter.ac.uk]). This paper was submitted 17 IX 19, accepted 12 VII 20,
and electronically published 3 VI 22.
Current Anthropology, volume 63, number 3, June 2022. q2022 The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved. Published by
The University of Chicago Press for The Wenner‐Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. https://doi.org/10.1086/720271
may be related to domesticated horses (Allentoft et al. 2015;
Anthony and Ringe 2015; Goldberg et al. 2017; Haak et al.
2015). Hungary is the farthest western extent of the steppes.
With better soils and easy access to water, it can withstand
higher stocking rates of livestock, making it ideal for animal
husbandry.
By 3500 BC at Botai, in Kazakhstan, horses were domesti-
cated, milked, and likely ridden (Outram et al. 2009). Based on
new aDNA analyses, these horses were not direct ancestors
of modern horses; rather, they are the ancestors of modern
Przewalski’s horses, which subsequently became feral (Gaunitz
et al. 2018). All modern horses are of the DOM2 lineage, which
has been identified on the western Eurasian steppes between
3500 and 2600 BC, replacing all other lineages of horses
during the Bronze Age after 2200 BC (Librado et al. 2021). An
early specimen that has the modern domesticated horse lineage
(DOM2) is a black stallion (DUK2), excavated from a settle-
ment in Hungary, Dunaújváros-Kosziderpadlás, dated to 2139–
1981 cal BC, the transition from the EBA to the MBA (Gaunitz
et al. 2018:S4). This specimen “suggests that horse domesti-
cation was then effectively controlled, and that a full domesti-
cationstatuswasthusreached,”implying that an unknown
population of horses became domesticated between ca. 3000
and 2100 BC, potentially in eastern Europe (Orlando 2020:3).
The earliest example of the only extant domestic stallion Y-
haplotype (Y-H-T1) is from a horse from Malé-Kosihy (MKO2;
Wutke et al. 2018:2), just north into Slovakia and contempo-
raneous with Dunaújváros-Kosziderpadlás (Gogâltan 2017:
34).
Hungary may be a region with early horse husbandry, a
process possibly started in the Copper Age (4500/4400–2800/
2700 cal BC). Along with the Pontic Caspian Steppes and
Anatolia, aDNA and zooarchaeological studies propose east-
ern Europe as a potential center for domestication processes
(Bendrey 2012:137; Benecke 2018:8; Gaunitz et al. 2018:4;
Orlando 2020:3). Just prior to the DUK2 and MKO2 finds, a
rapid proliferation of coat colors of horses took place in east-
ern Europe (Ludwig et al. 2009). From Salzmünde, Germany
(3368–3101 cal BC), aDNA detected a tobiano horse (solid bay/
brown coat with white patches), known only in domesticated
horses, probably reflecting human selection (Wutke et al.
2016:2–4).
Absent from Hungary in the Late Neolithic (5000–4500 cal
BC; Bendrey 2012; Bökönyi 1974, 1978), by the LCA (3500/
3400–2900/2800 cal BC) horses appear in burials and settle-
ments, some in substantial numbers (Gál 2015:361–371). Al-
though taxonomic classification must be clarified by aDNA,
these horses appear domesticated (Anthony 2007; Bartosiewicz
2013; Bökönyi 1978; Csippán 2012; Gál 2017b; Vörös 2014).
Likely domesticated horses dating to the LCA/EBA are found in
Austria (Czeika 2010), the Czech Republic (Kyselý and Peške
2016), Serbia (Greenfield 2006), Germany (Benecke 1999;
Höltkemeier and Döhle 2017), Switzerland (Hüster-Plogmann
and Schibler 1997), northern Italy (Tecchiati et al. 2020), and
Turkey (Benecke 2009).
The uptick in horses may be related to migrations of Yam-
naya ca. 3300 BC, represented by thousands of kurgan burials
in eastern Hungary, some with horse bones (Gerling et al.
2012). Whether the Hungarian LCA/EBA or Yamnaya horses
were like Botai or Dunaújváros-Kosziderpadlás horses remains
unknown at present. Given the challenges of demonstrating
conclusive domestication in horses without aDNA evidence
(Olsen 2006), for this study, the EBA horses are suspected to be
domesticated, and MBA horses are accepted as domesticated.
Previous work finds new human-horse relationships in the
Hungarian Bronze Age (Bartosiewicz 2013; Bökönyi 1978;
Choyke 2000; Gál 2017b; Vretemark and Sten 2005). In the
EBA, Bell Beaker peoples near Budapest had an unusually high
number of horses, from 45% to over 60% of the faunal as-
semblage, suggesting specialized husbandry (Endrődi and
Reményi 2016:101) and trade (Fages et al. 2019:1428). These
horses show a decrease in size and an increase in variability
and were likely kept in dense villages, many located on an
island (Csepel-Háros) in the Danube. Prefiguring the recent
proposals, based on the Csepel-Group Bell Beaker horses,
Bökönyi (1978) supposed that “horse domestication developed
in the Carpathian Basin on such a large scale that it survived
without any further horse imports from the east”(35–38).
Other neighboring EBA groups in Hungary also have many
horses (Gál 2017a:470). Burials of horses among human graves
and specialized deposits of horses are found in Hungary,
Austria, Germany, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia (Benecke
1999; Czeika 2010; Gál 2017a;Kołodziej 2011; Kyselý and
Peške 2016). The EBA/MBA settlement of Dunaújváros-
Kosziderpadlás is just south of Bell Beaker occupation and
contemporaneous to it, suggesting that they may have obtained
horses in exchange with Bell Beaker groups. Pottery, mortuary
treatments, and a Beaker-style house at Érd-Hosszúföldek in
the Benta Valley indicate further interaction (Artursson 2010;
Endrődi and Reményi 2016:24–28). Similar use of horse radii
for skates (Choyke and Bartosiewicz 2005) implies continuity
in horse exploitation.
With fully domesticated horses by the EBA/MBA transition,
Hungary emerges as pivotal to understand early equestrianism
and its effects on social change. During the MBA (2000/1900–
1500/1450 cal BC), human-horse relationships are assumed to
have undergone a directional shift toward increased involve-
ment in politics, warfare, and social inequalities, correlated
with beginnings of complex tell polities along the Danube and
Tisza Rivers and their tributaries (Dani et al. 2019; Earle and
Kristiansen 2010; Earle et al.2015; Fischl et al. 2013; Kristiansen
and Earle 2015). Tell settlements have deep habitation deposits,
were often fortified, and were surrounded by flat villages and
hamlets. Extensive trading networks connected the Carpa-
thian Basin to Scandinavia, the British Isles, and the Mediter-
ranean, moving bronze, amber, wool, salt, and potentially
horses (Earle et al. 2015; Harding 2013; Kiss and Fischl 2015;
Rowlands and Ling 2013).
People engaged in animal husbandry augmented with crop
agriculture (Bartosiewicz 2013; Gál 2017b; Nicodemus 2014;
290 Current Anthropology Volume 63, Number 3, June 2022
Figure 1. Chronology for the Hungarian Bronze Age and other periods.
Vretemark 2010). MBA peoples were competent livestock
breeders, transitioning around the EBA/MBA to utilizing ani-
mals for secondary products. Cattle were employed for dairy
and traction, and specialized wool sheep were developed at Szá-
zhalombatta-Földvár (Vretemark 2010). aDNA reveals Hungary
as the “most likely among the earliest continental centres of wool
production that started at the beginning of the second millen-
nium BCE”(Sabatini et al. 2019:4919). Similarly, horses may have
developed and dispersed throughout Europe from Hungary.
Some tell polities have been thought to be ruled by warrior
aristocracies who controlled the circulation of wealth, labor,
and contemporaneous off-tell communities. Production and
international trade in bronze are proposed to have escalated
from a network of competing elites, which drove widespread
social stratification as they asserted power to expand and con-
trol trade in agropastoral surplus to secure metals (Earle and
Kristiansen 2010; Earle et al. 2015; Kristiansen and Earle 2015;
Vandkilde 2014). These efforts demanded new mobility by
water and over land. While boats are believed to have been
critical in the metal trade (Earle et al. 2015), the diversity of
terrains and routes to reach ores and trading partners would
have been impossible to traverse by water alone and unlikely to
have been carried out solely on foot, suggesting a growing em-
phasis on equestrianism. The rise of the Bronze Age warrior has
been coupled to his adoption of horses, with horses figuring
prominently in his identity (Frieman et al. 2017; Treherne 1995).
Critiques find less evidence of social differentiation, political
centralization, and warriors (Brück and Fontijn 2013; Kienlin
2015). Recent research programs in Hungary document vari-
able settlement systems, site types, and political formations
(Dani et al. 2018; Duffy et al. 2019a; Earle and Kolb 2010; Fischl
2018; Jaeger et al. 2018; Kienlin, Fischl, and Pusztai 2018). MBA
tell cultures have strong local traditions and heterogeneous
development (Dani et al. 2019). Some hill forts had little
Figure 2. Dates for sites and events.
292 Current Anthropology Volume 63, Number 3, June 2022
occupation (Earle and Kolb 2010), and off-tell settlements are
often larger and sometimes fortified. Many tells do not have
surrounding settlements, and site size hierarchies may not re-
flect political centralization (Duffy 2015).
The emergence of widespread equestrianism throughout the
Carpathian Basin during this time may be one reason that both
interpretations are valid. On the one hand, wealth, trade, travel,
and interconnectivity increased (Vandkilde 2016). Spectac-
ular hoards, new weapons (Găvan 2019), an orientation to-
ward secondary products (Gál 2017b; Vretemark 2010), and
large tell and flat settlements with increased populations speak
to well-developed cultural traditions established in the EBA
(Poroszlai 2003).
On the other hand, craft specialization and exchange were
limited (Earle et al. 2011; Kienlin, Fischl, and Liviu 2017;
Sørensen 2010:144). In an extensive survey of metallurgy,
Găvan (2019) found that “elite control over metal production in
Bronze Age tells cannot be proven”(350). Like metallurgy,
amber is found at smaller, unfortified settlements (Dani et al.
2019). While traded to some extent between communities,
pottery was localized and specialization was uncommon (Earle
et al. 2011; Duffy 2010; Nicodemus 2014). Selection of settle-
ments for metal trade and access tomines may not have been a
priority, but land with high agropastoral productivity appar-
ently was (Bartelheim 2009; Quinn and Ciugudean 2018).
Households do not show much differentiation (Kienlin
2015:57–60; Sørensen 2010), with no evidence for central
storage of agricultural products. Klehm and Nyíri (2016) find
storage vessels more common at nontell sites, indicating that
“farmers andnon-elites may haveretained controlof their grain
stores”(496). Fortifications vary in size and extent, with ditches
of limited use in defense, and are now known from flat set-
tlements (Dani et al. 2019; Gogâltan 2017; Jaeger 2018; Kienlin,
Fischl, and Liviu 2017). Ditches and ramparts may have aided
in penning livestock and managing marshy environments.
Large formal community cemeteries with regular burial rites
vary from cremation burials in urns, to inhumations, to mixed
rites and pit burials (Dani et al. 2019; Vicze 2011), suggesting
“corporate identity that did not emphasize differences”(Earle
and Kolb 2010:74). Some burials contain bronze weapons or
jewelry, but status could be age and skill related (Sørensen and
Rebay-Salisbury 2008). “Most of the mortuary evidence and
settlement hierarchies from Hungary suggests decentralized
societies characterized by inter-community sodalities”(Duffy
et al. 2019a:241).
Bioarchaeological evidence of warfare is rare and speaks
to traditions of violence without widespread casualties from
combat (Pap et al. 2008; Szeverényi and Kiss 2018). Warriors
are hard to find. The majority of weapons were buried in
hoards and not in graves, perhaps as communal rituals (Brück
and Fontijn 2013). Daggers and axes are present in some
burials, but swords appear late, at the terminal MBA Koszider
Period (1600–1500/1450 cal BC), not common until the Late
Bronze Age (LBA; 500/1450–900/900 cal BC; Ling, Earle, and
Kristiansen 2018).
Heterogeneity in animal husbandry and exploitation for
secondary products at MBA settlements indicate regional,
intraregional, and intrapolity variability in production goals
(Bartosiewicz 2013; Gál 2017b; Kanne 2018:128–135). People
did not uniformly orient animal production toward surplus
for exchange. These factors substantiate “a trend in Bronze Age
archaeology which notes that the wider European continent was
a mosaic of societies with different forms of complexity fol-
lowing different trajectories of socio-economic change”(Quinn
and Ciugudean 2018:1).
Horses have been harnessed to support the Bronze Age
grand narrative that chariot-driving warrior aristocracies ruled
complex tell polities. This narrative is not, however, based on
systematic or comparative analyses of archaeological data of
horses, riders/drivers, or their material culture (but see Nico-
demus 2014 for Romania). Chariotry is assumed rather than
demonstrated by archaeological evidence in Europe and else-
where (Feldman and Sauvage 2010).
Modeling Equestrianism
A theoretical model of equestrianism is needed. Generally,
horses are described as revolutionary, albeit technological, ad-
vancements in transportation and warfare (see Kohler et al.
2017). First, defining the equestrian is defining a new way of
being. Becoming equestrian is becoming suprahuman and
suprahorse. “The human-horse relationship is founded on in-
terconnectedness where a joint participation in the world leads
to a state of humans and horses being mixed”(Armstrong Oma
2010:180). Equestrianism integrated bodies, behaviors, social-
ity, and experience emerging from millennia of interaction. We
have never only been human (Pyyhtinen and Tamminen 2011).
As Game (2001) puts it, “We are always already part horse, and
horses, part human; there is no such thing as pure horse or pure
human. The human body is not simply human. Through in-
terconnectedness, through our participation in life of the world,
humans are always forever mixed, and thus too, have what
could be described as a capacity for horseness”(1).
Rather than passive technology, horses are active coagents
in history making. Current scholarship of human-animal
relationships highlights animal agency (reviews in Boyd 2017;
Pilaar-Birch 2018). Domestication research reinforces the
mutuality of these engagements (Mlekuž2013; Zeder 2015).
Shipman (2010) explains, “Domestication was reciprocal, as
the animals in turn selected for behavioral or physical traits in
humans such as better communication with animals . . . early
and fundamental advantages accrued to those who were more
animal focused”(525). Success with horses may lead to
biocultural success of equestrians.
Horse behavior can significantly structure human behavior.
Since at least the Pleistocene, horses influenced how, where,
and when people moved, how they related to one another, and
how people conceived of the world. Arising in the complex
relationships between hunter and prey, domestication was an
intensification of “mutual becomings”(Birke, Bryld, and
Kanne Riding, Ruling, and Resistance 293
Lykke 2004:174). People and horses irrevocably altered one
another in mutual dependency. “In shared endeavours, there is
no longer separated agency of horse and human, but one of
conjoint action”(Birke 2017:67).
Thompson (2011) invokes “the centaur to embody and
convey the transformative and generative potential . . . in the
rider-horse relationship”(223). Equestrianism proceeds as an
emergent phenomenon, as Robb (2013) has described for the
Neolithic, where local engagements with agriculture are linked
to large-scale changes that reorganize human societies in new
trajectories that transform as theyunfold.Similarly,eques-
trianism was a profound reorientation of human life to human-
horse interaction and coevolution. A new set of possibilities was
produced from becoming equestrian.
Together, people and horses became genetically, spatially,
culturally, and physically altered. Becoming equestrian gen-
erated a new world for people and horses, one created and
inhabited together with different advantages to both species.
How these processes unfolded must be considered from the
perspective that the horse also harnessed the human.
Using horses requires people to provide reliable protection
from predators, food, water, training, and veterinary care.
Horses train people to care and work for them, inasmuch as a
person has to be schooled in the species, herds, and individual
animals (Argent 2010). Horses direct daily practice in labor,
social relations, the organization of settlements, travel and
trade networks, and sociopolitical formations. Human deci-
sions genuflect to the natures of horses and other domesticated
animals and plants. Horses in turn flourished after a severe
population decline prior to domestication (Librado et al. 2016).
Human advantages from equestrianism include increased
and differential mobility, access, and experience. These trans-
formed human societies dynamically and broadly. Mobility
advantages include speed, maneuverability, compression of
time and space, and the ability to flee, fight, converge, and
travel. Advantages in access include the ability to reach, inter-
act, and exchange with more people, places, things, and ideas.
Equestrian-embodied experience includes height, presence,
and altered phenomenology of place and space, sights, sounds,
smells, and rhythms. These advantages translate horse power
into human power in the process of becoming equestrian.
Reconfigurations of human-horse relationships possess an
emergent potential to drive social change. My equestrian model
envisions fundamental shifts altering ways societies were or-
ganized and governed. Corresponding to changes seen in the
formation of complex societies of the Hungarian Bronze Age,
equestrianism afforded new ways of life, increased intercon-
nectivity, and ways to resist or assert political power.
Equestrian Political Authority
Equestrianism has particular ramifications for political au-
thority. Dynamics inherent in the human-horse relationship,
namely, the suprahuman power attained by becoming eques-
trian, imbue the individual with power. This may be leveraged
into power over other people, or it may prevent others from
gaining absolute authority.
In exclusionary power strategies considered for Bronze Age
Hungary, horses are at the heart of political economies (Earle
and Kristiansen 2010:224, 240, 233–235; Earle et al. 2015:246;
Kristiansen and Earle 2015:240–241). The overarching eques-
trian advantage combining gains in mobility, access, and ex-
perience could work to control resource flows and commodity
chains. Ling, Earle, and Kristiansen (2018) argue that for
Bronze Age Scandinavia, “control . . . depended on creating
property rights such as boats and productive land, a warrior
aristocracy to protect them, and a specialized priesthood to
legitimize them”(492). Those who could control horses would
have significant advantages using them to exercise ownership
of productive land and propertyand the distribution of wealth.
If chieftains were equestrians, flows of amber, metals, and
weapons would be channeled through their hands because
equestrians could more easily create and protect bottlenecks in
resource flows. Horses then would be tied to political authority.
Earle (2017:317) finds new media of power, metals, emerged
in the Hungarian Bronze Age, marking the transition from the
Neolithic. Horses were another novel media of power, one that
could readily assert chiefly authority. If the tell societies were
organized hierarchically with some measure of centralized
control and institutionalized inequalities, horses owned by a
few could be part of these political formations. Archaeologi-
cally, this would be visible in the deposition of the horse bones
and bits with certain people or households and use would be
limited to small segments of people who ruled from horseback
or chariot.
However, equestrian power always begins individually and
can be distributed among equestrians. With horse power,
wealth and widespread travel were possible but could be at-
tained by more than those who wished to rule. Foreign goods
and extraregional interconnectivity would be visible, but
efforts to parlay these things into rule over others could be
hamstringed by other equestrians.
The interplay between agrarian landscapes and the action of
farmers has been recognized as a place where resistance to
centralized authority is negotiated (Langlie 2018; Rosenzweig
and Marston 2018). I imagine equestrian resistance was or-
ganized similarly. Everyday practices of animal husbandry,
including managing animals on pasture and water, training,
riding to herd and travel, veterinary care, and processing of
carcasses, are places within which social relations are animated
with livestock.
Animal husbandry requires regular face-to-face interaction
and negotiations regarding effective management of resources.
This involves collectively organized management and intense
cooperation networks, established reciprocally between people
and between people and animals (Burentogtokh 2017; Fijn
2011; Gardner 2016; Honeychurch and Makarewicz 2016;
Ostrom 1990; Thomas, Bårdsen, and Næss 2018). Cooperating
households, reciprocity, and pooling in labor and land are com-
mon to animal husbandry and require coordination beyond
294 Current Anthropology Volume 63, Number 3, June 2022
the individual or family group. Tendencies in the organization
of communities engaged in animal husbandry include a will-
ingness to distribute decision-making, a capacity for higher
levels of autonomy in related communities, and a political
emphasis on inclusiveness (Honeychurch 2014:294–295).
Nomadic equestrians are seen as resistant to centralized
rule in their own polities and by the imposition of external
authority (Salzman 2004). Honeychurch (2014) cautions that
“far from being intrinsically antiauthoritarian, mobility was
an important part of faction negotiations that both assembled
nomadic polities and, at other times, resisted their emer-
gence”(291). When equestrianism is disentangled from no-
madism and understood as an increased capacity to contest
or agree to rule, horses affect how political authority unfolds.
Horses have been linked to the emergence of elites and
centralized authority in the Bronze Age of the southern Urals
(Chechushkov and Epimakhov 2018) and Mongolia (Houle
2010; Taylor 2017), like Hungary. Other research implicates
horses in more collective polity building. Horses then “can be
seen not as vehicles of inequality but as . . . leveling mech-
anisms to maintain social cohesion”(Wright 2014:290).
Mitchell (2015) finds colonial horses introduced to the
Americas “were a ‘democratic resource,’‘a complete and self-
sufficient tool,’one open to all provided that the basics of food
and water could be obtained . . . thus held out possibilities for
autonomous development and resistance”(6). Colonial horses
were variously adopted by American indigenous peoples, some
were wholly equestrian, others avoided horses altogether as
too difficult to maintain. The spread of horses in the Americas
parallels that in Eurasia and, in particular, Bronze Age Hungary,
because the variable contexts where they were introduced de-
termined how quickly and hierarchically horses were incor-
porated into societies, if they were at all (Hämäläinen 2003;
Mitchell 2015).
While horses could be used to claim chiefly authority, a
collective of roughly equal equestrians could work together to
subvert these efforts. If equestrianism is dispersed, then au-
thority is as well. Archaeologically, this would include wide-
spread riding and remains of horses and bits found throughout
settlements and households and not in graves.
Comparative Analysis of Horses
in the Hungarian Bronze Age
I utilized published assemblages with horses from 74 settle-
ments of the Bronze Age of Hungary, compared to 7 settle-
ments I analyzed and 37 faunal assemblages of sites from later
periods (Kanne 2018:77–214). Indigenous horse husbandry
was likely by the EBA (fig. 3), then spread throughout Hungary
in the MBA (fig. 4). Underscoring their importance, horses
were present from the beginning in nearly all tell communities,
evidenced by the relative abundance of horses, using the index
of horse relative to cattle (HRC), where HRC p(NISP
HORSE
/
(NISP
CATTLE
1NISP
HORSE
)) #100 (Bendrey 2007a:220); NISP
is the number of identified specimens (Reitz and Wing 2008).
Horses are recovered in smaller numbers than other domes-
ticates because a horse’s life span is much longer; for example,
one horse could live, breed, and be used while 10 sheep were
slaughtered (Outram et al. 2012). HRC partially overcomes
these biases.
Calculated from population estimates for people and horses,
living-stock estimates give a rough guide of how many horses
are needed for herding and warfare and whether surplus is
possible (table 1). Enough horses existed for herding and travel
with some surplus, greatest in the EBA, where the Bell Beakers
may have been specializing in horses for exchange, and fewer
at most sites in the MBA (Kanne 2018:168–179). The excep-
tion is the Romanian tell of Pecica-Şanţul Mare (2020–1500 cal
BC), likely a horse center in the southeast of the Carpathian
Basin, where breeding and ritual exploitation of horses in-
creased significantly in the MBA (1820–1770 cal BC), just
before peak metallurgical production and settlement expan-
sion (Nicodemus 2014).
Determining surplus considers strategies to accumulate
wealth. Age at death can identify production orientations and
help deduce whether surplus animals were exchanged. Such a
population would lack prime-aged animals, and, if production
were not directed for consumption, many animals would sur-
vive into old age (Reitz and Wing 2008:192). A horse transport
population includes subadults and horses over the age of 20,
with the majority between 6 and 15 years (Taylor 2017). Age at
death was determined by cheek tooth measurements (Levine
1982), incisor wear (Martin 2010), and epiphyseal fusion (Evans
et al. 1994). Only aging by teeth was considered to construct age
classes, indicating variable use between communities (fig. 5).
While mortality profiles can be notoriously difficult to in-
terpret (Olsen 2006), based on the available data, there were
full breeding populations of horses at EBA Bell Beaker sites.
The large number of culled juveniles suggests continued meat
production (Lyublyanovics 2016), but secondary use is pos-
sible, with a majority of adult animals, some quite aged. Full
breeding populations existed at MBA Százhalombatta-Földvár
and MBA Királyok Útja, demonstrating localized production,
supported by the archaeological contexts of horse bone finds
and potential surplus production of horses.
The age classes at MBA sites suggest their use in transport.
Younger horses are overrepresented at Királyok, but only mature
individuals are found in the Berettyó Valley, a classic signature
of imported animals. Királyok’s assemblage may represent a cull-
ing of young males before reaching sexual maturity, typical of
a managed herd (Levine 1999:23). Possibly used for ritual pur-
poses were several articulated lower limbs as building deposits.
I compared the average age at death through time with samples
of ridden horses (fig. 3D). Sykes (2014:177) used this measure to
evaluate long-term changes in human-cattle relationships with
increased traction. Average age at death increases through the
Bronze Age and supports transport use and trade of horses.
Strontium isotopes (
87
Sr/
86
Sr) are the most reliable means
to determine an animal’s place of birth and infer trade (Bentley
et al. 2013; Price et al. 2019). Twenty-nine horse teeth were
Kanne Riding, Ruling, and Resistance 295
sampled from seven archaeological sites spanning the EBA to
the LBA and submitted to Geochron Laboratories and pro-
cessed and analyzed according to Bendrey, Hayes, and Palmer
(2009) and Giblin (2009). When compared with known
87
Sr/
86
Sr means in Hungary (Giblin et al. 2013), strontium isotope
analysis confirms the exchange of MBA horses (fig. 6). As
mature adults (6–18 years), three horses were imported into
Százhalombatta-Földvár and three into Berettyó Valley tells.
Changes in biometric (size) measurements may be a proxy
for selective breeding or trade (Albarella, Johnstone, and
Vickers 2008). Measurements were calculated after von den
Driesch (1976), withers height (WH) after Vitt (1952), and
slenderness indices after Johnstone (2004). Comparisons with
ridden horses from other time periods show that horses were
large enough to ride and may have been bred for greater height
(WH increasing by 7.62 cm) and refinement through the
Bronze Age (Kanne 2018:201–212; fig. 7). Populations show
greater variance in both measures, perhaps indicating different
regional horse types.
Body part representation, following Outram and Rowley-
Conwy (1998), and depositional patterns show that horses
were perceived differently from other domesticates (Kanne
2018:231–235). Horses were found across middens at tells and
in some feasting, burial, and building contexts (Bökönyi 1988;
Gál 2017a, 2017b; Nicodemus 2014; Vretemark and Sten 2005).
Specialized deposits may indicate household focus on horses,
but dispersion of horse bones at settlements, and the lack of
difference in houses with horse bones, does not support dif-
ferential wealth expressed in horses, except for Pecica, where
spatial data link horses to elite activities (Nicodemus 2014).
Meaty portions of horses are missing from most MBA tells
(Kanne 2018:217–228). Horses were likely buried where they
died, with desired portions of the carcass returned to the set-
tlement. Other domesticates were slaughtered and processed
on tells, so meaty elements are common, where horses skew to
nonmeaty elements (fig. 8). At some settlements, people were
selecting certain bones, perhaps for head-and-hoof offerings
(Anthony and Brown 2000) or processing for hides. Selection
of particular skeletal elements for tool use is well known
(Choyke 2005; Choyke and Bartosiewicz 2005, 2009).
The cultural significance of horses changed from the EBA
pattern of more intensive exploitation of horses for their carcass
products and potentially for transport use. The MBA sees shifts
in equine demographywith variable use ofcarcasses. As horses
Figure 3. Map of Early Bronze Age (EBA; 2600/2500–2000/1900 cal BC) horse distributions in index of horse relative to cattle (HRC)
from sites with samples 1100 number of identified specimens (Bökönyi 1959, 1974, 1978; Choyke and Bartosiewicz 2000; Csippan
2007; Lyublyanovics 2016; Nicodemus 2014; Vretemark and Sten 2005). Sites are indicated as follows: 1 pBell-Beaker Csepel group
sites, including Albertfalva; 2 pDunaujvaros-Koziderpadlas; 3 pMale-Kosihy; 4 pDunakeszi-Szekesdűlő.
296 Current Anthropology Volume 63, Number 3, June 2022
became widely dispersed in fewer numbers, the desire to main-
tain individuals for use apparently outstripped use as food.
Bits of the Hungarian Bronze Age
The first horse bits appear at the EBA/MBA transition (Bándi
1963; Bökönyi 1953; Hüttel 1981; Mozsolics 1953). The earliest
date is between 2000 and 1750 cal BC (Nicodemus 2014:481;
cf. Boroffka 1998:103). Hüttel (1981) describes two traditions
of Bronze Age bitting: one in the Carpathian Basin and one on
Don-Volga-Ural steppes. Each was an autochthonous devel-
opment with probably organic local precursors. Rod-shaped antler
bit cheekpieces were prevalent in the Carpathian Basin and asso-
ciated with riding (fig. 9). Associated with chariotry, disk-shaped
cheekpiecesinantlerorbonewerecenteredonthesteppes.
The idiosyncratic Hungarian bits worked differently from
the disk steppe ones. Based on use wear and experimental
studies, rod-shaped and rectangular-plate cheekpieces are best
understood as riding bits and disk cheekpieces as for driving
(Chechushkov, Epimakhov, and Bersenev 2018; Chechushkov
et al. 2020; Dietz 2006; Drews 2004:61; Hüttel 1994). The
Hungarian bits are unlike those found with chariot horses, save
four pieces identified as bridle strap distributors by use-wear
analysis (Bándi 1963). Bits associated with chariots are not
known in Hungary, and these strap distributors have been
erroneously mapped as evidence of chariotry, largely following
the map in Kristiansen and Larsson (2005:184, fig. 79; cf.
Allentoft et al. 2015:168; Vandkilde 2014:619, fig. 9).
Chariots, horses, studded-disk cheekpieces, weapons, and
warriors were found in Sintashta burials, 2020–1700 cal BC, in
Russia (Lindner 2020). Chariots originated here and spread from
the steppes (Chechushkov, Epimakhov, and Bersenev 2018;
Kuznetsov 2006). Cheekpieces are never found with weapons
or in graves in Bronze Age Hungary. No chariots, chariot parts,
weapons common to chariots, or any direct evidence of horses
associated with wheeled vehicles have been found in Hungary
until after 1050 BC into the Early Iron Age, where wagons, not
chariots, were found (Kmeťová 2013; Pare 2004).
Chariots are designed for use on dry, flat, prepared land
(Jones-Bley 2006; Maran 2020; Metzner-Nebelsick 2021). Lit-
tle evidence exists for roads or prepared surfaces required for
chariots. Much of the hilly and waterlogged terrain of Bronze
Figure 4. Map of Middle Bronze Age (MBA; 2000/1900–1500/1450 cal BC) horse distributions in index of horse relative to cattle
(HRC) from sites with samples 1100 number of identified specimens (Bökönyi 1959, 1974, 1978; Choyke 2000; Choyke and
Bartosiewicz 2000; Duffy 2010; Nicodemus 2014; Vretemark and Sten 2005). Sites are indicated as follows: 1 pKiralyok Utja 293; 2 p
Szazhalombatta-Foldvar; 3 pErd-Hosszufoldek; 4 pBerettyo Valley tells (Gaborjan-Csapszekpart, Bakonszeg-Kadardomb,
Berettyoujfalu-Szilhalom); 5 pPecica-Şanţul Mare.
Kanne Riding, Ruling, and Resistance 297
Age Hungary (Nessel and Uhnér 2019:275) was impossible for
chariots. Steep hillslopes to many tell settlements render cha-
riotry untenable, with the maximum slope for wheeled vehicles
at 8% (Efkleidou 2019:491).
Used to link the Aegean to Scandinavia via Hungary (Vand-
kilde 2014:624), the Karpatenländish-ostmediterrane Wellen-
bandornamentik decoration (David 2007) is present on 14.7%
of the Hungarian bits. The motif was earliest in Hungary and
Figure 5. Mortality profiles for horses at Middle Bronze Age (MBA) Szazhalombatta-Foldvar (A;Np47), MBA Kiralyok Utja
(B;Np57), and MBA Berettyo Valley (C;Np50) tells. D, Average age at death compared from left to right: Early Bronze Age
(EBA) DSD pDunakeszi-Szekes-dűlő;MBAKUpKiralyok Utja; MBA SZHB pSzazhalombatta-Foldvar; Late Bronze Age
(LBA) SZHB pSzazhalombatta-Foldvar; LBA DSK pDeer Stone–Khirigsuur Complex, Mongolia (Taylor 2017); Iron Age (IA)
SCYRB pScythian Royal Barrows, Russia (Benecke 2007); ROM KES pRoman Kesteren, Netherlands (Levine 1999); and
ROM THF pRoman Thornhill Farm, Britain (Levine 1999).
Table 1. Living-stock estimates
Culture Site type Site H∶P
Horses per person (H∶P):
Period:
EBA Bell Beaker Settlement Albertfalva 1∶1.6
MBA Vatya Settlement Százhalombatta-Földvár 1∶15.5
LBA . . . Battlefield Tollense 1∶26
Horses per herded livestock (H∶L): H∶L
Dates:
1900–1600 BC Vatya 1∶150
AD 1990s Kazakhs 1∶200
AD nineteenth century US cowboys 1∶300
AD twentieth century Mongolians 1∶500
Source. Albertfalva: Endrődi and Reményi (2016), Lyubyanovics (2016); Százhalombatta-Földvár: Vretemark (2010);
Tollense: Price et al. (2019); Vatya: Vretemark (2010); Kazakhs: Shnirelman, Olsen, and Rice (1996); US cowboys: Malone
(1977); Mongolians: Anthony (2007).
Note. EBA pEarly Bronze Age; MBA pMiddle Bronze Age; LBA pLate Bronze Age.
298 Current Anthropology Volume 63, Number 3, June 2022
centuries later in other regions (Fischl et al. 2013; Maran and
van de Moortel 2014:545). Four possible disk cheekpieces, in-
accurately reported to be decorated with this motif, were found
at Mycenae, with recent burials of paired horses at Dendra
dating to 1431–1132 cal BC (Pappi and Isaakidou 2015). David
(2007) did not include the Mycenaean bits as evidence of con-
tacts between the Carpathian Basin and the Aegean, probably
because the decor resembles that of some steppe cheekpieces.
Figure 6. Strontium isotope ratios (
87
Sr/
86
Sr) of horse tooth enamel from Middle Bronze Age (MBA) Bakonszeg-Kadardomb (BK),
MBA Berettyoujfalu-Szilhalom (BS), MBA Gaborjan-Csapszekpart (GC), Early Bronze Age Dunakeszi-Szekesdűlő(DS), MBA
Kiralyok Utja (KU), Late Bronze Age MOBP06-Pecel02 (MP), and MBA Szazhalombatta-Foldvar (SZHB). The green box shows the
local range of 0.7087–0.7102 within a 2jSE. Samples outside the range were nonlocal.
Figure 7. Comparison of mean withers height (cm). Early Bronze Age (EBA) Hungary, Np17 (Bökönyi 1974; Choyke and
Bartosiewicz 2000; Kanne 2018). Middle Bronze Age (MBA) Hungary, Np20 (Bökönyi 1974; Kanne 2018). Late Middle Bronze Age
(LMBA) Hungary, Np12 (Bökönyi 1974; Kanne 2018). Bronze Age (BA) Italy, Np52 (Bökönyi 1974). Iron Age (IA) Eastern
(Hungary, Slovenia, S Russia, Bulgaria), Np148 (Bökönyi 1968). IA Western (Austria, Germany, Switzerland), Np140 (Bökönyi
1968). IA Iberia, Np20 (Albizuri et al. 2017). Roman Hungary, Np144 (Bökönyi 1984). Roman Empire, Np144 (Johnstone
2004). Celtic Hungary, Np14 (Bartosiewicz and Gal 2013).
Kanne Riding, Ruling, and Resistance 299
Figure 8. Body part representation compared from Early Bronze Age (EBA) to Middle Bronze Age (MBA) by standard food utility
index (SFUI) for horses after Outram and Rowley-Conwy (1998).
Figure 9. Map of Bronze Age Hungarian bits (2300/2200–1500/1450 cal BC).
Rather than being mediated through Hungary, chariots on
rock art in Scandinavia are related to maritime bronze trade to
the Aegean (Ling and Uhnér 2014), who received chariots from
the steppes. Images of chariots appear in these regions after
1500 BC, long after domesticated horses were in Hungary. A
“chariot package,”as included in models for the Hungarian
Bronze Age and Bronze Age Eurasia generally (Earle and Kris-
tiansen 2010; Earle et al. 2015; Kristiansen 2000; 2016; Kristiansen
and Earle 2015; Kristiansen and Larsson 2005; Vandkilde 2014),
is not substantiated by the Hungarian data.
The diffuse deposition of bits suggests widespread eques-
trianism. Though most bits are recorded as settlement finds
(Hüttel 1981), modern excavations show that they come from
pits and fill, not usually associated with particular houses
(Boroffka 1998; Máthé 1988; Nicodemus 2014:481; Vicze
2013). With a variety of hole placements and decor, bits were
proficiently manufactured at the household level (Choyke
and Bartosiewicz 2009). Although five were found in one
Százhalombatta-Földvár house, the house was neither partic-
ularly large nor with differential wealth (Dani et al. 2016), and
many were found in other contexts.
Horse Paleopathologies in the
Hungarian Bronze Age
Pathologies on teeth and crania can show whether horses
were bitted or bridled. Postcranial pathologies can help de-
termine whether horses were ridden or driven. In Bronze Age
Hungary, supported by the bit distribution above, these pa-
thologies suggest ridden rather than driven horses.
Bit wear was determined following standard protocols (An-
thony and Brown 2011:146–152; Bendrey 2007a). From 11 mea-
surable teeth and mandibles, six meet the diagnostic criteria for
bit wear (table 2; fig. 10). Bartosiewicz (2013:135) documents
severe type 3 wear (measuring 411) on a mandible from MBA
Polgár-Kenderföld. None of my samples was intact enough to
measure for other wear of the bridle/halter (e.g., Bendrey 2007a;
Taylor, Bayarsaikhan, and Tuvshinjargal 2015).
Variable bit wear in my sample corresponds to different
styles of rod-type bits with organic mouthpieces. These bits
wear teeth and mandibles in different ways. Some teeth had
one type of wear and not the other, and some had both. Che-
chushkov and colleagues (2020:figs. 5, 6k) report similar wear to
teeth from an unusual paired horse burial at Novoil’inovskiy 2
cemetery, Kazakhstan. They identify these horses as ridden at
1890–1774cal BC, based on the usewear of the cheekpieces and
the bit wear/premaxillary grooves observed.
Table 2. Bit wear changes to horse lower second premolars (LP
2
) and diastema from Middle Bronze Age (MBA)
Hungarian settlements
Site Specimen Age (years) Side
Type 1 Type 2 Type 3
BittedBevel (mm) EDH (mm) Form Diastema new/loss
KU291 C1.29–35 14–15 L 0 0 . . . 1/0 No
KU291 C1.D-NY 9–10 L 0 18.84 Yes . . . Yes
KU291 B2.32/2 6–7 L 1.65 0 . . . 0/0 No
KU293 254/07 . . . R . . . . . . . . . 0/0 No
KU293 C1.1 8–9, male L .. . . . . .. . 1/0 No
KU293 239/01 6–7 L 2.26 5.39 Yes . . . Yes
KU293 D1.211 6–7 R 2.83 10.4 No . . . No
GC 77.550 6–7 R 0 7.02, 11.3 Yes
a
1/0 Yes
SZHB 553 10–11 L 0 5.03 No . . . No
SZHB 2313 11–12 L 1.67 25.32 Yes
b
. . . Yes
SZHB 2361/3345 10–11 R 4.84 11.93 No . . . Yes
Source. Type 1: Anthony and Brown (2011). Types 2 and 3: Bendrey (2007a).
Note. KU, Middle Bronze Age (MBA) Királyok Útja; GC, MBA Gáborján-Csapszékpart; SZHB, MBA Százhalombatta-Földvár; EDH, enamel/dentine
height, the height of enamel/dentine exposure, measured from the anterior occlusal corner toward the root/mandible; form, parallel sided.
a
GC.77.550 has two large areas of enamel exposure interrupted by an area not exposed. Form suggestive of bitting.
b
SZHB.2313 has two areas of significant concavity on the anterior surface of the left LP
2
, where it appears that a soft bit exposed the enamel on the
entire anterior surface and wore grooves where it rested against the gumline as the bit was used and the horse aged.
Figure 10. Examples of bit wear from Kiralyok Utja (A; KU239/
01; 2000/1900–1500/1450 BC) and Gaborjan-Csapszekpart (B;
GC77.550; 2295–1879 cal BC).
Kanne Riding, Ruling, and Resistance 301
Levine, Whitwell, and Jeffcott (2005) outlined methods to re-
cord spinal pathologies for ridden horses and Bendrey (2007b)for
metapodials, but no protocols exist for evaluating other post-
cranial pathologies. With no intact vertebrae, I recorded pathol-
ogies after Bartosiewicz, Van Neer, and Lentacker (1997) for cattle
and Bendrey for Desmoiditis ossificans ligamentum interosseum
(2007b;table3;fig. 11), then compared them with pathology rates
for archaeological and modern populations (Kanne 2018:317–
325). Postcranial pathologies in horses from seven tell settlements
average 4.92%, within rates of injury in modern cases for light
to moderate noncompetitive riding (USDA 2000) and mostly
lower than archaeological populations from later periods.
Lower-limb pathologies are prevalent in this sample. These
pathologies are not limited to ridden horses, but the lack of
pathologies common to draft horses, mainly shoulder, elbow,
and hips (Schrader et al. 2018), leans this sample toward rid-
den use. Sites with older horses have higher rates of pathology,
indicating age- and possible use-related changes.
From MBA Királyok, the earliest evidence of two injuries
was a healed chip fracture of the dorsoproximal phalanx, which
the horse survived and probablyworked after care (fig. 11), and
a probable osteochondral bone cyst on the distal metacarpal,
where the horse survived some healing but was culled. “‘Chip’
fractures of the dorsoproximal aspect of P1 typically . . . occur
in horses that exercise at speed”(Brokken, Tucker, and Murray
2016:361). This lower leg and hoof were found articulated in
the corner of a building, perhaps as a head-and-hoof offering.
Riding or breeding use, or personal attachment, was seemingly
greater than use for carcass products.
Bioarchaeology of Humans as Riders
in the Hungarian Bronze Age
Because neither human nor horse initially evolved for eques-
trianism, impacts of these activities are visible osteologically on
each species (Levine, Whitwell, and Jeffcott 2005). In riders, the
pelvis, spine, and legs takethe brunt of impact, with thorax and
arms secondary (Pugh and Bolin 2004). For drivers, the hands,
knees, and feet typically show trauma (Bochkarev et al. 2010).
A suite of osteopathologies called the “rider’s syndrome”
(RS) has been described in the archaeological literature, with
scholars agreeing that elongation of the acetabulum (EA) is
caused by habitual riding (Baillif-Ducros and McGlynn 2013;
Baillif-Ducros et al. 2011; Berthon et al. 2019; Berthon 2019;
Erickson, Lee, and Bertram 2000; Khudaverdyan, Khacha-
tryan, and Eganyan 2016; Larentis 2017; Miller 1992; Pálfi
1992; Pálfiand Dutour 1996; Reinhard et al. 1994; Üstündağ
and Deveci 2011). The pelvis mediates and transmits forces
between horse and rider and is the literal seat of power (Clayton
and Hobbs 2017). In a genu varum (bow-legged) position, the
excessive adduction of the thighs causes the muscles and
Table 3. Postcranial pathologies of horses from Bronze Age Hungarian settlements
Bone Attachment site Site pno.
Enthesopathies from chronic ossifying periostitis secondary
to joint strain:
Radius Extensor tendon attachment GC p2, DK p1
Phalanx I Oblique sesamoidean ligaments SZHB p4, KU p1
Phalanx 1 Abaxial palmar ligaments SZHB p2
Phalanx II Collateral ligaments of the distal interphalangeal joint SZHB p6, BK p1
DJD score
Ankylosis of the distal intertarsal and tarsometatarsal joint:
Tarsals/metatarsal III 3 SZHB p1, KU p1
Score
Desmoiditis ossificans ligamentum interosseum:
Metatarsal I, II, III Ib DS p1, MP p1
Location on bone, score
Ossificatio cartilaginis ungulae:
Phalanx III Distal interphalangeal joint DJD score p1, 2 KU p1, GC p1
Dorsoproximal chip fracture (healed):
Phalanx I Medial metatarsolphalangeal joint DJD score p3KUp1
Location on bone
Osteochondral cyst (probable):
Metacarpus III Sagittal crest KU p1
Source. Kanne (2018:317–326). Degenerative joint disease (DJD) score modified from Bartosiewicz, Van Neer, and Lentacker (1997). Metapodia
scored following Bendrey (2007b).
Note. GC pMiddle Bronze Age (MBA) Gáborján-Csapszékpart; DK pEarly Bronze Age (EBA) Dunakeszi-Székes-dűlő; SZHB pMBA
Százhalombatta-Földvár; KU pMBA Királyok Útja; BK pMBA Bakonszeg-Kádardomb; MP pLBA Rákoscsaba–Major-hegy Dél lelőhely.
302 Current Anthropology Volume 63, Number 3, June 2022
ligaments of the coxofemoral joint in riding to pull the shape of
the acetabulum along its anterosuperior border, resulting in
elongation. No other known activity engages the body in a similar
way, making EA probably a unique diagnostic marker of riding.
To discern riding, I examined 142 human skeletons at the
Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum (Kanne 2018:329–
365), determining sex and age at death, pathologies, and femur
length after Buikstra and Ubelaker (1994). Sex and age for the
MBA Érd series (Pap et al. 2008) and MBA/LBA Tiszafüred
(Hajdu 2012) were matched. Entheseal changes (EC) were
recorded according to Hawkey and Merbs (1995; analysis
predates the new “Coimbra method”of Henderson et al. 2016).
Only adults were included. Unrelated to degenerative pro-
cesses, adult age does not bias changes in acetabular mor-
phology (Baillif-Ducros et al. 2011; Berthon et al. 2019; Erick-
son, Lee, and Bertram 2000).
Probable riders were determined based on changes in ace-
tabular morphology after Baillif-Ducros et al. (2011:9), where
RVH pratio of vertical acetabular diameter (VEAC) to hor-
izontal acetabular diameter (HOAC), with a ratio ≥1.10 indi-
cating a probable rider and RVH ≥1.12 more extreme ex-
amples (fig. 12). A Neolithic site, when horses were not present
in Hungary, was my control for nonriders. The Avar Period
(AD 568–811) controlled for riders with known equestrian
warriors (Bede 2012).
People were likely riding in the Hungarian Bronze Age.
Probable riders (PR) were established at MBA, LBA, and Avar
cemeteries. The absence of riders in the Neolithic sample and
the presence of PR from all Avar cemeteries support likely
riding in the MBA and LBA. Riding was not restricted by class
or sex and was common in the MBA (fig. 13).
Neither degenerative joint disease (DJD) of the spine or
appendicular skeleton nor Schmorl’s nodes varied with EA, as
established by RVH at the ≥1.10 level. At 1.12 RVH, incidence
of these increased (using the Coimbra method may give dif-
ferent results). This is probably why many cases documented
in the literature show both EC and DJD with EA, as severe ex-
amples of RS, from populations of known equestrians. Unlike
EA, DJD and EC have complex multifactorial etiologies asso-
ciated with many activities. When recorded with EA, they better
predict riders engaged in full-time mounted warfare or nomadic
pastoralists from later periods, unlike the tethered pastoralists
of Bronze Age Hungary who probably rode with less duration
and regularity. The use of stirrups, ca. 300 AD, increases DJD
and EC in the legs, pelvis, and spine.
Variability in riding is evident, with no riders from MBA
Gelej-Kanális Dűlő, appreciable numbers at MBA Tiszafüred-
Majoroshalom, and many at MBA Érd-Hosszúföldek. Érd-
Hosszúföldek was an EBA hamlet that developed into a larger
MBA village associated with Százhalombatta-Földvár (Earle
and Kolb 2010:69–78). Individuals were found in pit burials,
not connected to a single event like an attack (Hajdu 2009;
Pap et al. 2008; Szeverényi and Kiss 2018).
Two individuals are the earliest-known riders, dating to the
EBA/MBA transition, 1980–1740 cal BC (Kiss et al. 2018): an
18–20-year-old male and a 35–40-year-old female. Strontium
Figure 11. Locations and frequency of Middle Bronze Age (MBA) postcranial pathologies. Inset, healed chip fracture from MBA
Kiralyok Utja.
Kanne Riding, Ruling, and Resistance 303
isotope analysis shows that the male was nonlocal and the fe-
male was local but spent her adolescence elsewhere (Giblin etal.
2019). PR percentages from MBA Tiszafüred-Majoroshalom
are similarto those from Avar Sopronkőhida, indicating that the
polity was perhaps more hierarchically organized.
By the LBA, mobility on horseback was widespread, as tells
were depopulated, likely a response to environmental degra-
dation and social reorganization (Demény et al. 2019). Local
MBA peoples continued into the LBA (Hajdu 2012), sup-
ported by direct continuity in settlement patterns documented
for the Benta Valley (Earle and Kolb 2010). The first burials of
elite male warriors with horses and tack date to the terminal
LBA Urnfield Period (1050–800 BC) and to the Early Iron Age
(Kmeťová 2013; Metzner-Nebelsick 2007), although women
were also buried with horses.
Avars had strict social stratification and gender differences,
where horses were distinctly important in social categories
(Bede 2012; Vukičevićet al. 2017). While Avars had elite
equestrian warriors, fewer people were riding compared to in
the Bronze Age, and percentages of women riding dropped.
The same pattern is not supported by the PR of the Hungarian
Bronze Age, where men and women both rode, albeit with
fewer women than men, except at LBA Tiszafüred.
Summary and Conclusions
Multiple lines of evidence coalesce to demonstrate the impor-
tance of horses in MBA Hungary. From the late EBA transition
to the early MBA, I have securely dated (1) fully domesticated
horses (2139–1981 cal BC), (2) a new type of riding bit (2000–
1750 cal BC), and (3) probable riders from Érd (1980–1740 cal
BC). These are supported by broad changes in equine demog-
raphy and evidence of trade, increased size, differential depo-
sition and processing, bit wear, postcranial pathologies, and care
of an injured horse. The absence of chariots supports these
assessments. Chechushkov and colleagues (2020) corroborate
that riding was likely in the early second millennium BC.
Human-horse relationships of the Hungarian Bronze Age
were probably characterized by women and men riding horses
to herd, protect livestock and settlements, and travel. No links
exist then between horses, warriors, and weapons. Horses were
not obvious markers of social status or wealth. Identity maybe
was animated with horses, but social stratification was not.
Most breeding was for local use and exchange. Bit traditions
were indigenous, widespread developments. No signs of com-
munity specialization existed for horse breeding, except at
Pecica, or bit production, and households may have been
differentially involved with horses.
Horses complicate the picture of nascent political centrali-
zation and institutionalized social stratification as envisioned
by Kristiansen and Earle (2010, 2015), who assume that horse
people bring new traditions of property, family, and wealth,
which they consider the foundation of Bronze Age political
economies. The absence of horses in pursuits of overt political
power creates an interpretive problem. If controlling the po-
litical economy was key to amassing power, then why were
horses not obviously aligned with elites? They would have
provided a controllable means to move metals, guard trade
routes, and monopolize wealth. Their widespread and variable
use, with no clear divisions of riding by class or sex, suggests
that they did not.
In line with recent research, centralized rule, a warrior elite,
and metals-based political economies in the Hungarian Bronze
Age are less well supported by the evidence. Like amber (Dani
et al. 2019) and metallurgy (Găvan 2019), horse use does not
appear tied to elites. Horses could have facilitated resistance to
overarching rule. Horse breeding and use were probably the
domain of kin groups engaged in animal husbandry. As
modeled, the everyday practices of animal husbandry, espe-
cially with sedentary populations, involve intense cooperation
networks with an inclusive political ethos balanced with
greater levels of autonomy. The use of horses for herd man-
agement and protection probably increased the likelihood of
collectively organized political formations, so long as access to
horses was not limited to any one faction and control of
resources was distributed among social segments, as in most
tell communities. The long-lasting Hungarian MBA, where
people lived well below carrying capacities, looks more col-
lectively organized with safeguards in place to subvert power
grabs. Horse people would have been difficult to control.
Jennings and Earle (2016) suggest that population aggregation
of farmers and herders “may have served as a brake rather than
an accelerant to central power”(474).
Figure 12. Measurements of the maximum vertical and hori-
zontal diameters of the acetabulum (A). Example of nonrider
(B) with a circular acetabulum (Neolithic Tiszavasvari Deak-
halmidűlőratio of vertical acetabular diameter to horizontal ac-
etabular diameter [RVH] p1.019) and probable rider (C) with
strong vertical ovalization (Middle Bronze Age Tiszafured-Majoros
RVH p1.124).
304 Current Anthropology Volume 63, Number 3, June 2022
Horses may have helped foster cooperative political forma-
tions until between ca. 1200 and 1100 BC, when steep declines in
agricultural productivity (French 2010:47) prompted population
decentralization in Hungary (Earle and Kolb 2010:83) and more
extensive animal husbandry. These changes maybe led to the
need to fight for and protect property rights. The battlefield
of Tollense, Germany, where men died on horseback, dates
to 1250 BC (Price et al. 2019).
From the Late Urnfield Period (1050–800 BC), horse skulls
were placed in graves in eastern Hungary. Graves of warrior
horsemen are known from the Iron Age (Kmeťová and Stegmann-
Rajtár 2014:149). Even then, like most places in Iron Age Europe,
as Thurston (2010) cautions, rulership was often decentralized and
subjective. Equestrians were a powerful leveling mechanism to
rulers who did not heed their collective interests.
Cavalry was widespread by 1000 BC (Anthony 2007; An-
thony and Brown 2011; Drews 2004; Kohler et al. 2017; Tur-
chin, Currie, and Turner 2016; Turchin et al. 2013), not for
technodeterministic reasons, like metal bits, but for socio-
political, demographic, and environmental reasons. Until then,
little impetus existed to protect agropastoral resources at a
regional level. Little competition existed for land, with few
comparative advantages in agricultural production until the
LBA/Early Iron Age (EIA) transition. I suspect a linkage between
the amount of land under cultivation and the rise of coordinated
mounted warfare to protect or seize it. In Hungary, ca. 1000 BC,
animal husbandry became secondary to more intensive crop ag-
riculture. Only when mounted warriors of Central Europe and
the steppes increased, as in the LBA, did cavalry begin.
Older opinions that horses were not ridden “competently”
prior to widespread metal bits ca. 1000 BC (Drews 2004), or that
chariots had to precede riding (Dietz 2003), cannot be consid-
ered evidence of riding occurring late in prehistory everywhere
(contra Taylor et al. 2020). No scientific studies demonstrate that
metal bits are superior to organic mouthpieces or bitless bridles
in controlling horses or giving security to the rider. Countless
historical and ethnographic accounts of riders using bits with
organic mouthpieces or none at all further disprove this opinion.
If organic mouthpieces were sufficient for chariotry, they were
sufficient for riding.
The belief that chariotry preceded riding cannot be sustained.
The proxy Dietz (2003) used to infer early domesticated horse
behavior and conformation, the modern Przewalski’shorse,is
now incorrect. While this species is a feral descendant of the
earliest domesticated horses at Botai, millennia of biological and
behavior changes occurred that have selected for wariness of and
aggression to humans (Gaunitz et al. 2018). The idea that
training a horse to drive is easier or safer than training a horse to
ride is not substantiated by equine ethology or equitation science.
Both require training, both can use a trained horse to help pacify
a novice one, and both are inherently dangerous. By the Bronze
Age, people who had husbanded horses and other livestock for
Figure 13. Ratio of vertical acetabular diameter to horizontal acetabular diameter (RVH) of 142 specimens from 10 cemeteries in
Hungary. Above the blue line are probable riders with RVH ≥1.10. Above the red line are more extreme examples of probable riders
with RVH ≥1.12. MBA pMiddle Bronze Age; LBA pLate Bronze Age.
Kanne Riding, Ruling, and Resistance 305
millennia were experts in their behavior and fully capable of
training horses for their desired uses.
Transformations in human-horse relationships, like eques-
trianism, coincide with sociopolitical changes. This new way of
being generated different possibilities in ways people lived,
related to one another, and negotiated power in an emergent
trajectory. The coevolutionary equestrian arc gave each species
advantages in cojoint action. Political authority became more
equestrian through time. But how people could use equestrian
advantages to negotiate power should not harness the horse to
narratives only of dominance. The centaur with suprahuman
agency increases the capacity for autonomy and resistance.
Ordinary women and men, with, on, and through horses, built
Hungarian Bronze Age societies. The equestrian was not only
elite, not only male, not only warriors. These results trouble a
pervasiveBronzeAgenarrativeofeliteandrocentricmasteryover
nature, commoners, women, and others (cf. Boyd 2017:305–306).
“In allowing narrow, normative, and uncritical gendered narra-
tives to dominate our models of prehistoric mobility, we cede
ground to a simplistic, toxic, and falsely binary view of mas-
culine achievement and hegemony”(Frieman, Teather, and
Morgan 2019:163). Dismounting the warrior elite from his
horse presents a more complete, nuanced picture of the Hun-
garian Bronze Age and human-horse relationships.
The Bronze Age was a period of people becoming eques-
trian. It was the birth of the equestrian world. Horses may have
mounted the genomic transformation of Europe, and their intro-
duction and dispersal altered political formations as they spread.
The Bronze Age equestrian transition was not because of more
“effective”riding but the social, political, economic, and environ-
mental contexts that fostered the incorporation of horses into
assertions of power and the resistance of it, fully embedding horses
in pursuits of political dominance. The rise of megastates occurred
with increased politicalization of horses (Kohler et al. 2017; Tur-
chin, Currie, and Turner 2016; Turchin et al. 2013). Horses were
mounted in conquest, colonization, domination, and subjugation.
But a horse can make a person suprahuman. People imbued
with horse power have the power to resist, consent to, or assert
rule. Equestrian resistance is a central tenant of human-horse
relationships through time. Social contracts between people and
horses mirror collective behaviors between equestrians. In human-
horse relationships, asymmetrical power is possible as individ-
uals join bodies. So, too, is the potential for symmetrical and
collaborative decision-making. Some people need horses to rule,
and others resist rule with horses. Horses in turn gain power
from this relationship, with exceptional genetic success and a
unique position in human societies. We make each other ir-
revocably different in the process of becoming equestrian.
Acknowledgments
This research was conducted under a National Science Foun-
dation Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant (0833106)
and a Wenner-Gren Foundation Dissertation Fieldwork Grant
and with support from the Graduate School and the Depart-
ment of Anthropology at Northwestern University. My research
in Hungary was possible with the gracious accommodation of
Magdolna Vicze of the Matrica Museum, Ildikó Pap of the
Hungarian Natural History Museum, Paula Zsidi, Anna En-
drődi, and Alice Choyke of the Aquincum Museum, and Lajos
Lakner and János Dani of the Deri Museum. Maria Vretemark
and Sabine Sten conducted the original faunal analysis at
Százhalombatta-Földvár and were of great help in orienting me to
this assemblage. Péter Csippán kindly provided assistance with
the horse bones from Dunakeszi-Székesdűlőand Rákoscsaba–
Major-hegy Dél lelőhely. I especially thank Tim Earle, Carla
Klehm, and the anonymous reviewers for their comments,
which greatly improved the manuscript.
Comments
Robin Bendrey
School of History, Classics, and Archaeology, University of
Edinburgh, William Robertson Wing, Old Medical School, Teviot
Place, Edinburgh EH8 9AG, United Kingdom (robin.bendrey@ed.ac
.uk). 11 VIII 21
This is an exciting and very welcome contribution that takes a
new look at the emergence and impact of domestic horse hus-
bandry and use for transportation in Bronze Age Europe. Kanne’s
case study considers the tell societies of the Hungarian Bronze
Age and captures a key transformative sequence for human-horse
relationships in European prehistory. The strength of this work
lies in the combination of Kanne’s theoretical approach, in
particular how equestrianism can proceed as an emergent phe-
nomenon, and the detailed and multistranded diachronic review
of evidence.
The article builds on scholarship around the mutuality of mul-
tispecies relationships to investigate how equestrianism trans-
forms humans and animals reciprocally, further rebalancing
understanding of human-animal relationships in terms of the
processes shaping these hybrid communities (e.g., Bogaard
et al. 2021; Stépanoff and Vigne 2018). Kanne’s model frames
the horses themselves as intimately