What do we know about Scythian horses of the North Pontic region: overview of published archaeozoological data

The paper analyzes publications on the studies of remains of horses coming from the Scythian sites in the North Pontic region. It shows that, despite a large number of finds, only a small percentage of hippological remains has been processed and published. While there are similar methodologies of morphometric works, analysis of animal points, there is no one-type template for presenting results by various researchers and a number of important characteristics are disregarded. For this reason, the hippological aspect of the archaeozoological remains appears to be understudied. However, in most cases, this source cannot be re-used to apply new approaches and methods because of loss of materials. The published data provide only a general picture on horses from specific sites and, so far, there are no papers that would summarize results of analysis of frequently found archaeological materials and clarify a number of important issues of economic activities, economic links and funerary rites practiced by the Scythians in the context of horse-raising.