The romanization of Europe and its impact on Iron Age horse breeding and ritual practices: a DNA assessment in Gaul

Horses represent one of the animal species that most impacted human history. They armed past societies with fast mobility while they provided new farming companions and crucial allies at war.

As one of the most prominent symbols of wealth and prestige, horses were also commonly integrated in a variety of belief systems.

This was the case for protohistoric Gaul from 500 BCE, where horses became increasingly associated with ritual practices, ranging from simple isolated deposits, to funerary rituals in connection with humans and chariots, and sacrificial sanctuaries.

Current understanding of these horse-centered practices, and how they were transformed under Roman influence from the 1st century CE is, however, extremely limited for the lack of relevant textual historical sources.

The GaRlic project proposes to combine state-of-the-art methodologies at the forefront of biomolecular archaeology to gain fine-grained resolution into ritual and breeding practices in protohistoric Gaulish horses, and follow their changes during the Romanisation process.

Our core hypotheses are that specific animal types were bred across Gaul and selected for ritual practices, and that non-local horse resources were increasingly integrated during the Roman Period, ultimately reshaping both breeding and ritual practices.

GaRlic builds on the availability of an exceptional archeological collection of protohistoric and Roman horse assemblages in Gaul and involves internationally recognised experts in zooarchaeology, ancient DNA and statistical genomics.

It will investigate, for the first time, the horse bloodlines and the embodiment of social norms underlying Gaulish ritual practices and will reveal how the rise of the Roman Empire transformed such practices and, more generally, the pre-existing Iron Age horse agrobiodiversity.