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Eating horses: the evolutionary significance of hippophagy

Author: Marsha A. Levine
Date: Mar. 1998
From: Antiquity(Vol. 72, Issue 275)
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Document Type: Article
Length: 4,811 words

Abstract:
Horse-meat consumption in four populations was examined. The groups covered by this study were the steppe Mongols, forest-
steppe Kazakhs, the Hadza hunter-gatherers of Tanzania and the urban French. Analysis revealed that horses were important food
resource in grassland habitats. In the steppic conditions of central Eurasia during the late Eneolithic period, the horse became a new
source of required fatty acids. This could also explain the preponderance of horse images in final Upper Palaeolithic art.

Full Text:
The meat and milk of horses are highly valued food products, past and present. Horses were an especially valuable food resource in
grassland habitats, which may explain their increased exploitation in the central Eurasian forest steppe during the late Eneolithic. It
may also explain the emphasis on horses in final Upper Palaeolithic art.

The domestication of the horse for transport would have profoundly influenced human ecology, social behaviour and economy. This
theory is the motor that drives most research into equid prehistory. However, the social and ecological implications of its use as a
food source are equally interesting. As early as the Lower Palaeolithic equid flesh was an important food and as late as the present it
remains so for many people. In steppe and savannah regions it is an almost ubiquitous component of hominid midden deposits. Many
contemporary peoples, who value horseflesh and milk, believe that this food source has special nutritional and even medicinal
attributes. On that basis, the horse often occupies a special place in traditional societies.

This paper discusses four populations which value equids as a food source: steppe Mongols, forest-steppe Kazakhs, the Hadza
hunter-gatherers of Tanzania and the urban French. The data come from a variety of sources. Two Mongols - one mountain(1) and
one steppe(2) - were interviewed who described pre-collectivization horse husbandry. In Kazakhstan nine formal interviews(3) and
many informal discussions took place. The Kazakh informants all had horseherding backgrounds. Some could speak of the time
before collectivization(4); the experience of others was mainly derived from work on state farms. Even where husbandry methods
were no longer traditional, ancestral techniques of horsemeat butchery and preparation seem to have remained relatively intact or
could be recalled. Historical and ethnographic sources have also been consulted. Information about the Hadza came from
conversation with James Woodburn. The discussion of French hippophagy is based upon written sources. The objective of this paper
is to elucidate the dietary role of horse flesh and milk in these cultures, and to suggest how they could be relevant to the study of
ancient populations.

Horsemeat and fat

Around 1972, I interviewed James Woodburn about the Hadza. His comments, gently simmering in my mind over the intervening
years, inspired the line of thought that I am taking today. According to Woodburn, traditionally the Hadza hunted a wide variety of
herbivores of which the most important numerically were impala and zebra. Zebra was preferred over impala, because of the nature
and abundance of its fat. The Hadza, like many other traditional hunters, value fat more highly than protein (Woodburn pers. comm.;
Speth 1983). They classify fat as either 'hard' (e.g. bovids) or 'soft' (e.g. equids). Soft fat is particularly valuable because it can be fed
to babies within their first few weeks of life. Adult male zebra are highly regarded because they can provide relatively large quantities
of soft fat.

Both in northern Kazakhstan and in eastern Mongolia, horses are almost invariably slaughtered in late autumn or early winter while
they are still in good condition ). Because the winters in both of these regions are so severe, flesh from horses slaughtered in
November will keep until spring. In northern Kazakhstan meat is stored in a special building called a shoshola [ILLUSTRATION FOR
FIGURE 2 OMITTED]). In eastern Mongolia it is kept in a box in the snow. According to my Mongolian steppe informant, horse flesh
is only eaten fresh, so that by spring all stored meat must be consumed. In Kazakhstan, however, horsemeat is eaten during the
winter either fresh or salted; in spring any remaining will be smoked for consumption until late autumn.

The traditional nomadic pastoralist Mongolians referred to here normally only slaughtered their horses when they were no longer
productive, either for transport or for procreation, usually after around 14 to 15 years of age. However, in northern Kazakhstan before
collectivization the horse breeders were semi-nomadic. Since they had a fixed winter base and moved over a relatively circumscribed
area during the summer, they did not need as many horses for transport as the Mongols; horses surplus to transport and breeding
requirements were butchered between the ages of approximately i and 3 years. The rest were normally slaughtered, when they were
no longer productive, after the age of 20 years.(5)

While the steppe and forest-steppe informants also herded other livestock, such as cattle, sheep, goats and camels, they regard
horseflesh as the best food source. Because of the high calorific value of horse fat, when the weather is very cold and, in particular,
when it is necessary totravel long distances, horse flesh is a rich energy source: a person who eats it for breakfast can work
throughout the whole day.(6)

According to a Kazakh informant,(7) horse flesh is preferred because:

* it tastes best;

* it does not spoil as quickly as sheep or beef;

* it does not get greasy when it is cool; and

* a person does not get a stomach-ache from eating horsemeat.

With careful processing, horse flesh will, indeed, keep for a long time. After slaughter it matures relatively quickly; the pH rapidly
drops to 5-6, limiting scope for microbial infection if hygienic storage conditions can be

provided (Rossier & Berger 1988). Horse flesh can, in fact, be very greasy; however, the quality of the grease, or fat, is very different
from that of sheep or cow and is, indeed, far more digestible. My steppe and forest-steppe informants consider horse fat to be very
good for human health and superior to that of sheep or cattle.

Traditionally, in northern Kazakhstan, when a horse is slaughtered, relations and neighbours are invited to eat some of the meat. The
most valued parts of the carcass - that is, those with the highest fat content - are offered to guests. This includes the cranium, with
the brains, eyes and ears, which are given, in particular, to old people. The meat and fat on the back of the neck under the mane and
on the ribs are particular delicacies, offered to honoured guests.(8) The flesh from the ribs is used in the treatment of various
diseases, for example, tuberculosis.(9)

Most valuable of all is the fat beneath the mane. A horse with a good layer of neck fat is judged to be in good condition. In winter this
fat is eaten fresh or salted; in spring it is smoked and served cut into small pieces.(10) It is important to the Kazakhs for another
reason. It is one of three different types of fat used for weaning babies;(11)

* Camel's hump (southern Kazakhstan)

* Ram's tail boiled in milk (ubiquitous)

* The fat from over the horse's sternum and under its mane (ubiquitous)

Camel and horse fat are considered to be far better than ram's fat because of their superior taste and digestibility. Babies may be
given the fat mixed with pasta or cut into small lumps, which they can suck.

Horse milk

Horse milk is produced apparently everywhere on the steppe and forest-steppe, wherever ecological conditions are favourable ),
According to Toktabaev, fermented horse milk, or kumys, 'plays an extremely important role in Kazakh everyday life. It is to Kazakhs
what bread is to Russian peasants. It is not only a palatable drink, but also sometimes their only food.' According to a Kazakh
proverb, 'Kumys cures 40 diseases' (Toktabaev 1992: 11-12). Traditionally it was both an everyday food and one for special
occasions and to be offered to guests (Dakhshleiger 1980).

Because a mare can only be milked as long as she has an unweaned foal, horse milk is normally only available during the summer.
Although foals are permitted to suckle as much as they want at night, during the day they are allowed access to the mare only just
before she is to be milked.(12) A lactating mare should be milked every hour. Each session takes about 10 minutes and yields one
litre of milk. Around 5 litres can be obtained each day from one individual. Because it is regarded as the best substitute for human
milk, unfermented mare's milk is fed to human babies(13); like horse fat, it is an important weaning food.

Adults can only drink fermented horse milk. To make kumys, fresh milk is poured into a vessel and churned for about 20 minutes.
Then, in the evening, it is churned for an hour and the following morning for another hour and then it is ready to drink. Nowadays
Kazakhs do not make as much kumys as they did in earlier generations. Horse breeding now is mainly confined to work-horse and
meat production.(14) However, in earlier times, kumys was central to the Kazakh diet. As an example of how much milk used to be
drunk, one informant explained that in the course of a round-trip journey of 90 km, which would take about 6 hours on horseback, a
rider would bring with him and consume 40 litres of kumys. Also, in the past it was the custom for old people to spend the whole day
visiting friends in their village. They would go from house to house stopping at each to drink a cup containing i to 1.5 litres of
kumys.(15)

French hippophagy
In 1866, over 1000 years after it was banned by Pope Gregory III, the selling of horsemeat for human consumption was legalized in
France, a move which had already taken place earlier in the Germanic and Scandinavian states and in Belgium. By the end of the
19th century horsemeat had developed a reputation for being healthful, particularly by comparison with pork or beef. It was relatively
free from such diseases as tuberculosis and trichinosis. Its relatively high levels of iron and albuminoids were regarded as particularly
beneficial for such people as labourers, anaemics and convalescents. Daniel Gade (1976: 3) writes:

Ground, raw meat and even coagulated horse blood were especially believed to supply the greatest therapeutic benefits.
Pharmaceutical laboratories prepared patent medicines made of equine haemoglobins and peptones. Public welfare institutions and
many hospitals in the Paris area and in the provinces served horseflesh to their patients because of its healthful qualities.

According to Rossier & Berger (1988), horsemeat is used in the treatment of anaemia, tuberculosis, diabetes, obesity, gout, high
cholesterol, gastro-intestinal and kidney disorders, and for low-salt regimes. It is regarded also as a good food for babies. Donkey's
milk, with a similar composition to that of horses, is used in some hospitals in preference to cow's milk for feeding pre-term babies
(Michael A. Crawford pets. comm.). Because horses were usually only slaughtered after their useful lives as work animals were over,
until the end of the Second World War, when the horse was replaced by the internal combustion engine, the cost of horsemeat was
relatively low (Gade 1976). Interestingly, and in contrast to the Kazakhs, the French traditionally prefer the lean meat of adult horses.
According to Gade (1976: 8):

TABLE 1. Some vitamins and minerals in horse flesh (Rossier & Berger 1988; Gunga 1976). vitamins minerals A phosphorus D
calcium E sodium K potassium B1 iron B2 magnesium PP sulphur B6 zinc C cobalt molybdenum nickel strontium

Also appreciated is the brilliant vermilion color of horsemeat generally found in animals beyond three years of age, that have been
used for riding rather than for draft purposes. This puts a premium on older animals, since the tenderness of horsemeat, unlike beef,
does not deteriorate with age.

Nutritional value of horseflesh and milk

The Mongols, Kazakhs, Hadza and French, then, all regard equids as particularly nutritious. This belief is, in fact, supported by
scientific research. Horse flesh is an important source of vitamins, minerals, essential amino acids and essential fatty acids (Gunga
1976; Rossier & Berger 1988) (TABLE 1). Moreover, by comparison with that of ruminants such as cattle or sheep (Gade 1976;
Sinclair 1964; Williams et al. 1987; Rossier & Berger 1988):

* equid flesh is high in protein and low in fat (TABLE 2)

* equid flesh and milk are low in saturated and monounsaturated fat and high in poly-unsaturated fat - especially the essential fatty
acids, linoleic and alpha-linolenic acid) (TABLE 3, [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURES 5 & 6 OMITTED]).

An essential fatty acid (EFA) is a polyunsaturated fat or closely related compound, necessary for the processes of growth, repair or
metabolism, and which cannot be synthesized in the body in sufficient amounts for health. It must, therefore, be obtained from the
diet (Sinclair 1964). According to Crawford & Marsh (1995: 238):

essential polyunsaturated fatty acids are needed for reproduction, brain growth, vascular system development, cholesterol excretion,
control of blood lipids, blood pressure and other important regulatory functions.

There are two families of essential fatty acids: linoleic acid is the parent member of [TABULAR DATA FOR TABLE 3 OMITTED] the
N-6 or Omega 6 family, and alpha-linolenic acid is the parent member of the N-3 or Omega 3 family (TABLE 4). 'The balance
between the two types is a regulator of blood flow and the tendency of the blood to clot' (Crawford & Marsh (1995: 123). Alpha-
linolenic acid is synthesized by plant leaves, but other important sources are fish and sea-mammal oils. Linoleic acid comes from
seeds, nuts and grains, and the land mammals that feed on them.

In animals the concentrations of the different fatty acids vary according to tissue, taxon and diet. For example, the mammalian brain
is predominantly lipid with the two families of essential fatty acids represented in an approximate ratio of 1:1. Their most unsaturated,
long-chain derivatives are the most important constituents of grey matter. The short-chain linoleic and alpha-linolenic parent fatty
acids are only found in trace amounts (Crawford et al. 1976). Moreover, there are great differences in the concentrations of fatty acids
in other organs both between taxa and between organs. There are, most notably, great differences between storage fats, such as
adipose tissue, and structural fats, for example, in muscle tissue .

When it is sufficiently available in the diet, the structural tissue of land mammals tends to favour the linoleic family. Animals from
forest or open woodland habitats generally have higher concentrations of fatty acids from the linoleic family than do grassland
animals (Sinclair 1964; Williams et al. 1987). Nevertheless, in spite of their largely grassland diet, zebra structural lipids 'contained
the highest levels of linoleic acid so far recorded . . . the intake of large amounts of n-3 fatty acids [that is, from the alpha-linolenic
family] in the diet . . . bore no significance to the level of this essential fatty acid in the structural lipids' (Williams et al. 1987). In
contrast to their structural fats, in simple-stomached animals, like horses, the fatty acid composition of adipose tissue and milk is
closely related to that of their diet (Gurr 1993). Hence equid adipose tissue and milk contain relatively high proportions of fatty acids
from the alpha-linolenic family.

Ruminant fatty-acid composition is very different from that of horses. Moreover, the composition of ruminant structural fats differs
radically from that of their storage fats: '90% of the unsaturated fatty acids in the animals' diets are hydrogenated (i.e. converted into
relatively more saturated fatty acids by the reduction of double bonds) by microorganisms in the rumen .... The fat, therefore, contains
a higher proportion of saturated and monounsaturated fatty acids and a lower proportion of polyunsaturated fatty acids...' than
monogastric animals such as equids (Gurr 1993: 83). This fat is stored in adipose tissue or milk. Polyunsaturated fats escaping this
process are used for essential purposes rather than for storage.

According to Crawford's work on African faunas, all other things being equal, bovids differ from one another depending upon whether
they are confined or free-living, and whether they are from woodland or grassland habitats. On the one hand, the structural tissue of
bovids with access to woodland or bush vegetation contains much higher levels of essential fatty acids, particularly of the linoleic
family, than do domesticates and those dependant upon grassland. On the other hand, free-living bovids have much less storage fat
than do domesticates, so that their levels of unsaturated and monounsaturated fatty acids are much lower (Crawford 1968).

By comparison with equids, ruminants - and bovids in particular - are, it seems, always low in alpha-linolenic acid and its conversion
products because of their destruction in the rumen. Moreover, even in a free-living context, the structural tissue of woodland
ruminants is, apparently, lower also in the linoleic family of fatty acids than grassland zebra (Williams et al. 1987).

Discussion

Essential fatty acids are crucial to human reproduction. For example (Crawford et al. 1989: 83-4):

About 70% of the brain cells divide during fetal growth and most of the remainder of brain development takes place in the first two
postnatal years .... It has been shown ... that deficiencies of essential fatty acids in the mother during this critical period of fetal or pup
development can result in a reduction of brain cell numbers at birth and irreversible learning or visual disabilities.

From the development of the placenta to the growth of the foetus and finally the lactation of the infant, the mother must have a diet
which will provide her with the nutrients necessary for the development of her baby's nervous and vascular systems (Crawford et al.
1989). Moreover, once she stops suckling, high-quality weaning foods must be available in order to ensure that normal growth can
continue during this particularly vulnerable period. An environment which could not provide such foods is unlikely to be one in which
hominids could have evolved.

According to Crawford & Marsh (1995), grassland habitats tend to be relatively impoverished in essential fatty acids and most
particularly in their long-chain derivatives. Because of the uniquely important role of the elongation products of linoleic and alpha-
linolenic acid in the evolution of the human brain, they have therefore suggested that human evolution could not have taken place in
primarily grassland habitats. According to their argument, because the richest and most accessible concentrations of these nutrients,
along with other essential vitamins and minerals, are located at the interfaces between water (both salt and fresh) and woodland,
these would have been the most probable habitats for the evolution of the human brain.

However, the special position that equids occupy, as regards their essential fatty-acid composition, might well have had some very
interesting consequences for human adaptations. Although free-living ruminants have reasonably high concentrations of the linoleic-
family fatty acids, it seems that, of the land mammals commonly exploited as food for human beings, only equids have high levels of
the alpha-linolenic family as well. Horses concentrate and transform these essential fatty acids from a food source which is largely
indigestible by human beings - that is, grasses - into one which is extremely valuable to them. However, it must be said that equid
fatty acids are not exactly equivalent to those from the land/water interface, since the latter are characterized in particular by high
concentrations of the more elongated derivatives, whereas equid structural and storage fats are primarily of the short-chain varieties.

Nevertheless, although equids are, for the most part, denizens of the grassland, their fatty-acid composition is in some ways more
characteristic of the interface between woodland and water than of steppe or savannah (Crawford & Marsh 1995). Horse flesh and
milk are, thus, very valuable food resources for human beings, particularly in grassland habitats. My Mongol and Kazakh informants
have shown that people in those kinds of environments are well aware of the nutritional advantages of hippophagy. Moreover, I
believe that this knowledge was, at least to some degree, available to people in the far more distant past.

What kind of archaeological evidence could support such a proposition? Is it possible to prove that people understood and exploited
the special characteristics of horse fatty acids in prehistoric times? I will briefly discuss two examples here, which might be accepted
as lending support to this hypothesis.

The horse in Palaeolithic art

Two observations concerning Palaeolithic horses are relevant here:

1 That the horse was the most frequently represented animal in the art of the final Late Palaeolithic , but

2 Even by meat weight, it was rarely the most important taxon in the osteological assemblages of contemporaneous settlement sites
(Leroi-Gourhan 1982; Rice & Paterson 1985; Bahn 1988).

A variety of explanations has been put forward to account for this; for example, the horse's use in shamanism, hunting magic, fertility
magic, sexual symbolism, mythology, totemism (Leroi-Gourhan 1982; Bahn 1988). But this all begs the question. Why was the horse
of such great symbolic importance to these people?

Some authors have tried to explain with this reference to horses' relatively large size, their ubiquity or the danger involved in hunting
them (Rice & Paterson 1985; 1986; Clottes 1996). Yet, by comparison with other contemporaneous prey species, the horse is not
especially large, dangerous or common. Why, then, does it seem to have had this special role? Could essential fatty acids be the
answer? Especially in the cold steppe and low-latitude tundra zones, dominated by calorie rich but N-3 fatty-acid-poor ruminants,
equids would have been an important source of alpha-linolenic acid.

The horse in the late Eneolithic central Eurasian forest-steppe

It has been widely observed that during the late Eneolithic period there was a very significant increase in the proportion of horses in
central Eurasian archaeological deposits by comparison with the earlier Holocene. This is usually interpreted as evidence for the
beginning of horse domestication. However, there is little, or possibly no, evidence to support this hypothesis (Levine 1990; 1993;
forthcoming; Levine & Rassamakin 1996). Analyses of the faunas from the forest-steppe sites of Botai (northern Kazakhstan),
Dereivka (Ukraine) and new research at Molukhov Bugor (Ukraine) suggest strongly that the vast majority, if not the totality, of the
horses from these sites were killed in the hunt .(16) There is some evidence that in central Eurasia the late Eneolithic was a period of
increasing aridization (Rassamakin 1994; Kremenetsky 1991). Under such conditions, it might well have been necessary for people
to modify their diets in order to satisfy their nutritional requirements. Thus, the increased exploitation of the horse might well have
been related to the need to find new sources of essential fatty acids in the more steppic conditions apparently prevailing during this
period. It has been said that the vast Eurasian steppe could not have been settled without the mobility provided by the domesticated
horse (Beardsley 1953; Mallory 1989; Anthony 1991). However, I would like to suggest that the nutrients provided by horsemeat (and,
eventually, horse milk) would have been at least of equal importance.

Acknowledgements. I would first of all like to thank my informants: Damdin, Jambalsuren, D.Ch. Murzabaev, Y.I. Shavardak, M.K.
Kozhakhmetov, E.Z. Zakir'yanov, B. Kanafin, K. Ibrayev, B. Ibrayeva, B.Y. Azbergenov and K. Abzhan-uly. From my small army of
interpreters and translators I am particularly grateful to N. Musina, N. Zhabrovets, G. Zerova, G.L. Barnes and K. Chabros. I would
like to thank J.A. Boast for her artwork. For helping to set up the interviews for me, I also owe thanks to M. Khabdulina, A.M.
Kislenko, N.S. Tatarintseva and V.F. Zaibert. Other people who kindly advised me about issues in this paper include K.K. Akishev,
M.A. Crawford, J. Woodburn, A. Paul and A. Powers-Jones. I would also like to thank for their support M.K. Jones, A.C. Renfrew,
P.A. Jewell, G.N. Bailey and L.B. Jeffcott.

I gratefully acknowledge the following organizations for funding this research: the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research,
the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the British Academy, the Leakey Foundation and the Natural Environmental Research Council.

* An aul is a Kazakh village.

1 Jambalsuren.

2 Damdin.

3 Especially D.Ch. Murzabaev, Y.I. Shavardak, M.K. Kozhakhmetov, E.Z. Zakir'yanov, B. Kanafin, K. Ibrayev, B. Ibrayeva, B.Y.
Azbergenov, K. Abzhan-uly and K.K. Akishev.

4 M.K. Kozhakhmetov, E.Z. Zakir'yanov.

5 M.K. Kozhakhmetov.

6 Damdin.

7 K. Ibrayev.

8 K. Ibrayev, B. Ibrayeva, M.K. Kozhakhmetov, B.Y. Azbergenov.

9 M.K. Kozhakhmetov.

10 K. Ibrayev, B. Ibrayeva.

11 B. Kanafin, B. Ibrayeva, K.K. Akishev, B.Y. Azbergenov.

12 B. Ibrayeva.

13 B. Ibrayeva.

14 B. Ibrayeva.

15 K. Ibrayev.

16 My preliminary examination of the complete fauna from Molykhov Bugor (excavated in 1994 and 1995 by T. Nerudenko, Scientific
Director of the Chigirin State Historical Park, Ukraine) has revealed no bones indisputably from domesticated animals, and many
certainly from wild ones - for example, birds, tortoise, beaver, deer - while the cattle and pigs were suggestively enormous. Since the
Sredni Stog cultures (to which both Molukhov Bugor and Dereivka belong) are usually described - largely on the basis of their faunal
composition- as pastoralist, a reanalysis of this material is now in order (Levine & Rassamakin 1996).

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Copyright: COPYRIGHT 1998 Cambridge University Press

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Source Citation (MLA 9th Edition)
Levine, Marsha A. "Eating horses: the evolutionary significance of hippophagy." Antiquity, vol. 72, no. 275, Mar. 1998, pp. 90+. Gale
Academic OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A20632323/AONE?u=tplmain&sid=bookmark-AONE&xid=9665a435. Accessed 23
Sept. 2023.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A20632323