Research Paper
Strontium Isotope Analysis of 4th Century Horse-tooth Fragments Recovered from a Daeseong-dong Royal Tomb of the Gaya Confederation
Authors: Jong Ha Hong, Young Min Ko, Yang Su Yi, Ala Go, Jieun Kim, Eun Byul Ko, In Uk Kang, Dong Hoon Shin
Year: 2025, Volume: 16, Page/Article: 39-47, DOI: https://doi.org/10.47509/AA.2025.v16i.4
Abstract
During the late 4th century CE, the situation on the Korean Peninsula was in a state of flux. Cavalry tactics in warfare, for example, were being actively adopted, and the horse-riding tradition was transmitted to Japan, along with other aspects of culture and practice. Two horse-tooth fragments found in a Daeseong-dong tomb dating to the 4th century Gaya Confederacy, therefore, can be of great significance to animal archaeology. In gross-morphological and ancient DNA (aDNA) analyses, we confirmed that the fragments from Tomb #1 were from horse teeth. To determine the breeding pattern for horses in the 4th century Gaya Confederacy, we subjected the fragments to strontium isotope (87Sr/86Sr) analysis. The 87Sr/86Sr values were 0.710083±0.000018 (KH-30) and 0.710263±0.000018 (KH-34), respectively, which were found to be mostly in close agreement with the herbaceous plant 87Sr/86Sr values representative of the southeastern part of the Korean Peninsula where the Gaya Confederacy and, later, the Silla Kingdom gained the ascendancy. We speculate that it was probably only after Korea was unified under the Silla Kingdom that horse breeding was established throughout the Peninsula by the central government.