Rewilding Later Prehistory: Bronze and Iron Age Ecologies from the Perspective of the Past
‘Rewilding’ later prehistory recasts the nature conservation concept of ‘rewilding’ in order to reveal the ‘wonder and enchantment’ of archaeological wildlife, and its relevance to contemporary environmental concerns. As part of this wider project we are researching the management potential ‘ferality’ of horses in Bronze and Iron Age Britain.
One key project contributing to the wider ‘Rewilding Later Prehistory’ project is to investigate the largely unknown history of horses in prehistoric Britain and make an original contribution to burgeoning global advances in ancient horse studies.
The feral (or otherwise) character of later prehistoric horses will be explored using target-enrichment system aDNA analysis, multi-stranded isotope analysis and a detailed radiocarbon dating programme. Key questions include (a) the fate of indigenous ‘wild’ horse populations in Britain over the Neolithic/BA, (b) the character/timing of later Near Continental introductions, and (c) long-term horse health, mobility and diet – crucial in determining ferality.
Currently, and despite excellent work by other academics, significant uncertainty surrounds the history of horse populations in Britain. Questions remain about whether horses survived as a small, relict population from the Pleistocene through to the Bronze Age when their skeletal remains began to appear in greater numbers, or whether horses had completely died out in Britain only to be ‘re-introduced’, perhaps in the Late Neolithic. There are then subsequent questions surrounding the lack of horse bones at Archaeological sites in the Neolithic, and the increase during the Bronze and Iron Age as landscapes and communities become more structured and hierarchical.
Horses are a key species for thinking about the concept of ‘wildness’ since they occupy a liminal space in between ‘domesticity’ and the ‘wild’, in which they are never kept in Britain primarily for meat consumption, but are instead ridden animals, who provide people with a wide-reaching connection to landscape, not otherwise achieved. Yet, very little work has been done to consider the degree to which horses were kept as domestic animals in prehistory and how far people exploited wild/tame populations. At what point did prehistoric people in Britain shift from ‘breaking-in’ and riding wild horses to breeding and maintaining them at settlements, and what does this tell us about society at that point? How did horses participate in and enable the still highly mobile lifestyles of many later prehistoric people?
The NXCT supported this work by allowing us to CT scan important specimens before destructive sampling. Specifically, we were able to scan a large mandible compacted with soil from an Iron Age chariot burial at a fascinating site in Yorkshire. The CT scan allowed us to preserve the structural integrity of the specimen by digital record before sampling for C14 dating, Isotope analysis, and DNA took place.
This research will be disseminated in a series of academic publications (2-3 peer-reviewed papers) and a synthetic chapter within the ‘Rewilding’ project monograph which will be produced at the conclusion of the project. It will also be used to support and inform contemporary rewilding missions. We are working closely with the Knepp Estate, Britain’s rewilding hub, to bring archaeological research into the environmental policy sphere, highlight the value in interdisciplinary approaches to wildlife research, and bring public interest to the vibrancy archaeological research.
For more information on this project, follow @RewildArch on X or check out https://rewilding.oxfordarchaeology.com/ [rewilding.oxfordarchaeology.com]
