In the 5th century BCE, the ancient Greek historian Herodotus (ca. 484 – 420 BCE) described the nomadic Scythian peoples living in the Eurasian steppes. Like a lot of written history, things can be elaborated for dramatic effect. So, when Herodotus wrote that Scythians "take off the skin, nails and all, from their dead enemies' right hands, and make coverings for their quivers..." archaeologists might take it with a grain of salt. However, a new paleoproteomics analysis of leather samples examined from Scythian burials confirms that Herodotus may not have exaggerated.
The study, led by an international team based out of the University of Copenhagen, The National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Cambridge University, and the Università degli Studi di Padova, examined 45 samples of leather and 2 fur artifacts that were recovered from 18 burials across 14 locations in an area part of the southern Ukraine.
The team used a methodology called ZooMS, or Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry. Zooarchaeology is the term used to describe the study of animals and animal remains in an archaeological context, and mass spectrometry is a method of protein analysis and identification. ZooMS was chosen over ancient DNA analysis due to the latter's susceptibility to degradation in archaeological contexts. The authors write that ZooMS "requires a minimal sample size…is relatively inexpensive…and its success has been shown to exceed that of ancient DNA analysis in cases of both older and more degraded samples."
With this in mind, let's dive into the results.
Of the 45 samples of ancient leather selected for analysis, 33 could be identified and categorized into species groups. While the majority of the samples came from domesticated animals like sheep, goat, or cattle, there were a couple identified as a horse, one red fox, and another wild carnivore identified as either "tiger, lion, marten, wolverine, otter or hyena." Two samples, numbers 7 and 21, were identified as human.
Figure showing some of the leather samples analyzed for this study. Number 1 at the top is one of the samples identified as human. (Copyright: © 2023 Brandt et al. under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License).
Serendipitously, the objects associated with these samples were, in fact, quivers used to hold arrows, as described by Herodotus. However, don't leave this article thinking that the Scythians made entire quivers out of human skin. The quivers were constructed of a mix of human and animal leather with no particular pattern or preference other than that the human and/or carnivore leathers seem to have been used on the topmost part of the quivers, suggesting "that each archer made their own quiver using the materials available at the moment."
While 2 out of 45 is not a large percentage in the grand scheme of things, the results of this study currently seem to prove Herodotus' description in his Histories, in practice, if not in gory detail.
Live Science, University of Chicago, The Histories (English), PLOS One Brandt, L., et al 2023