-----Original Message-----
From: Perrine GAMBIER <[log in to unmask]>
To: ZOOARCH <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tue, Mar 15, 2016 12:33 pm
Subject: Re: [ZOOARCH] Horse posture

Dear All


Thank you very much for your free flow of answers; they will certainly add to our interest

I try to join some horse skeleton photos in the atypical pit where it was dig out, and some pit's details (http://we.tl/ZL8jULhgi4). The flat-bottomed pit is rectangular, rather wide and with vertical walls, dug into the chalk, associated with a concave curvature in its northeast edge. It does not force the horse posture. If somebody has already seen this kind of structure, in particular the concave curvature (kind of “Cradle”) in one of the corner, I am interested of any information.

As some of you, I think that the horse was gone down alive in the pit, brought down on the spot then buried. On the ground, we observe in the pit a stratigraphical unit located along one of the walls , like a step that could have been used to go horse down.


Here are some precision about the horse:


-After meticulous examination of the skeleton, I observed no cutting or slaughtering evidence on the bones. Nada!

-It’s a little horse, between 122,4 and 127,8 cms at the shoulders (according to Kieswalter), and with a stature " the slight middle " (according to the Bruner classes).

-It is a young stallion between 2.5/3.5 years old.


And some precision about the context:


-The structure was dated Ier century AD according to the ceramic (a collar carefully cut and put down in the “cradle” and the fragments of paunch put down flat upon the bottom of the pit) and numismatics materials (one augustan As found on the surface).

-The site is in the South of the Ardennes, in the northeast of France.

-Next to the pit, we discovere some silos of the Iron age. Two of them contain scattered bones, most of them are horse bones of small size. A human remain with tooth rodents evidence was discover in one of the two silos.


My first hypothesis was an exposure of the horse in this position which we could qualify as "sphinx".
Then I observed in a old documentary (http: // www.dailymotion.com/video/xt2ewc_le-san g-des-betes-georges-franju-1949_news, in 3:31 m, photos extracted as attachments ) an impressive reflexe posturale after using stunning pistol. That's why I directed my reflection to a reflexe posture after slaughtering.


I think about a sex and age selection in a sacrificial way. There's no human remain in the pit, even in the “cradle”. Nevertheless, considering the “psycopompe” role of the horse, we expected the horse would accompagny the desceased.

Best regards

Perrine (CD 08)