London’s Medieval Horses Originated from Faraway Lands

Analysis of horse teeth unearthed in a London cemetery suggests that the horses owned by medieval England's elite were likely imported from continental Europe and may have traveled hundreds of kilometers.

In the 1990s, a commercial excavator accidentally discovered an unusually large horse burial ground in central London. Subsequent excavations at the site, now known as Elberton Street Cemetery, uncovered the full or partial remains of 70 horses. Some graves date him from 1425 to 1517, but the cemetery may have been in use over a wider period.

“This is a great example of the only true horse cemetery in medieval England,” he says. Oliver Clayton at the University of Exeter, UK. “We usually [horse remains] Very few are scattered on archaeological sites. ”

To learn more about the origins and lives of these medieval horses, Creighton and his colleagues collected and analyzed molars from 15 horses buried at the site.

Plants from different parts of the world contain different levels of carbon, oxygen, and strontium isotopes, or atoms with different numbers of neutrons. When animals eat these plants, these isotopes accumulate in their bones and teeth over time. By analyzing the chemical signature of the horse's teeth, the researchers were able to determine where it likely came from.

It said this revealed that at least seven people came from abroad, possibly from Scandinavia or the Western Alps. alexander pryoralso at the University of Exeter.

“These were also the largest medieval horses ever discovered in Britain,” Pryor said, noting that Britain's elite may have sought out the best horses from Europe. Suggests.

The arrangement of their teeth seemed to suggest the use of special mouthpieces normally reserved for horses groomed for combat and jousting tournaments.

“The horse likely came from the equestrian arena at the Palace of Westminster, just a kilometer away,” Clayton said.

“The nature of horse teeth, with their very tall crowns growing over many years, offers great potential for research using isotopes to track the movements of individual horses over their lifetime,” he said. To tell. david orton At York University, UK. “But this is the first paper I've seen that seems to take full advantage of that potential.”