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From the Frontlines to the Trenches - Ep 58
1.2k Plays1 year ago
Join us as we embark on another listener-requested episode topic, this time all about the zooarchaeology of animals used in warfare. From fiery pigs to Hannibal’s infamous elephants, we take a look at how animals from around the world have been integral to military operations from prehistory to World War I.
Links and Sources
- Ameen, C., Benkert, H., Fraser, T., Gordon, R., Holmes, M., Johnson, W., ... & Outram, A. K. (2021). In search of the ‘great horse’: A zooarchaeological assessment of horses from England (AD 300–1650). International Journal of Osteoarchaeology, 31(6), 1247-1257.
- Anthony, D. W., & Brown, D. R. (2017). The dogs of war: A Bronze Age initiation ritual in the Russian steppes. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 48, 134-148.
- Bendrey, R. (2010). The horse. In T O’Connor and N J Sykes (eds) Extinctions and Invasions: a social history of British fauna, 10-16.
- Dobat, A. S., Price, T. D., Kveiborg, J., Ilkjær, J., & Rowley-Conwy, P. (2014). The four horses of an Iron Age apocalypse: war-horses from the third-century weapon sacrifice at Illerup Aadal (Denmark). Antiquity, 88(339), 191-204.
- Kveiborg, J., & Nørgaard, M. (2022). Early Iron Age cavalry? Evidence of oral and thoracolumbar pathologies on possible warhorses from Iron Age, Denmark. International Journal of Osteoarchaeology.
*More references at https://www.archpodnet.com/animals/58
Contact
- Alex FitzpatrickTwitter: @archaeologyfitz
- Simona FalangaTwitter: @CrazyBoneLady
- Alex’s Blog: Animal Archaeology
- Music "Coconut - (dyalla remix)" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2UiKoouqaY
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Transcript
Introduction
00:00:00
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network.
00:00:15
Speaker
Hello, everyone. Welcome to episode 58 of Archaeo Animals. From the front lines to the trenches, Animals in Warfare.
Listener Request and Episode Theme
00:00:25
Speaker
In today's episode, we'll be talking all about the zoo archaeology of, well, animals used in warfare. So stick around and join us for that. As always, I'm Alex Fitzpatrick, and with me, y bon appelaga.
00:00:45
Speaker
So yeah, this is actually a listener requested episode, so thanks to our listener Richard for suggesting this. As always, please let us know if you have any special requests for future episodes. We always like to try and do our best to schedule in these kind of episodes that people actually want to hear that aren't video game ones.
00:01:08
Speaker
Oh, that also our video game ones.
Roles of Animals in Warfare
00:01:10
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, this particular episode, it worked out quite well, actually, because we were actually planning on doing an episode on animals in warfare. And it ever so happened that Richard suggested that we did something along those lines. So we just pushed it back, or push it forward, rather. And so here we are.
00:01:27
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's that thing of we just somehow managed to not really talk about animals used in warfare, which is surprising because it's a pretty extensive history. You know, they've been used as mounts for warriors and soldiers and, you know, pack mules for supplies and munitions, as support animals for sending messages and, you know, in some cases, even as weapons themselves.
00:01:52
Speaker
So today's episode will be a pretty brief look at the various roles the animals have played in warfare throughout history and how we can see this in the archaeological records. So I figured what we can do first is run down a couple of species because let's be real, as always, we could probably spend a miniseries on this.
00:02:13
Speaker
Why not? I mean, we could. But you know, we'll do we'll do this as a taster episode. And then if you want to see more, let us know. And I guess just a quick warning, because among some of the things that were mentioned there are sort of relatively unpleasant things to put it mildly that are done to animals. So just just just just be aware. Yes, of course.
War Dogs in Ancient Times
00:02:34
Speaker
But I guess while we're talking about warfare, one of the first animals that comes to mind is, no, not that one. We'll get to that one. We'll talk about dogs first. The hounds of war. The dogs, of course, have long been depicted as participants in warfare in both artistic motifs and literary texts. You know, the whole cry-haver-can-let-slip-the-dogs-of-war just with a bit more gusto than maybe Tristan can oblige.
00:03:01
Speaker
Cry havoc, let loose the dogs of war. Much better. Thank you Tristan. I mean, the role of dogs in ancient warfare seems to have been quite varied. So, for example, in the third millennium BC Mesopotamia, dogs are often depicted in warfare artwork as being active participants alongside human soldiers and their horses.
00:03:21
Speaker
after one. And indeed burials have been excavated and present both equid, so like horses, and canid remains from this time period also suggests that both animals were subjected to burial practices to designate their roles in warfare, as well as the notion that dogs were often fed
00:03:42
Speaker
equines based on taphonomic signatures, among which also dog gnawing that may have either died in battle or were bred as special feed for army dogs. Yeah, so the weird thing though, even though we have this kind of cultural assumption that, you know, we have these dogs of war, there actually isn't that much evidence available, at least speaking, with regards to like, antiquity.
00:04:08
Speaker
There's not that much evidence available to kind of provide specific information regarding the role they played in battle, so whether or not they were like specifically warrior dogs, or if they had a more passive role in the military. So there's a similar kind of fogginess, so not just in Mesopotamia, but also in Greek warfare.
00:04:29
Speaker
this uncertainty as to whether or not dogs had a very specific role in military operations. So we do have evidence, law textual evidence, for specifically bred war dogs. And this comes from writers like Plutarch. And there are other ancient texts that suggest the presence of dogs in warfare. But again, it's kind of difficult to ascertain if dogs were
00:04:54
Speaker
specifically being bred and trained as warriors, or if they were kind of incidental additions to the military. So like, you know, a domestic dog just kind of wanders into an encampment, gets adopted, and just kind of is part of the military. Or, you know, domestic dogs were taken and kind of subsumed into warfare, whether or not they were just hunting dogs. There's a lot of uncertainty
00:05:20
Speaker
around like a particular role. I mean, to be fair, it's probably a combination of all of those things. I mean, as you said yourself, that there were sort of specific sort of war dog breeds, and you get that from Roman texts. So again, if you're playing bingo along Romans,
00:05:35
Speaker
Asher Q, like the Romans in particular, I think they bred sort of a variety of dogs for a variety of purposes from your hunting, your hunting dogs. So there is definitely literary evidence for war dogs. But of course, in terms of what they look like, that information has still been lost to us, and we can only recover like
00:05:54
Speaker
what is possible from the literary sources, but I think probably some of that and that goes for a lot of the species that will go through the lack of evidence in a way of actual sort of material evidence may have to do with the fact that sort of the archaeology warfare is not necessarily understudied, but a bit harder to locate because battlefields won't leave as much of a trace on the archaeological record. And of course, there's also there's a lot of trial and errors to locate
00:06:23
Speaker
battlefields. So that might also have something to do with a lack of evidence as well. Yeah, especially when we get when we're talking about antiquity as well, where you don't necessarily have extremely specialized, obviously, you do have specialized kind of weaponry and technology, but realistically, it's not necessarily that much different than
00:06:41
Speaker
you know hunting gear or you know it could there could be multiple things happening and additionally what really complicates things is that and going back a bit to dogs in particular there might be some modern day or at least contemporary rewriting of history if not just kind of selective rewriting a history there's been some theories and discussion that
00:07:06
Speaker
maybe the idea of this kind of lineage of military dogs in ancient Greece is part of like a modern myth, mytholization of lineage to support the use of dogs in World War One. So whether or not it's just been kind of a bit of propaganda that's kind of been subsumed into our
00:07:25
Speaker
popular notions of war dogs, we don't know. But we do have archaeological evidence for the symbolic importance of dogs in warfare. Clearly, you know, even if they weren't necessarily always soldiers or whatever, there was associations between dogs and canids and the art of war. So, for example, in southern Russia at the site of Krasna Sarmarkoia,
00:07:53
Speaker
the remains of approximately 64 dogs and wolves from the second millennium were found bearing signs of butchery. So the archaeologists worked on this site believed that it was actually part of a warrior ritual in which dogs and wolves were ritually eaten, potentially while the participants were also wearing dog skins, which has been observed in other Indo-European traditions.
Pigs as a Military Tactic
00:08:15
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, that's given some very strong, berserker vibes. Yeah, so
00:08:21
Speaker
There are at least connotations there, which again can be used as evidence to support that we did have war dogs. But again, you know, it's always going to be a bit unclear. But moving on to something a little more ridiculous. Because I mean, we can do an episode about animals and warfare without mentioning the pig. The pig. The pig, everyone. It's not really archaeological. It's more based on ancient texts.
00:08:50
Speaker
Cry Havoc, let loose the hogs of war. Let's see what I did there. What? Instead of dogs, hogs, you know? There's definitely a PS1 game that was called, like, The Hogs of War, and it was, like, Battle Pigs. It was great. Isn't there also the song? Oh, of course there's also War Pigs, the song. But I remember the PS1 game too, okay? The generals gathered in their messes.
00:09:19
Speaker
You're like the same age as me, are you not? Oh no, no, you're just a couple of years younger. No, no, she's a whole... Two years younger? Two, yeah. But like, come on, PS1 is not out of the realm of possibility here. It's not, but I just wanted an excuse to dunk on you. Oh yeah, dunk on me for that. Anyway, back to our 35 feral hogs. That should be in the bingo.
00:09:48
Speaker
I feel that the 35 to 50 peril hogs should also be in the video. Yeah, we should be working that in more into the show. That's on me. I'm sorry everyone for letting you down.
00:09:59
Speaker
Anyway, so military writers such as Pollyannus and Alien, they wrote about pigs used in war. Allegedly, King Porus from ancient Punjab in India taught Alexander the Great to use pigs to deter elephants, which were used in warfare at the time by leaders such as Hannibal, more on him later, and Pyrrhus.
00:10:21
Speaker
Both the ancient Greeks and Romans have apparently used pigs to drive back war elephants by letting them loose and setting them on fire. Which I think would defeat most enemies.
00:10:34
Speaker
Because, yeah, you would just sit there, right? And be like, what are they doing? Are those pigs on fire? It's like as horrible and disgusting as that is. Like, I want to know the thought process. How do you get from A to B? Right, we've got this battle. I'm not sure how we're going to win. Oh, yeah, no. I'll tell you what. Here's what we're going to do. We're going to get this pig. We're going to set it on fire and then just let it loose towards the enemy.
00:11:00
Speaker
To be fair, it was used to defeat Pyrrhus in Italy in 275 BC, Antigonus Gonadus in Greece in 270 BC, so there is precedence. I'm not questioning the result, I'm just questioning the methods primarily, and also the thought process, just how did you get from A to B, like from how do we win this battle to Flaming Pig?
Camels in Warfare
00:11:24
Speaker
Would it surprise you to know that this is not the only war elephant deterrent that we will be talking about this episode? There were many theories about how do we defeat the war elephants and our next one will also be a bit... well...
00:11:40
Speaker
Yeah, well, it's another sort of well known animal for its role in warfare, and that is the camel. Yes, well, to be fair, unsurprisingly, camels have been used as pack animals for military operations, given that, you know, they are the main go to beast of burden for arid and dry desert regions. But they've also been utilized as mounts, particularly for archers due to their height in comparison with horses.
00:12:04
Speaker
Because depending on the world region, they would be valued over horses as they're not only less nervous creatures, it can carry heavier loads than horses, but they're also able to endure longer without water, which again, arid areas, massive advantage. And they were also apparently observed to scare horses due to their smell, which added bonus that they could trample enemies, which I guess not unlike horses, but
00:12:29
Speaker
They got big chunky toes camels, so perhaps more effectively so. In the Arabian Peninsula, it appears that camels were not instrumental to military operations until after the invention of the South Arabian sandal in 1200 BC. Sure, we've discussed them before in our episode on camels. We did, yes. Or more camelids. So if you're interested, go back on our catalogue to over an entire hour of camels.
00:12:54
Speaker
But yes, this sado allowed for better use of the animal, better control of the animal during combat. And depictions of mounted warriors on camels are found throughout the iconography of many bad relieves in the region, including those found at the site of Asuribana Palace in Nineva. According to some accounts,
00:13:17
Speaker
Here we go. I tried. According to some accounts, camels were used by the Assyrians in the 9th century BC to deter more elephants, but not in a way you would expect. So more specifically, they would be dressed up to look like other elephants and thus confusing enemy elephants by looking similar, yet smelling different. As you may expect, this failed horribly.
00:13:45
Speaker
Yeah, so not only were they like, oh, camels could probably fend off the elephants because, you know, they do smell and this, you know, this could be useful. But we're also going to take oxen hides, I believe, dye it and dress them up to look like other elephants.
00:14:07
Speaker
I couldn't find, in my cursory research, I couldn't find the actual, I don't think we really have an idea of how the actual thought process went down, but I desperately need to know. Yeah, that's an experimental archaeology project for someone. So grab a camel. A couple of camels. Put oxides on them, and then take them close to an elephant and see what they do. Yes.
00:14:30
Speaker
I also feel like, again, like thought process A to B, but also like how about just as a wild punt here, just devise a better military strategy?
00:14:42
Speaker
To be fair, to be fair, there is another account, this one about King Darius of Persia in 520 BC, that showcases a much more successful use of camels to deter war elephants, because they basically just had them carry around a lot of, like, fire and flaming materials. They weren't on fire, like the pigs, they were just carrying fire. So maybe, I don't know why no one's really figured this out, but it might be that the fire scares the elephants? That's my hot take.
00:15:12
Speaker
Literally, hot take. I mean, the fire does tend to scare most animals. Yeah. So. Yeah. Fire starting camels. I mean, the good thing is that the camels themselves weren't put on fire, although I couldn't tell if it was that they were dragging carts or something that had flaming materials or if they literally just like put something on fire on top of the camels. It didn't seem like they were on fire themselves.
00:15:40
Speaker
Well, I guess in a way, because camels were so valuable in certain cultures, and like in certain instances preferred over horses, I would like to think that you wouldn't just set 50 of your camels on fire. Because that's even from a very dispassionate point of view, it's a valuable resource that you've literally just burned.
00:16:02
Speaker
Yeah. You'd hope, but you know, stranger things have happened in our world. Yeah, but it is surprising to find out that so much of the history of animals in warfare seems to center around figuring out what scares elephants. But as King Darius tried to dress them up,
00:16:22
Speaker
This is true. Only one person tried to dress him up. But hey, I never really thought about the archers thing, and in retrospect that does make sense. And we'll be talking about more mounted archer combat later on in the episode, but I think for now we're going to take a break. And when we come back, we'll maybe talk about an animal that is kind of weird that we haven't talked about yet.
00:16:49
Speaker
Although while we do take the break, take that time to picture how a camel dressed up as an elephant would look like. And if you're artistically minded, please send us a fanart. Please do. Please, please, please.
00:17:04
Speaker
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00:18:44
Speaker
And we are back with episode 58 of Archaeo Animals. We're talking about this archaeology of animals in warfare. And if you're listening this far, you're probably going, hey, it's really weird. They haven't talked about horses yet. Aren't horses like super important to the history of warfare?
The Significance of Horses
00:19:00
Speaker
Aren't they like basically the animal of warfare? Well, yes, we didn't forget. So never doubt us.
00:19:08
Speaker
It's extremely important, actually, that we talk about horses, and that's why we're doing it in the second segment. So we have enough time to cover as much as possible, given that it is the most important animal to warfare, albeit not so much these days. As we've discussed in many of our previous episodes, which I believe that there must be one episode that's entirely on equids or horses anyway. It is one of our first couple of episodes. We did a horse episode.
00:19:38
Speaker
a horse, of course. That was absolutely the title, yeah, right? If you've been following us for a wee while, because also, we forgot to mention, by the time this episode is out, it will be our fifth year anniversary of running this show. We've gone from our anniversary episode being on fish to flaming pigs. I'm not sure whether that's an improvement.
00:20:04
Speaker
Yes, be five years of us doing this. So nearly five years ago, one of our very first episodes was about horses. We haven't gotten any better either. So posterity shall judge
00:20:18
Speaker
If you've been following us for a while, you might have heard us mentioning on a variety of episodes that horses throughout history and in most ward regions have been seen as particularly valuable animals for humans. They're used for travelling long distances in short amounts of time, can be used as beats of burden, and eventually they also become
00:20:39
Speaker
crucial elements of military operations. So our earliest evidence of horses in warfare can be traced back to prehistoric burials, where sort of paleopathology and associated grave goods have been able to give archaeologists a better idea of what roles horses might have played in the conflict. As a quick aside for paleopathology, by that we mean the study analysis analysis, I can speak English, of pathologies in ancient remains, that being injuries, diseases,
00:21:10
Speaker
Have we done an episode about paleopathology? I can't remember. I believe we have done this probably quite early on as well. But a way to quickly sort of summarize that in most instances, a lot of pathologies look exactly the same.
00:21:28
Speaker
because unless there is a very obvious break, normally bone reacts in two ways, to infection or just a very generic insult to the organism, it either creates more bone or it reduces bone so.
00:21:43
Speaker
Yeah, and we also don't have the greatest kind of collective resources for paleopathology, especially in comparison to human remains. So it's not that it's understudied, but I feel like it's a bit on the side sometimes.
00:21:59
Speaker
But yes, so paleopathology, with regard specifically to horses in warfare, the main pathological signs that you will notice is anomalous dental wear. So more specifically, there'll be a distinct smoothing on the surface of the premolars where the bit would sit.
00:22:18
Speaker
So now that won't necessarily be indicative of the animal being used in warfare, but just that they were wearing a bit for whatever reason, whether they were just being used as means of transport or warfare or indeed as beasts of burden.
00:22:32
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, this is where there's a bit of a disclaimer that for paleopathology, a lot of our evidence could, and I mean, this kind of goes for a lot of, in general, warfare evidence, as Simona pointed out in the first segment. It can be something else, maybe.
00:22:50
Speaker
So, you know, always take a bit of salt, but these paleo-pathological characteristics are more or less you'll see them in war horses. Although again, you'd see them in other kind of domesticated horses too.
00:23:04
Speaker
I guess, it depends on the severity of the pathology and also the accumulation of more than one. So like if you have several sort of pathologies that could be associated with using the horse for warfare, then it makes it more likely. So of course, we have the Bitware,
00:23:20
Speaker
Another one is the transverse vertebral end plate fractures. So that would be fissures that run horizontally across vertebral end plates can also occur near the rear of the horse due to the strain sort of being put on the animal by poorly fitted saddles or extensive amounts of horse riding.
00:23:41
Speaker
Again, like further legions of bone, particularly on the vertebrae, again, from when the horse is being ridden, these can all be traced to sort of extensive horse riding, which can indeed be linked to warfare or just, you know, very long transport. Again, pinch assault, all that.
00:23:57
Speaker
And of course, you know, I guess the clearer giveaway would be outright injury caused by extensive trauma or weaponry. So either healed or otherwise fatal. This includes will include your punctures, perforations, heavy impact sites found in bones, especially among the ribs and cranium, or if you're particularly luck, more lucky, or I don't know, find a hole, find all Harroweds just launched into the ribs. A particular example I'm thinking of was with a deer, I believe,
00:24:27
Speaker
Yes, it was. But that's sort of roughly sort of the kind of pathology that you would expect from a horse that has been used in warfare. And with regards to grave goods, many horse burials also include the deposition of artifacts relating to not just horseback riding or war horses, but more broadly of combat, often related to kind of war or battle rituals. Mark that down.
00:24:53
Speaker
if you haven't already on your bingo cards. So just some examples. There's obviously many, many horse burials, and we've talked about this in previous episodes. And I think this is where when we talk about evidence of warfare being sketchy in the archaeology, this has been a little bit more solidified because horses, again, being high status, often had their own particular burial rights. So our need horse burial sites in Denmark have often
00:25:23
Speaker
had horses that displayed many of the previously discussed pathologies as well as items buried alongside them such as horse bits, chain, reins, so they're much heavier and thus often associated with warfare, spurs, saddles, as well as even weaponry such as swords, lances, spears, bows, narrows, and shields.
00:25:50
Speaker
So these burials in particular have been interpreted as potentially ritual depositions of horses and weaponry from defeated enemies. Now also in Denmark, the lake site of
00:26:05
Speaker
The Eolera Paudel had a deposit of equipment and weaponry from over 400 dramatic warriors and also included the remains of four horses. So the deposit overall was interpreted as a third century weapon sacrifice due to the systematic and extensive destruction of most of the artifacts prior to being deposited at the bottom of the lake.
00:26:31
Speaker
But the horses, as well as one cow, were also likely ritually sacrificed due to sharing very similar extensive injuries. And again, because of the associations between warfare and horses, that was probably why horses were chosen for this particular ritual. I have one question though. Yes. Do you think the cow may have been disguised as a horse? How did I know you were going to ask that?
00:26:58
Speaker
I mean, if, you know, I haven't figured out if the timelines work out. I think they do. If they'd heard of the camel incident, maybe it was one big shout out to that.
00:27:15
Speaker
We've covered pathology, covered grave goods. Of course, there's other artifacts as well that relate to technological advances in horse riding that can also give us clues on how horses were being used in combat. For example, the presence of saddles, stirrups and harnesses illustrate advances in using horses as mounts in combat, among other things.
00:27:35
Speaker
In Britain, the appearance of winged chapes in the first millennium BC is associated with the earliest iteration of combat on horseback, as chapes were used at the end of sword scabbards to draw them while on horseback.
00:27:53
Speaker
And obviously the introduction of chariots and carts also showcase the variety in horse-driven combat as well. And again, I believe we've talked about chariot burials in a previous episode. I just know any ritual thing we've talked about, to be completely honest. I feel like that's a safe bet.
00:28:11
Speaker
probably, and again, the ritual positions of that sort do tend to feature horses heavily, because again, as we discussed, horses were very valuable, which essentially would make them a good candidate, alas for the horse, for ritual sacrifice.
00:28:27
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, it happens. So another, and this one's a bit more anecdotal, but the rise of defended settlements in late Bronze Age Britain has been used as kind of evidence that maybe there was increased use of horses in raiding parties and attacks. Obviously horses mean you could travel longer distances and you have a bit of an advantage when it comes to raiding settlements, so
00:28:53
Speaker
that would necessitate further defense mechanisms and defensive structures.
00:28:59
Speaker
We also get evidence of armoured cavalry that may have been first introduced by either the Persians or the Sarmatians, which were then adopted by the Romans. This is not only required the development of armour specifically for horses, but also for the breeding of larger, stronger horses that would be able to carry both its own armour and that of the soldier sitting at top of it.
00:29:26
Speaker
and again that's just a recurring trend throughout this it's just these poor animals. Yeah and I obviously the tradition of horse armor carried on throughout the middle ages and if anyone I'm sure this is the case I think also at the
00:29:43
Speaker
royal armories and leads, but again, as a New Yorker, I have to shout this out. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan has a really great collection of horse armor from the Middle Ages. This is what used to be one of my favorite things to go visit. Check it out if you are in the area.
00:30:01
Speaker
We can also get further information on training techniques for horses in warfare from a variety of written sources. One such example is the work of Xenophon, a Greek historian and military commander, and he writes extensively on cavalry tactics in his era, and the horses were able to give militaries the advantage with their mobility and agility
00:30:26
Speaker
particularly against foot soldiers. More recently, there's been a large archaeological study of war horses in the Middle Ages that was completed by both archaeologists and zoo archaeologists at the University of Exeter. And that, in a way, was the first systematic study undertaken on war horses during that time period. And it focused on understanding how war horses were being bred and trained and how their development changed alongside changes in war horse use from the Norman period all the way through the Tudor period.
00:30:55
Speaker
And the research actually brought up a lot of the things we've already talked about as far as it being difficult to really identify war horses, especially as they've realized there's your political research supported historical records that indicated war horses were actually quite diverse, especially in their size.
00:31:16
Speaker
There wasn't just one kind of horse that was utilized in England for military operations, although they were definitely smaller than perhaps what we have previously assumed. If you read texts, and I think there's also a popular assumption that isn't helped by period dramas and stuff, that war horses were these massive, massive horses. But in actuality, when doing biometric analysis on war horse remains, they were actually
00:31:43
Speaker
very rarely over 15 hands high. And just a quick note that hands is how you kind of measure heights for horses and they're equivalent to... Are you okay?
00:31:59
Speaker
sorry just late because yeah like the hands as you said it is how like height and horses just for horses is measured and it's just very infuriating when carrying out biometrics because you'll get your measurements and you get your your actual measurement and then you have to find a way to go and convert it to hands and it's like okay so yeah a hand is about four inches which surprisingly is also how i measure my tattoos um so i've secretly been measuring myself as a horse this whole time
00:32:29
Speaker
They also disguise as a horse. Some people may say that about me. A very small horse, just like these war horses. So yeah, anyway, hands are equal to about four inches. So 15 hands high is about 60 inches or five feet, which means I'm slightly taller than a war horse. I could take on a war horse easily. Please don't take that as an endorsement, please. Please.
00:32:59
Speaker
I mean, I've got a vendetta against horses, given that I was thrown off one once and that hurt, so. Yeah, but it's more about the liability of encouraging somebody to, you know, partake in these kind of things. Let's not do that.
00:33:13
Speaker
Yes, don't charge at a warhorse. Please don't. Anyway, so not only is there kind of issues with sizes and them being smaller than what we thought, the other issue is that there are very few medieval horse graves identified with only one mass medieval horse cemetery known in England, actually located at Elverton Street, London. And this was likely due to a common practice of processing horse remains after death.
00:33:43
Speaker
So that the owners could profit off their skins to be used in tanneries and I guess in the most practical and kind of sense.
00:33:55
Speaker
Guess it makes sense because it's a lot of money that would be put into war horses as far as breeding and training them. Not that I condone that, obviously, but that's what happened and that's why we really don't have many designated war horse burials. Ultimately, it appears that the desired traits for a war horse really change throughout the Middle Ages. We can't really say that this is the one.
00:34:19
Speaker
war horse type that we have so ultimately we had a diversity of characteristics that were identified and war horse remains and this also made sense because over time military tactics and cultural preferences would constantly be in flux so you really couldn't just have one type of war horse it really depends on the cultural context and the time period you're in and it also could be that behavioral traits so temperament was actually more valuable than just the kind of
00:34:49
Speaker
physical traits that we would be able to identify in the archaeological records. So still a lot of unknowns but Alex is taller than a warhorse. Thanks University of Exeter. But yeah the behavior probably would have played a very important role because I mean you can have the biggest and chunkiest warhorse that anyone has ever bred and then if it's super flighty it would be no good to you. No instead you would have a chunky Alex-shaped warhorse
00:35:17
Speaker
And to be fair, my temperament is pretty bad. So actually, never mind. If anyone wants to join me as a warhorse, I will take that fan art. During this nice moment of self-reflection, I think we will take a break.
Case Studies: Pigeons in War
00:35:36
Speaker
And we went to case studies after everyone's favorite segment.
00:35:42
Speaker
And we are back with episode 58 of Archeo Animals. We are talking about the zoarchology of animals in warfare. And we are at everyone's favorite part of the episode. It's fine, whatever, no evidence to back that up. Although I don't think we've ever talked about this on mic, but this is something we've discussed in our podcast group chat. It may be that one of us
00:36:08
Speaker
me, did that thing with the AI thing and put in our podcast name, and asked it to write up a summary. And even the AI knew that the case studies were an important part of this podcast. So I don't know if I've manifested that into reality or what. Yeah.
00:36:31
Speaker
been doing good work, folks. But yeah, everyone's favorite segment. That's also in the bingo card, which I must say is the bingo card doesn't actually exist. So if someone wants to actually create a digital bingo card, then yeah, I realized I don't know how you make a bingo card because it'd have to be different every time. So you'd have to like random
00:36:51
Speaker
No, no, no, no, no. OK, so the bingo card is going to be, right, a four by three square. And during an episode bingo card for the stuff that we bring up every single time. So like Simona's Romans or, you know, like somebody, you know, Alex makes some reference to where she came from in America, you know, those kind of things. And then you kind of tick them off across the episode. And if there's a case study. Yeah. So we make just make one.
00:37:21
Speaker
And it goes for all the episodes, OK? Don't worry, don't complicate it. OK, OK, thank you. Thank you for helping my brain relax. Although I think the free space should be case studies. OK, you can have whatever you want. If anybody is good at making bingo cards, we'd love to hear your suggestions. Anyway.
00:37:41
Speaker
So case studies. We are going to start with the tale of, I guess, maybe the other animal that I think about when I think about animals in warfare, particularly here in Britain because, you know, World War I is very much in, and World War II. Both World Wars are very much in the imagination of the populace and
00:38:05
Speaker
you know monuments and culturally speaking so obviously felt like it would be right to talk about the homing pigeon so pigeons were most famously used during world war one and world war two as homing pigeons delivering messages more reliably than radio equipment at the time so they were
00:38:26
Speaker
specifically bred from rock pigeons and were very useful due to their speed and the difficulty in being shot down by enemies. In fact, I came across a note that the only real downside was that if you sent out a hoeing pigeon too late in the day, they might go off and
00:38:50
Speaker
nestled down for the evening, which is very cute, even. Sorry, my message had to take a nap. Yeah, you know, I get it. I mean, as someone who is a bit anti-pigeon because, again, I'm originally from New York, so they're kind of everywhere, but it's kind of cute to think about them snuggling in after sending a message.
00:39:17
Speaker
A much, but it's honest work. Yes. But yeah, their services had become so valuable that it actually became law that shooting one down was punishable by either six months jail time or a £100 fine, which was obviously much more back then.
00:39:36
Speaker
Yes, there's a bit of a pop culture reference. There's a whole episode about this in the last season of 80s British historical comedy show Blackadder. Blackadder goes forth, there's a whole episode where Captain Blackadder accidentally, well, not so accidentally, shoots his generals, pigeons, speckled Jim.
00:39:57
Speaker
Wonderful. Look it up. Comedy gold. Fun fact about me, I watched the entirety of Blackadder on YouTube because that was back in the day when people would just upload full TV shows onto YouTube and I was a teenage Anglophile. It's the darkest secret you'll know about me. I thought I was much cooler than all my other American friends because I watched British television. Oh, it's like, I don't know. This is very, very basic.
00:40:26
Speaker
It's very bad. It's not good. It's a truly dark secret. We all have these things in our past that we'd rather have buried. So don't worry. I won't give one up that easily. But you know, maybe we can listen to all the episodes, you'll find something out.
00:40:43
Speaker
you find that he's actually been leaving traces that every syllable of every sort of word that he says actually combines together to reveal his darkest secret. Okay, okay, well, you know, like, maybe we should have a confessional episode sometime, you know?
00:40:58
Speaker
Oh, we don't have time. No, we don't. We don't have time. Anyway, by World War II, approximately 250,000 pigeons were recruited by Britain for use during the war. So you're probably thinking, what's the archaeology part of this? Well,
00:41:16
Speaker
Weirdly enough, in 2012 in London, the remains of a World War II homing pigeon was actually recovered from an unused chimney. So preservation was actually not bad, as it included an articulated foot which still had a container holding a coded message that ultimately was declared unbreakable by the UK government, but was likely sent as part of the D-Day landings.
00:41:45
Speaker
which is really cool. And it's not the only kind of preserved remains of a homing pigeon. Many other homing pigeons seem to have found final resting places in museums around the world, including GI Joe, an American pigeon whose work resulted in 100 Britons being saved in Italy and is currently taxidermied in New Jersey.
00:42:11
Speaker
All that per pigeon of all the places to end up. Yeah. Kind of like, you know, is it a punishment? Is it a reward? I'm not going to say anything. You will be immortalized. Where? Where will I be immortalized? New Jersey. I was trying to think, though, I feel like there is in America, at least I feel like there's multiple either taxidermied or articulated homing pigeons. And I feel like they're in like Ripley's, believe it or not, places or something.
00:42:42
Speaker
Do you know what? It's like, yeah, what are the other places in the middle of America where these taxidery pigeons are? It's like, you are in Ohio, you are in Missouri, Nebraska, Utah. It's like these per pigeons.
00:43:01
Speaker
Wow, really just multiple states you're putting in the crosshairs there. I didn't say it, just saying. I didn't say anything about it at all. Then Alex is the one with the hot takes. Oh yeah, then Alex, you just disagree with me.
00:43:17
Speaker
Yeah, I will say we could absolutely do a whole episode on the American, Americana side roadside attraction type of zoo archaeology, which would probably just be an hour of me talking.
Elephants in Historical Battles
00:43:34
Speaker
But if you don't know, it's extremely fascinating. There's a lot of weird, rich cultural history of very strange taxidermies. It's the only thing that makes me proud to be an American sometimes.
00:43:45
Speaker
Anyway. I feel like you've mentioned that enough times that we should probably do that now. We probably should. I think I might have mentioned it in the cryptid episodes that we've done. Yes, I believe so. Yes, it's very, very special, a very special part of our culture in America. Anyway, we'll come to something a bit more realistic, or is it? Who knows, maybe?
00:44:12
Speaker
Yeah, because I mean, we've, we've hinted at these creatures enough time, we figured it'd probably be time to actually talk about them. I mean, we've talked about other animals trying to impersonate them, but they're just posers. Do people still say poser? But it's elephants, everyone. Elephants in warfare, and specifically, Hannibal's elephants.
00:44:35
Speaker
So, as we've mentioned, elephants in warfare have been extensively used since about 3,000 years ago and predominantly in ancient India. Of course, that is for good reason. I mean, elephants are chunky boys that give off offensive strength.
00:44:51
Speaker
I think no, I think we can't use chunky boys here when we're talking about warfare. Elements are massive, massive creatures that if you saw one barreling down towards you, I think you would also, you know, collapse in fear.
00:45:06
Speaker
I mean, they're quite fear-inspiring in the battlefield. Their size would also allow for their use as mounts for archers, similarly to camels, just much, you know, on a bigger, bigger, taller scale. But they would also be used as weapons of sorts, so to crush enemies undeferred, destroy barricades, siege machines and whatnot.
00:45:27
Speaker
course there are some downsides to elephant riding as well believe it or not. Elephants are of course not quite as agile as horses and losing control wasn't terribly uncommon especially if they were frightened say by a flaming pig or a camel dressed up as an elephant. This meant there was a high chance of friendly fire and collateral damage
00:45:48
Speaker
But overall, it was mostly their imposing sort of fear inducing presence that was most valued and weaponized as part of what is known as psychological warfare, particularly if your enemy wasn't familiar with elephants. I mean, imagine you've never seen an elephant before in your life, and you see sort of this massive creature just barreling towards you, as Alex said, not a good time. Yeah, you would go, my gosh, what is that giant camel doing?
00:46:15
Speaker
This smells a bit weird for a camel. Yeah, a bit strange. So now that we have that context, let's talk about Hannibal, who was a military general for Carthage that led the charge against the Romans during the Second Punic War, which was about
00:46:30
Speaker
218 to 201 BC. So perhaps the most famous part of the war, and I mean like even if you don't know about the Punic, the Second Punic War, you probably have heard of Hannibal and his invasion of Italy in 218 BC, which was the kind of culmination of what was a winter long trek involving the crossing of the Alps with 37 elephants.
00:46:55
Speaker
So, the elephants themselves were likely small North African forest elephants, which were probably intended to be used more as weapons than really as mountains. So, according to historical accounts, all but one elephant died during the winter journey in the Alps, who would have thought. Yeah, I mean, you know, but Hannibal would actually have to get a new supply of elephants for his
00:47:20
Speaker
military campaign in 215 BC. So you're thinking, wow, 36 elephants died in the Alps. We must have so much zoo archaeological evidence to support this event, right? No. No, not really. It's kind of depressing actually when you think about it because that would be so cool.
00:47:42
Speaker
because not only are there yet to be any elephant remains identified linked to this particular event, we're also actually not entirely sure where exactly Hannibal's strike through the Alps occurred. Although, you know, there's been some extensive sort of geological work done to attempt to pinpoint this journey. But again, as is often the case for sort of the archaeology warfare, being able to pinpoint ancient troop movements and battles, not quite that clear cut.
00:48:11
Speaker
I mean, there were fossilized elephantine remains found in Italy that were identified as Hannibal's infamous army during the 16th century, a theory that was seen as fact until the 19th century. So, yeah, it was. Yeah.
00:48:27
Speaker
I get it. In 19th century, scholars eventually rejected this idea, and this is mainly due to the work of Giovanni Tergiore Toceti, who demonstrated an early use of what is now basic zuocchiojko and taphonomic analysis, and identified that the elephantine fossils were, well, fossils, and thus much, much older, representative of the wider distribution of the ancient elephant populations that existed in Europe at some point in the past.
00:48:56
Speaker
These were actually closer in anatomy to the Asian elephants as opposed to the African elephants that a Hannibal would have used. Yeah, it was actually a really interesting read to give a little bit more context. So there were a lot of fossilized elephants, you know, ancient elephant remains found in Italy. So prior to the 16th century, of course, a lot of the theories were more about a race of giants, dragons,
00:49:26
Speaker
that sort of thing. And I believe we actually will be doing an episode at some point soon in the near future about these kinds of early identifications of unusual animal remains. And I believe another like if you've never seen one of those animals before, and you'd like you just dig it up in your like what you're digging your rigid furrows and your oar.
00:49:47
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, like I totally get it. And I believe there's also some theories that were more biblical in nature about Noah's Ark and some things like that. Because fair enough, if you're finding even the 16th century or even before the 16th century, so 14th, 15th century, finding elephant remains in Italy, you're still kind of like, what just happened? What is this?
00:50:10
Speaker
But it does kind of make sense, though, when this theory was posited that maybe this is Hannibal's army. Again, some more context, I believe a lot of these remains were found in tapes, which would make sense for what they actually probably represent. But I think the theory was, you know, oh, Hannibal,
00:50:31
Speaker
army clearly stayed in this cave and some of the elephants passed away then. So it's not the wildest theory really when you think about it. No, no, no, not at all. Alas, we've still not found Hannibal's elephants. If you have found Hannibal's elephants and you're holding on to the information, please let us know. We'd love to break that news. But also, shout out to Zeddi, who I guess is kind of like
00:51:00
Speaker
an early zoarchaeologist. It really was interesting. I never actually heard of his name before, but it was really interesting to read about this kind of early prototaphycnomic analysis. And he kind of got it on the money. So good for you. Probably better than what I can do.
00:51:20
Speaker
also interesting, I mean, while not archaeology, because it is fossilized elephantine remains, but it's interesting to see that they're actually closer in anatomy to the Asian elephants. Yeah, I was trying to do some further research because it doesn't seem like anyone's really identified them to species.
Conclusion and Listener Engagement
00:51:40
Speaker
I guess it depends where in Italy as well because as we discussed in our Pleistocene mammals episode, please go look it up if that's your cup of tea, I did mention that there was a species of elephant that was native to Sicily in the Pleistocene
00:51:55
Speaker
were very, very, very small, because of that sort of island effect, where sort of like the what would normally be seen as megafauna was actually really, really small, and the microfauna was actually very, very big. But we do have elephant remains, which I'm sure, but again, that goes for a lot of Sicilian fauna, they tend to be sort of the same species of subspecies as the North African variety.
00:52:19
Speaker
But they got closer to Asian elephants. I just thought that was like that. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. So kind of a nice way to end our episode on warfare. Wasn't the most nice topic to talk about, but you know, something we got to talk about, I guess. But like I said, if you want us to do more episodes like this, or if you have a request for another type of episode, let us know. You can contact us.
00:52:49
Speaker
At ArcheoAnimals on Twitter, you can find us where you get your podcasts and also on ArchealityPodcastNetwork.com slash animals. Like and subscribe if you haven't already. Review us. Tell your friends about us. And as always, I'm Reformed Anglophile Alex Fitzpatrick. And Simone Falanga. Thank you for joining us and making it till the end. Yeah.
00:53:40
Speaker
We'll see you later. Bye. Bye.
00:53:46
Speaker
Oh
00:53:50
Speaker
This episode was produced by Chris Webster from his RV traveling the United States, Tristan Boyle in Scotland, DigTech LLC, Cultural Media, and the Archaeology Podcast Network, and was edited by Chris Webster. This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archpodnet.com. Contact us at chris at archaeologypodcastnetwork.com.