An international team of archeologists has unearthed numerous L-shaped barbed antler objects at three early sites — Ust’-Polui, Tiutei-Sale I, and Iarte VI — in the Yamal region of Arctic Siberia. With help from contemporary Indigenous Nenets reindeer herders, the researchers have identified these artifacts — the earliest came from the Ust’-Polui site and is at least 2,000 years old — as headgear parts for training young reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) in pulling sleds.
A Nenets man traveling on a sled pulled by three reindeer, Tambei region of the Yamal peninsula, June 2018. In his left hand he holds the khorei (a wood pole) and in his right the nenzamindya’sa (head rope), both of which are used to communicate with the reindeer during sledding. Image credit: Losey et al, doi: 10.1007/s10816-020-09455-w.
The study of reindeer domestication provides a unique opportunity to examine how domestication involves more than bodily changes in animals produced through selection.
Domestication requires enskilment among humans and animals, and this process of pragmatic learning is dependent on specific forms of material culture.
Particularly with the domestication of working animals, the use of such material culture may predate phenotypic and genetic changes produced through selective breeding.
The Yamal region of Arctic Siberia is generating an increasingly diverse set of archeological data for reindeer domestication that evidences such processes.
“Previous studies have suggested that reindeer domestication started only a few hundred years ago in northern Europe, perhaps as early as the 11th century CE in northern Siberia, based on evidence of genetic changes in reindeer,” said Dr. Robert Losey, a researcher in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Alberta.
“However, many have long suspected domestication began much earlier.”
Barbed L-shaped antler objects (top) and antler swivel types (bottom) from the site of Ust’-Polui, the Yamal region of Arctic Siberia. Image credit: Losey et al, doi: 10.1007/s10816-020-09455-w.
Dr. Losey and his colleagues from Canada, Siberia, Sweden, and the United Kingdom focused on two groups of objects from three Yamal sites: Ust’-Polui, Iarte VI, and Tiutei-Sale I.
The objects consist of L-shaped antler pieces that are similar to parts of modern transport reindeer headgear, and antler swivels, which now attach directly to the headgear at one end and at the other to the rope used by the sled driver to communicate with the lead reindeer.
Other artifacts from these same three sites include fragments of ‘built-up’ sleds and various toggles or buttons.
“We weren’t sure about any of these artifacts — what this stuff was, or how it works,” Dr. Losey said.
“It’s just a bunch of straps, and antler pieces and swivels — a confusing mess.”
“After examining the barbed headgear parts, the Nenets concluded they must have been used for training, since they would have been far too uncomfortable for reindeer to wear for long,” he added.
“The animal would learn once that headgear is on to stop resisting; then you could forgo the training gear and use a simpler set of headgear meant to be worn all the time.”
Dr. Losey and co-authors argued that anthropologists have tended to focus too narrowly on changes in the bodies of animals as evidence of domestication.
Equally important is understanding the relationship between humans and the animals in question, since domestication will not necessarily be marked by detectable morphological or genetic change.
“Domestication is a human-animal relationship involving practices, materials, socialization and, as we highlight here, mutual enskilment,” they said.
“We need to look for evidence for all parts of the process of domestication — the bodily changes, but also the material things that people use in working with animals and training them to live in that particular domestic environment,” Dr. Losey said.
The findings were published in the Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory.
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R.J. Losey et al. Domestication as Enskilment: Harnessing Reindeer in Arctic Siberia. J Archaeol Method Theory, published online May 12, 2020; doi: 10.1007/s10816-020-09455-w
Source link: https://www.sci.news/archaeology/earliest-evidence-reindeer-domestication-arctic-siberia-08542.html
