Morphological Characteristics of a Horse Discovered in an Avar-Period Grave from Sâncraiu de Mureș (Alba County, Romania)

Abstract

Archeozoological studies provide an insight into human–environment relations, bringing important information on the morphology of the animal and the role of the animal and its functions. The purpose of this study was to reveal the morphological characteristics of the horse identified in an 8th century BC Avar cemetery dated, as it resulted from the investigation carried out on the materials presented to the Anatomy Lab of Department of Comparative Anatomy. The cleaning and conditioning of the materials were performed in the lab, followed by anatomical and osteometrical study. The identification of the species, the osteometrical interpretation and the assessment of age at death constituted the basis of the main conclusions. Based on the morphological and metrical data, we concluded that the fragments originated from a single young horse individual (Equus caballus) no older than 2.5 (2–2.5 years age span) included into class 5 of height (Vitt scale) with slender extremities. An overview of the available data (horse morphology) from similar sites in Romania and neighboring territories (Hungary and Croatia) is presented, with the intention of a general framing for the characteristics of the horses used by the Avar populations.

La Tène Horse Remains from Alba Iulia CX 143 Complex: A Whole Story to Tell

“…We used most of the initial published metrical data to try to recalculate the height of the animals and the indices that help us in the classification and characterization of the morphological features of the animals [59][60][61]. Recalculation of height data was carried out following the method suggested by Bartosiewicz [62], which has been used in all recalculations (whenever available data) in all cases of studied complete horse skeletons from Romania or elsewhere [3,4,[62][63][64][65][66]. We compared the metric data from an earlier study on a horse from the same archaeological objective, published in 2020 [4], the Zimnicea Necropole [53][54][55], another one from the same county [56], some horse remains from a La Tène site in Savârsin, Arad county [57], horse skeletons from the current territory of Hungary (Scythian cemetery) at Szentes-Vekerzug and a so-called Venetian horse skeleton from the cemetery complex of Sopron-Krautacker [58].…”

“…We used most of the initial published metrical data to try to recalculate the height of the animals and the indices that help us in the classification and characterization of the morphological features of the animals [59][60][61]. Recalculation of height data was carried out following the method suggested by Bartosiewicz [62], which has been used in all recalculations (whenever available data) in all cases of studied complete horse skeletons from Romania or elsewhere [3,4,[62][63][64][65][66].…”

A Paleopathological Find on a La Tène Horse Skeleton Discovered in Rescue Archaeological Diggings in the Area of the Olympic Pool, Alba Iulia (CX 143 Pit)

“…The subject of our investigation was discovered in Alba county, Romania in CX 143 burial pit in the area of the Olympic Pool, Alba Iulia that contains a complete horse skeleton that was earlier analyzed and published [ 5 ]. The morphological characteristics revealed by the previous analysis indicate a 7–8-year-old male, with a height of 1200–1300 mm, which was calculated based on the composite formula of Bartosiewicz [ 6 ], similar to other horse skeletons discovered in the same area [ 7 , 8 , 9 ]. These other findings did not show significant pathological or subpathological lesions, making the present report a singular one, given the historical context for this territory.…”