Midwinter Dog Sacrifices at LBA Krasnosamarskoe, Russia And Traces of Initiations for Mnnerbnde.

Dorcas Brown and David Anthony Hartwick College

DRAFT VERSIONPlease do not quote without permission

Paper given at the Conference: Tracing the Indo-European: Origin and migrations. Roots of Europe Research Center, University of Copenhagen, Denmark December 11 13, 2012 1

Introduction Id like to thank the Roots of Europe Research Center here at the University of Copenhagen for inviting me and David Anthony to speak at this distinguished event. We are very happy and excited to be here particularly at this season, as we approach the modern ceremonies of the winter solstice and the 12 days of Christmas. Today I will discuss a winter ceremony that occurred about 1900-1700 BC at a site in Russia. In this Late Bronze Age ritual, many dogs were sacrificed in very strange ways. In Indo-European seasonal rituals, midwinter is associated with the initiation of young males into cultic warrior bands, known variously as the Mnnerbnde or Koryos or Luperci or Vratyas. Dogs such as C-Serberus were symbols of death across the IndoEuropean world, and were connected with warrior bands initiation rituals in IndoIranian, Greek, and western European institutions, which are described in ancient literary traditions as old as the Rig Veda, composed before 1000 BC. Our extraordinary winter dog sacrifices were found at the site of Krasnosamarskoe, near Samara, Russia, about halfway between the Indic and western European literary sources for warrior bands. But before going to the dogs, I should explain why we were digging at Krasnosamarskoe.

Fig.1 It had nothing to do with dogs or Mnnerbnde. The joint Russian-American Samara Valley Project [Fig 1] was designed to examine an important shift in steppe pastoral subsistence economies that occurred at the beginning of the Late Bronze Age in the Russian steppes between about 2000-1800 BC. In these centuries the formerly mobile pastoralists of the steppes settled into permanent homes and abandoned their nomadic habits. Fig 2

EBA & MBA 50 kurgan cemeteries 10 MBA ceramic scatters Fig 2

LBA beginning @ 1900 BCE 60 kurgan cemeteries 150 settlements

We wanted to understand the transition from mobile to settled pastoralism that affected not just the middle Volga region, but most of the steppe zone from western Ukraine to eastern Kazakhstan and the borders of China at about the same time, 2000-1800 BC.

Fig 3

This trans-Eurasian settling-down process is not well understood, but often it has been ascribed to the widespread adoption of agriculture by formerly mobile steppe pastoralists. The new, settled agro-pastoral economy is said to have spread across the Eurasian steppes with a broadly similar Srubnaya-Andronovo culture during the LBA. This was the first time that a chain of interrelated cultures occupied the steppes between China and Europe, encouraging the diffusion of new weapons such as the chariot, new bronze-casting technologies, and new ideologies probably connected with Indo-Iranian languages. In the middle Volga region the Srubnaya or Timber-Grave culture was the dominant regional archaeological culture of the LBA. The Samara Valley Project examined the role of agriculture at the Srubnaya settlement of Krasnosamarskoe. We also examined a large population of skeletons from cemeteries across the region (Fig 4).

Fig 4. We found no evidence for an agricultural diet in the teeth or dietary isotopes of the regional Bronze Age population. For example, caries were almost non-existent in the teeth of the Bronze Age population (Fig 5).

Fig 5. And isotopes showed no change in dietary signature throughout the Bronze Ages. Furthermore, confirming the skeletal evidence, we found no botanical evidence for agriculture in pollen, phytoliths, or carbonized seeds. A major effort by Lebedeva (2005) using soil flotation to recover macro-botanical remains at 14 other Srubnaya settlements in the Volga-Ural region, also failed to find any cultivated seeds. Although there was no trace of agriculture, the Krasnosamarskoe settlement was occupied permanently through all seasons of the year. Surprisingly, it appears that the LBA settling-down process in the Volga-Ural steppes was not caused by the adoption of agriculture. It is possible that LBA sedentism was partly an adaptation to the increasing amounts of labor dedicated regionally to copper mining, metallurgical production, and metal export, particularly after 1800 BC, when copper mining reached a peak in the nearby ore-field at Kargaly in the southern Urals (Figs 6&7).

Fig 6.

Fig.7 Aerial photo of Kargaly copper mines Kargaly is apparently the largest copper mining site in Eurasia in the mid-2nd millennium BC. The Srubnaya mining settlement of Gorny, excavated by Chernykh, produced over 2.5 million animal bones, 83% from cattle (Morales and Antipina 2003; Chernykh 2004: 187). The Gorny cattle were all drawn from a narrow age range, not typical for a local herd, indicating that the Gorny copper miners were provisioned with beef cattle contributed from herds at other Srubnaya sites, perhaps including Krasnosamarskoe. Provisioning of mining settlements suggests regional-scale political integration and specialization of some settlement functions, in an economy without agriculture. The new economic data from the Samara Valley Project are interesting enough. But we also found that Krasnosamarskoe was itself a specialized settlement. We believe it was a regional center for the performance of specific rituals, conducted in the winter, requiring dog sacrifices. No other Srubnaya settlement in the Volga Ural region has produced similar evidence for winter dog-sacrifice ceremonies. Presumably, Srubnaya people from the area who engaged in these ceremonies came to Krasnosamarskoe to do so. The uniqueness of the ritual performed at Krasnosamarskoe, combined with the scale of the ceremony, involving the sacrifice of at least 51 dogs, hints that ritual behavior, like copper mining, could have been regionally organized, so that specific settlements were used for specific seasonal rituals. 6

Fig. 8

Fig. 9 The Krasnosamarskoe settlement ( Figures 8&9) probably contained no more than two or three buildings. It was small but was a typical size for Srubnaya settlements in the region. Part of the settlement was flooded by the creation of a man-made commercial fish pond, overflowing the shoreline of what was, in the Bronze Age, an ox-bow lake surrounded by marshes. The man-made pond destroyed at least one other structure, possibly the principal residence at the site. But it was sampled by collecting artifacts from the lake bottom. (Figures 10&11).

Fig. 10

Fig. 11 The excavated structure (Figure 12) is interpreted as a utility structure, possibly a wellhouse, with a thatched roof and open or lightly screened sides, lacking a formal hearth or fireplace. The structure contained 2 deep pit features, pits 14 and 10. At least one of these, pit 10, functioned as a Well during the first phase of occupation. (Figure 13). The structure has a few artifacts related to craft production including pottery decoration, weaving and small-scale metal working.

Fig.12

Fig.13

Animal bones (Figure 14) were discarded in shallow pits or possibly in dirt-covered piles that were concentrated in the center of the structure (Figure 15). Pottery typology and radiocarbon dates (Figure 16) indicate at least two occupation phases, including the earliest Pokrovka phase of Srubnaya around 1890 BC and the slightly later mature Srubnaya phase at 1750 BC, occurring approximately a century apart.

Fig. 14

Fig.15

Fig. 16 In the nearby cemetery, all three kurgans were constructed a millennium earlier in the Middle Bronze Age by Poltavka mobile pastoralists (Figures 17&18). However, 24 Srubnaya individuals were inserted into Kurgan 3 (Figure 19), the one closest to the settlement, and their radiocarbon dates were mostly contemporaneous with the Krasnosamarskoe settlement. The Srubnaya graves included two adult males, two adult females, and 20 pre-adults, an unusually high proportion of young individuals, compared

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with other Srubnaya cemeteries in the lower Samara Valley. Although the children do not exhibit unusual signs of disease or violence, they must have died from either sickness or injury, so it is possible that some of them were brought to Krasnosamarskoe for healing ceremonies, if the site was indeed known as a center for conducting childhood-related rituals. Perhaps the healing ceremonies failed, and the young victims were buried here.

Fig.17 K1

Fig.18 K2

11

Fig.19 K3

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The structure at Krasnosamarskoe (Figure 20) yielded abundant discarded faunal remains: 22,445 bone fragments, of which 8,480 were identifiable to species, according to Russian zoologist, Pavel Kosintsev. These animal bones provide us with the key to the extraordinary nature of this site 1. by their unique species proportionality; 2. by their season of death; 3.by their body part distributions; and 4. by their butchery practices.

Fig.20 . Animal bone densities; overlay with features Extraordinary nature of the KS animal bones: 1.SPECIES MIX 2.SEASON OF DEATH 3.BODY PARTS 4.BUTCHERY SPECIES MIX (Figures 21, 22, 23) In most Srubnaya settlements Dog remains are never more than 3% and usually less than 1% of domesticated animal remains. But at Krasnosamarskoe, depending if you count the NISP number of fragments of dog bones, or the MNI minimum number of individual dogs, the percentages are 6 to 12 times greater than any other known Srubnaya settlement site. However it is not only their remarkable abundance that is unusual about the Krasnosamarskoe dogs.

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Fig.21

Fig.22 Comparison of percentages of mammal bones by NISP in LBA sites of the Middle Volga region Lebyazhinka Lebyazhinka Moechnow V, layers 4- V, layers 1- Suskanskoe Sachkovo Ozero 6 3 I Poplavskoe Species cattle Bos taurus 52 53 62 67 52 60 goat/sheep Capra et Ovis 25 23 20 18 28 27 horse Equus caballus 15 15 12 9 16 10 pig Sus scrofa domestica 5 7 4 4 2 2 dog Canis familiaris 3 0.3 0.1 0.5 0.5 0.7 Figure 23

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SEASONALITY Anne Pike-Tay directed the seasonality study at Krasnosamarskoe, examining incremental banding in the animal teeth (Figures 24&25). Pike-Tays studies showed that cattle at Krasnosamarskoe were slaughtered throughout the year, with more young animals killed in the Fall, when they were fat, and more old animals in the Spring, before they were moved out to pasture, a pattern consistent with normal pastoral production of cattle. Of the minimum 51 dogs excavated at Krasnosamarskoe, Pike-Tay was able to determine the season of death for a sample of 15. Fourteen of the 15, or 93.3 percent, were killed in the winter. Pike-Tay perceived a subtle spread of seasons-at-death between early winter (6 dogs), mid-winter (5 dogs), and late winter (3 dogs), suggesting more than one ritual during the winter.

Fig.24 Krasnosamarskoe Season of Death Bos and Ovicaprid Late Fall/Early Winter Winter Late Winter/Early Spring Spring Late Spring/Early Summer Summer Late Summer/Early Fall Fall Fig. 25 2 1 2 1 1 2 2 3

Dog 6 5 3 0 0 0 1 0

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BODY PART DISTRUBUTION The body part distribution of the dogs indicates that the whole body of the dog was discarded. (Figure 26). Dog heads are somewhat over-represented, so might have played a special role, but the discarded dog bones include vertebrae, ribs, and proximal limb bones, suggesting that the whole body was present. The dogs were mostly adults including several very old animals that must have been familiar companions (Figure 27). Krasnosamarskoe Settlement. DOG remains by Body parts (%). (Canis familiaris) Skeletal unit Head - skull and mandible Isolated teeth Trunk - vertebrae, ribs Proximal limb (scapula, pelvis, humerus, femur, radius, ulna) Carpalia, tarsalia, sesamoidea Distal limb (metapodia, phalanges 13) NISP Fig. 26 24 5 25

25 5 17 2770

Fig. 27

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Body parts (%) of BOS in Srubnaya settlements, middle Volga region. Skeletal unit Head - skull and mandible Trunk - vertebrae, ribs Proximal limb (scapula, pelvis, humerus, femur, radius, ulna) Distal limb (metapodia, phalanges 1-3)
NISP

Krasnosamarskoe

Sachkovo

Tsalkin Lebyazhinka V compilation*

42 13 16 29
2661

43 12 23 22
1041

24 18 31 27
2239

22 16 31 31
3865

Fig. 28 Body parts (%) OVICAPRID in Srubnaya settlements. Skeletal unit Head - skull and mandible Trunk - vertebrae, ribs Proximal limb (scapula, pelvis, humerus, femur, radius, ulna) Distal limb (metapodia, phalanges 1-3)
NISP

Krasnosamarskoe 35 15

Sachkovo 33 21

Tsalkin Lebyazhinka V compilation* 25 16 36 8

25 25
1846

31 15
619

45 15
943

44 12
1886

Fig. 29 The cattle and ovicaprid bones at Krasnosamarskoe (Figures 28&29), in contrast with the dog bones, are skewed toward an over-representation of heads and distal limbs, suggesting that a percentage of these individuals might have been discarded in the form of skins with the head and hooves attached, a common symbolic offering representing the gods portion of a sacrifice. Head-and-hoof deposits are well-known remains of ritual activity across the Eurasian steppes, beginning in the Eneolithic, two millennia before Krasnosamarskoe, but they are usually found archaeologically in cemeteries, not in settlements.

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BUTCHERY AND COOKING Kosintsev noted that all the animal bones at Krasnosamarskoe were more fragmented than at other Srubnaya sites. The dogs are even more highly fragmented than the cattle and sheep. This chart, separating the finds from the 1999 and 2001 excavation seasons, shows that the southern part of the structure, excavated in 1999, contained more fragmented bones for all animals, but the dogs were extraordinarily fragmented at more than 75 fragments per dog. It is difficult to say if the dogs at Krasnosamarskoe were eaten. Like the other animals, the bones of dogs show skinning and dismemberment marks, and were burned, prior to being chopped into pieces. After burning, the dogs heads were carefully chopped into small, neat, geometrical segments with axe blows (Figures 30, 31. 32).

Fig.30

Fig.31

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Fig. 32 There is considerable regularity in the pieces produced, not an easy result when chopping a burned dog head with an axe. One standard segment runs from the eye socket to the middle of the tooth row, possibly removing the snout with two lateral blows through each orbit. On the detached snout, the butcher or priest carefully chopped longitudinally down both sides of the palate, where the bone is thinner, leaving a small separate center section, separating the snout into three sections. Another standard cut cleaved the middle of the forehead at the intersection of the frontal bones. The back of the skull is also chopped neatly off and sectioned, and the mandible is chopped in half. All of the chopping happened after the dog heads were burned. The careful segmenting of the skull into standardized pieces 3-4 cm in size is unique to dogs. Also important for consideration of the ritual nature of the assemblage is the presence of wolf bones. In addition to the 51 domestic dogs, Kosintsev found remains of 7 MNI (18 NISP) wolves and 6 more canids somewhere between the size of domestic dogs and wolves. Adding all canid bones together we have a minimum of 64 individuals. Kosintsev noted that the wolf bones were also fragmented, cut and split like the dog bones. There is very little meat on most of these pieces, so it not food-related butchering, but it is skilled, practiced, and standardized, suggesting a redundant ritual act. The dogs were sacrificed in a winter ceremony, the remains were burned, and then they were ritually chopped into many standardized pieces, possibly to de-sacralize them at the end of their ritual usage before discarding them. In the Volsunga saga, the inspiration for Vagners trilogy, Sigmund guided his son/nephew, sneaking together through the forest as wolf-skinned thieves, robbing and killing. When they were ready to return to their normal lives, they removed their wolf skins and burned them (Kershaw :59; Byock:1990).

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INTERPRETATION How are we to interpret this unique site? Vedic texts refers to a group of sorcerers called dog-priests, Vrtyas. They conducted a 12-day sacrificial ceremony at midwinter to heal nature and restore its vitality. In these texts the sacrificed victim was a cow. The winter-season ceremony at Krasnosamarskoe seems to have included both dogs and cattle. Several comparative mythologists (?1986:37-56; White 1991:95-100; Veesterman 1962; Kershaw 2000) have suggested that this mid-winter sacrificial ceremony by dogpriests might be an ancient Indo-European one, reflected not just in Vedic myths, but also in the Roman Lupercalia, with its midwinter sacrifice of dogs; and the Scandinavian Twelve Nights of Christmas, originally a pagan festival during which the god Odin roars as a hunter through the forests with his dogs. The Lupercalia also was connected with February ceremonies that propitiated the spirits of the dead (Harrison 1903:50-55). A related ceremony of ancient Greece, the Anthesteria, also was conducted in February, and also was concerned with propitiating the spirits of the dead. In this season, Hermes was thought to conduct the souls of the dead out of their graves with a simple wooden stick, a magical wand called the rhabdos (Figure 33). It is interesting that the well next to the dog feast at Krasnosamarskoe contained a waterlogged level that preserved at least 2 long wooden poles or wands with carved, notched ends, of unknown function (Figures 34-36).

Fig.33

Fig.34

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Fig.35

Fig.36

Although Krasnosamarskoe seems unique, other sites might be re-examined for evidence of dog sacrifices linked to youths and midwinter. At the Sintashta-culture cemetery of Kamenny Ambar 4, Grave 2 contained the collective remains of 8 adolescents, one of whom wore two strands of dog canines (Figures 37&38) (Epimakhov 2001). The human bones in the famous Kivik tomb, in Sweden, were from adolescents aged 13-15. Perhaps these were the remains of young raidersand perhaps the images inside the tomb showed the initiation of boys into warriors (Figure 39).

Figure 37

Figure 38

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Figure 39

Figure 40 We cant know the exact ritual proceedings that happened at Krasnosamarskoe. But we can look to other Indo-European cultures to give us a hint of what happened. According to Kershaw, the Yajur-veda says that at the age of 8, a boy was bathed, his head was shaved and he was given new clothes, a belt, a prominent item of dress in these Bronze Age stelae from the Pontic steppes, and an animal skin for his upper body (Figure

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40). He studied with a teacher for 8 years, memorizing and reciting poetry among other tasks. As a mid-teenager he experienced a winter solstice ritual called the Ekastaka in which he ritually died to become a member of a roving warrior group, called the Vratyas. The midwinter ritual conveyed him to the world of his dead ancestors. He left the community of humans for four years to follow Rudra, the god of wildness and danger. Like Sigmund, he lived in the wild, painted his body black, and wore a black cape and a dog skin. Aggressive external raiding is usually emphasized in discussions of the Mnnerbnde or Kouryos, and such institutions could clearly have contributed to the military expansion of Indo-European-speakers. If the boys were required to recite poetry, that was another way to connect the preservation of Indo-European verses and vocabulary with the Mnnerbnde. But the warrior-bands also had at least two other important functions. Internally, the cult promoted social cohesion between age-equal males, making them brothers in arms like a pack of wolves. In addition, they might also have played a regulatory role within Indo-European society similar to the enforcers that almost always operate within chiefdoms to insure that everyone contributes animals to important chiefly feasts (Hayden & Villeneuve 2012). Kershaw described how vratyas would approach a farmstead and ask if the farmer wanted to offer a sacrifice to their god. A well-informed farmer would give them his best cow, which they would take away and sacrifice, perhaps a way of enforcing animal tribute for the chief. But if the farmer resisted, they might ask him to recite an ancient poem or answer an impossible riddle. If the farmer did not know the right answer, the Vratyas would take everything they wanted and kill anyone who got in their way. This could be simple theft, but it also sounds like a method chiefdoms often used to enforce tribute payments among recalcitrant producers in feast-centered political economies. So the Indo-European institution of the Mnnerbnde suggested by the winter dog rituals at Krasnosamarskoe, might have functioned in three ways: as an instrument of external territorial expansion, as an institution to promote internal social cohesion, and as a regulatory device in chiefly feast-centered economies.

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References: Byock, Jesse L 1990 The Saga of the Volungs. Penguin Classics, 1999. ISBN: 978-0-14-192155-6 Chenal-Velarde, Isabelle. 2002 Food, Rutuals? The Expolitation od Dogs from Eretria (Greece) During the Helladic and Hellenistic Periods. In 9th ICAZ Conference, Durham 2002; Dogs and People in Social, Working, Economic or Symbolic Interaction. Eds Lynn M. Snyder and Elizabeth A. Moore) pp.24-31 Chilardi, Salvatore. 2002 Artemis Pit? Dog Remains from a Well in the Ancient Town of Siracusa (Sicily), in 9th ICAZ Conference, Durham 2002; Dogs and People in Social, Working, Economic or Symbolic Interaction. Eds. Lynn M. Snyder and Elizabeth A. Moore) pp.3237. Falk, Harry 1985 Bruderschaft und Wrfelspiel. Freibug: Hedwige Falk. Harrison, Jane Ellen 1991 Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion. [Cambridge University Press 1903], Princeton: Princeton University Press Heesterman, Jan 1962 Vrtyas and sacrifice. Indo-Iranian Journal 6: 3-37. Kershaw, Kris, 2000 The One-eyed god; Odin and the (Indo-)Germanic Mnnerbnde. Journal of Indo-European Studies Monograph Number Thirty-Six. Washington DC, Institute for the Study of Man Inc. Lamberg-Karlovsky, C.C. 2002 Archaeology and language: the Indo-Iranians. Current Anthropology 43(1): 63-88. Ojoade, J. Olowo 1990 Nigerian cultural attitudes to the dog. In Signifying Animals: Human Meaning in the Natural World. R. Willis, ed. Pp. 215-221. One World Archaeology. London: Unwin Hyman. Watson, John P. N. 1979 The estimation of the relative frequencies of mammalian species: Khirokitia 1972. Journal of Archaeological Science 6:127-137.

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White, David Gordon 1991 Myths of the Dog-Man. Chicago: University of Chicago Press Wing, Elizabeth S. 1984 Use and abuse of dogs. In Contributions in Quaternary Vertebrate Paleontology. H. H. Genoways and M. R. Dawson, eds. Pp. 228-232. Carnegie Museum of Natural History Special Publications, No. 8. Wing, Elizabeth S. 1993 The realm between wild and domestic. In Skeletons in her Cupboard: Festschrift for Juliet Clutton-Brock. A. T. Clason, S. Payne, and H.-P. Uerpmann, eds. Pp. 243-250. Oxbow Monograph, No. 34. Witzel, Michael 1995 Rigvedic history: poets, chieftains, and polities. In The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia: Language, Material Culture and Ethnicity, George Erdosy, ed. Pp. 307-352. Volume 1 of the series, Indian Philology and South Asian Studies, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.

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