that at least a few Scheibenknebelremained in use there until the destruction that
ended the LH IIIB period. Perhaps it is safest to say, until more evidence turns
up, that cheekpieces and chariots from the east seem to have come to the
Carpathian basin in the second half of the Bz A2 period, and that by the end of
that period, ca. 1500 BC, Scheibenknebel were being replaced in the basin by
Stangenknebel.
Here I must briefly confront a thesis, launched by Gertrud Hermes, that late in
the Bz A2 period Indo-Europeans on horseback conquered the Carpathian basin.^63
Almost 60 years after Hermes’ article appeared, Hüttel revived parts of the thesis.
Although seeing the riders not as conquerors but as natives of the basin, and not
worrying about their language, he strongly endorsed Hermes’ proposal that armed
riding began in the Carpathian basin in the Early Bronze Age. Hüttel argued that
the antler tine cheekpieces of the Carpathian basin were evidence for riders rather
than for chariots. A few chariots were to be seen in the basin in the Bz A2 period,
he believed, the draft horses being controlled by Scheibenknebel. The chariots
belonged to an elite, however, while the average man rode into battle on horseback.
It was then and there, Hüttel argued, that “the militarizing of riding” began, and
from the Carpathian basin it eventually spread to the steppes.^64
We may assume that in the Carpathian basin (as in many other places) horses
were ridden occasionally, and not very impressively, during the Bz A2 period.
That the area was dominated by armed riders at that time, however, is not credible.
Like Hermes, Hüttel based his thesis on the complete absence of metal bits in
the Danubian lands before the thirteenth century BCand the prevalence of Stangen -
knebel, which he thought were not severe enough to control a horse in a chariot
battle: only a metal bit could keep a draft horse under control in the heat of battle,
while riders could easily control their mounts with organic bits. Hüttel of course
was writing when the Dereivka “evidence” seemed to show that on the steppe
good riding was already common ca. 4000 BC, and that the riders were controlling
their mounts with antler tine Stangenknebel.^65 As I have argued elsewhere in detail,
in the second millennium BCriders were far less secure (sitting above the horse’s
loins rather than up near the withers) than were drivers. Now we can add that
during much of the Bronze Age battles of any kind seem to have been rare in the
Carpathian basin, and if on occasion a chariot driver did take part in a battle there
he should have had as much control with Stangenknebelas did the Hittite
charioteers of the Late Bronze Age. I am quite certain that armed riding was of
no significance until after 1000 BC, and that riders did not become militarily
dominant until close to the end of the eighth century BC. All but a very few of
the tamed horses that came into the Carpathian basin late in the seventeenth century
BCmust have been hitched to chariots.
Although they signaled the commencement of militarism in the Carpathian basin,
chariots were never so important in temperate Europe as they were in the Near
East or in the Aegean. Not surprisingly, we have no pictorial evidence for chariot
warfare in temperate Europe at any time in the Bronze Age. When chariots in
Scandinavia are depicted in rock carvings they seem to be parade or recreational
vehicles, carrying only a driver.^66 More importantly, a burial that included a chariot
Militarism in temperate Europe 145