Barry Cunlife - The Scythians

crossing the carpathians
A View from the West
The Danube in its middle reaches, flowing from north to south across the Carpathian
Basin, marked an important cultural divide. To the east lay the horse-riding nomads
whose ancestors come from the Pontic steppe while to the west were a kaleidoscope
of farming communities sharing a broad heritage that archaeologists, for convenience,
refer to as the Hallstatt culture.
Until about 800 bc the Hallstatt communities were bronze-using and most of
them buried their dead in cremation cemeteries following deeply rooted traditions.
But already in the ninth century significant changes were underway. Most interesting
was the appearance in some of the cremation graves of the bits and side pieces of
horse bridles made in bronze, hinting at the increasing importance of horse-riding.
That this coincides with the first appearance of nomadic communities in the Great
Hungarian Plain bringing with them fine long-legged horses from the steppe may
be no coincidence. Extensive exchanges took place between the newcomers and the
indigenous people in Transdanubia (above, pp. 107–9) and horses are likely to have
featured large in these transactions. The new breed of horse, superior in appearance
and performance to the native horse, fast became a symbol of elite status among the
Hallstatt communities, and throughout the eight and seventh centuries evidence for
horse-riding became widespread, even as far west as Britain. It has also been argued
that the new type of slashing sword that developed at this time was used as a cavalry
weapon, though without stirrups the wielding of such a sword on horseback would
have been difficult.
During the eighth and seventh centuries a new type of funerary rite was adopted
by the Hallstatt elite across a large expanse of territory stretching from the upper
Rhine along much of the upper Danube valley and as far east as Bohemia. Burial
was now by inhumation, the body being placed with its funerary cart in a wooden
burial chamber set within a pit accompanied by the trappings of the two horses that
pulled the cart and an additional riding horse. The burial was covered by a large
mound, in some cases with a stone statue of the deceased placed on it. Many of these
characteristics are closely similar to those adopted by steppe communities as early
as the ninth century. While this could simply be coincidence, it is tempting to see in
the new style of elite Hallstatt burial some influence from the east. It need not have
been direct. Through the channels of connectivity created by trade, knowledge of
the value systems of the eastern horsemen could quickly have spread to be taken
up, in modified form, by other elites. Developing elites often adopt foreign, esoteric
behaviours to distinguish themselves from lesser beings in their communities.
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