Horses in the Late Tagar Economy: Kosogol I Settlement Materials (Krasnoyarsk Region)

Abstract

The archaeological studies developed two concepts concerning the character of Tagar economy: semi-nomadic and sedentary. They are based on different approaches to burial assemblage materials, accidental findings, and general opinion on stock-raising economy in Eurasian forest-steppes and steppes. The zooarchaeological profile of Tagar settlements can resolve this argument. A high share of horse bones may mean a semi-nomadic or nomadic lifestyle, while low share of equine remains can be a sign of a sedentary economy. The research featured Tagar settlements in the forest-steppe areas of the interfluve area between the Kiya and the Chulym. The paper describes the zooarchaeological collection of the archeological site of Kоsоgol I, the largest Early Iron Age settlement in the area. The collection includes 6,634 samples, of which 687 belong to horses. The authors believe that cattle breeding was the main branch of the Tagar economy. Horses were the third most important group. However, horses were not meat animals, as bones of young horses were quite rare among the kitchen waste. The Tagars killed mature or old work horses (older than 12–13), which could not work anymore. Hunting was a secondary branch of their economy: they hunted does, as well as water and moor fowl near the settlement. The results of Kosogol I zooarchaeological assemblage study proved the theory about the sedentary cattle breeding of the early Tagar people.