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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DRAFT VERSIONPlease do not quote without permission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


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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. Weare 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 asite 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 Koryosor Luperci or Vratyas. Dogs such as C-Serberus were symbols of death across the Indo-

European world, and were connected with warrior bands initiation rituals in Indo-Iranian, 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 ofKrasnosamarskoe, 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-AmericanSamara Valley Project [Fig 1] was designedto 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 formerlymobile pastoralists of the steppes settled into permanent homes and abandoned their

nomadic habits. Fig 2


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EBA & MBA LBA beginning @ 1900 BCE

50 kurgan cemeteries 60 kurgan cemeteries

10 MBA ceramic scatters 150 settlements

Fig 2

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 toeastern Kazakhstan and the borders of China at about the same time, 2000-1800 BC.

Fig 3


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This trans-Eurasian settling-down process is not well understood, but often it has beenascribed 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 thedominant 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 theteeth of the Bronze Age population (Fig 5).


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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 notrace 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 notcaused 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 thenearby ore-field at Kargaly in the southern Urals (Figs 6&7).

Fig 6.


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Fig.7 Aerial photo of Kargaly copper mines

Kargaly is apparently the largest copper mining site in Eurasia in the mid-2 nd

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, nottypical for a local herd, indicating that the Gorny copper miners were provisionedwith

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 withoutagriculture.

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, Srubnayapeople 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 wereused for specific seasonal rituals.


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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 fishpond, 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 fromthe lake bottom. (Figures 10&11).


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Fig. 10

Fig. 11

The excavated structure (Figure 12) is interpreted as a utility structure, possibly a well-

house, with a thatched roof and open or lightly screened sides, lacking a formal hearth orfireplace. 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.


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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 andradiocarbon 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


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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 thesettlement, 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 orinjury, 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


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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 theextraordinary 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 MIX2.SEASON OF DEATH

3.BODY PARTS4.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 theNISP 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 Srubnayasettlement site. However it is not only their remarkable abundance that is unusual aboutthe 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

Sachkovo

Moechnow

Ozero

LebyazhinkaV, layers 4-

6

LebyazhinkaV, layers 1-

3

Suskanskoe

I PoplavskoeSpecies

cattle Bos

taurus 52 53 62 67 52 60

goat/sheepCapra et

Ovis 25 23 20 18 28 27

horse

Equuscaballus 15 15 12 9 16 10

pig Susscrofa

domestica 5 7 4 4 2 2

dog

Canisfamiliaris 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, examiningincremental 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, beforethey were moved out to pasture, a pattern consistent with normal pastoral production ofcattle. 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 thanone ritual during the winter.

Fig.24

KrasnosamarskoeSeason of Death Bos and

OvicapridDog

Late Fall/Early Winter 2 6

Winter 1 5

Late Winter/Early Spring 2 3

Spring 1 0

Late Spring/Early Summer 1 0

Summer 2 0Late Summer/Early Fall 2 1

Fall 3 0

Fig. 25


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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 adultsincluding 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 24

Isolated teeth 5

Trunk - vertebrae, ribs 25

Proximal limb (scapula, pelvis,humerus, femur, radius, ulna) 25

Carpalia, tarsalia, sesamoidea 5

Distal limb (metapodia, phalanges 1-3) 17

NISP 2770

Fig. 26

Fig. 27


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Body parts (%) of BOS in Srubnaya settlements, middle Volga region.Skeletal unit Krasnosamarskoe Sachkovo Lebyazhinka V Tsalkincompilation*Head - skull and mandible 42 43 24 22Trunk - vertebrae, ribs 13 12 18 16Proximal limb (scapula,pelvis, humerus, femur,

radius, ulna) 16 23 31 31Distal limb (metapodia,phalanges 1-3) 29 22 27 31NISP 2661 1041 2239 3865Fig. 28

Body parts (%) OVICAPRID in Srubnaya settlements.Skeletal unit Krasnosamarskoe Sachkovo Lebyazhinka V Tsalkincompilation*Head - skull and mandible 35 33 25 36Trunk - vertebrae, ribs 15 21 16 8Proximal limb (scapula,

pelvis, humerus, femur,radius, ulna) 25 31 45 44Distal limb (metapodia,phalanges 1-3) 25 15 15 12NISP 1846 619 943 1886Fig. 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 thegods 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 fragmentedthan 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 morethan 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 blowsthrough 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 ofthe 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 of7 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 dogswere 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 endof their ritual usage before discarding them. In the Volsunga saga, the inspiration forVagners 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 midwintertoheal 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 andcattle. Several comparative mythologists (?1986:37-56; White 1991:95-100; Veesterman

1962; Kershaw 2000) have suggested that this mid-winter sacrificial ceremony by dog-priests 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 ScandinavianTwelve 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 thespirits 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 thedead 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 withcarved, 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 forevidence 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) (Epimakhov2001). 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 inwhich 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 adog skin.

Aggressive external raiding is usually emphasized in discussions of the

Mnnerbnde or Kouryos, and such institutions could clearly have contributed to themilitary 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 importantfunctions. 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 chieflyfeasts (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 askhim 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 politicaleconomies.

So the Indo-European institution of the Mnnerbnde suggested by the winter dogrituals at Krasnosamarskoe, might have functioned in three ways: as an instrument of

external territorial expansion, as an institution to promote internal social cohesion, and asa regulatory device in chiefly feast-centered economies.


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2002 Food, Rutuals? The Expolitation od Dogs from Eretria (Greece) During theHelladic and Hellenistic Periods. In 9

thICAZ Conference, Durham 2002; Dogs and

People in Social, Working, Economic or Symbolic Interaction. Eds Lynn M. Snyder andElizabeth A. Moore) pp.24-31

Chilardi, Salvatore.

2002 Artemis Pit? Dog Remains from a Well in the Ancient Town of Siracusa(Sicily), in 9

thICAZ Conference, Durham 2002; Dogs and People in Social, Working,

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Falk, Harry

1985 Bruderschaft und Wrfelspiel. Freibug: Hedwige Falk.

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