NEW VIDEO ON 2021 HORSE DOMESTICATION STUDIES: Watch my video based on the latest research now: th-cam.com/video/dYw8NnQ1tpk/w-d-xo.html Thanks for watching. If you enjoy this video you will like my other videos on history and prehistory so check them out here: People of the Bronze Age Playlist: th-cam.com/play/PLUyGT3KDxwC8u4jG_tOjN-8-bsHxucUxn.html Bronze Age Warfare Playlist: th-cam.com/play/PLUyGT3KDxwC8xD2S2Q1IqH_S_ocWwXWHv.html Medieval History Playlist: th-cam.com/play/PLUyGT3KDxwC_Jh59Fp5aU5Fzj0oUXUkEJ.html
I would not say it's a niche topic. Horse domestication is one of the fundamental events of human history. You did a great job explaining the two main theories.
I can think of two reasons for riding a horse either on the hip or at the withers. If you look at an equine skeleton you will see that the vertebrae over the centre back have bony protrusions sticking upwards (called spinous processes) where ligaments and muscles attach. These upward-pointing spikes make riding without a saddle very uncomfortable. However, they get smaller at the base of the neck and over the hips. Another reason could be that earlier horses which had not been selectively bred were quite weak in the middle. Cave paintings depict horses with very straight backs which would not have had the elasticity conferred by the more curved back of the modern horse. Of course, it could also mean that the spinous processes were larger and even more uncomfortable than they are today.
The way I was taught in university was that the early Indo Europeans used chariots as horses at the time were too small to be ridden on and only once horses reached larger sizes due to selective breeding. The first large scale of horse back riding was in Assyria in the iron age. At least that's what they taught us 20+ years back.
Hi Dan - I would like to take the opportunity to thank you for your great content, I really appreciate it! The bronze age is the epoch when our modern world started to form, in its best and worst aspects. Sometimes I think that I'm suffering what one could call "epoch dysphoria" - the wish to have lived in another time when the world was "more magical" and everything was meaningful, when a voyage of one hundred kilometers was a (potentially life-threatening) adventure but there were also no borders and you could be in the wilderness for weeks without finding any hint of other humans. But I'm also not naive and aware that it is easy to romanticise these times from our modern perspective, times when families died of starvation because the winter was a little longer than expected, a man of 40 years was considered old and women were considered legitimate loot in warfare. People were more free and less free as we are today at the same time. Strange.
I think the “experts” might not have enough experience with horses. Riding without saddle & bit is not an impossibility. Doing so with skill & speed is something I’ve witnessed children do. Certainly, growing up with your foal and learning young creates a friendship between rider & horse. This bond is mutually affectionate. In that circumstance, the rider using legs only to control their horse while using weapons is easy enough. Of course no evidence of that is likely to be found
A friend of mine used to work in a jousting show and had ridden since childhood, he tells me good riders direct more with their knees than their bridles.
@@thebrocialist8300 Man what a disagreeable racist individual you have to be. Sometimes I think people are generally kind and good, and then people like you come along….
At the same time, though, the modern horse has been bred to be a riding animal. So it is not clear that analogies from modern horses capture all the difficulties of riding early domesticated horses.
As a rider of dressage, I can readily see where riding a horse bareback without saddle or bridle would be extremely easy given time to adjust the body to relax and give "signals" through the seat bones and legs. I often rode my horse without saddle or bridle and found that by turning my torso, moving my legs back or forward, would cause my horse to turn or stop depending on pressure of my upper thigh or lower leg. Even turning my shoulders would cause change of direction. All is dependent on the rider's relaxation or minute tension, and going with the horses movement. I suspect early man would have wanted to move with the speed of a running horse at some time or another and would have eventually tried to get on the back of a horse just to go fast. I suspect all this happened much earlier than scientists believe as the curiosity of the human is far stronger than most believe.
I primarily ride/event/show/etc my horses bareback and bridleless due to my Ehlers Danlos Syndrome causing the slight tension from saddles and reins to dislocate my joints. It's not overwhelmingly difficult/impossible to communicate with your horse without aids; as long as you spend time with it, working on bodily control, and approach it with a "I'm with you as a partner, not here to micromanage you" attitude. It's definitely not out of the realm of possibility that they did the same back then in order to ride horses.
The first human to ride a horse must have been a badass. It probably took a long time for this to be a normal practice and even longer to be widespread but it happened everywhere horses are which is most of Eurasia.
@@KickAssCowgirl27 the American Plains Indians had no experience of horses till the Spanish brought them back in the 14th century- yet the Apache were renowned as the greatest light cavalry. They weren't much for saddles either. Fr
I think it is a mistake, to assume that the bit is the only way to control a horse. Spanish riding traditional uses what is called a hackamore. A woven strip of rawhide encircles the horses muzzle. Pressure on the muzzle, controls the horse. In modern times, the people of Mongolia ride horses very similar to ancient horses. Very short, and very stocky. The argument that short and stocky horses would not be an advantage, is somewhat ridiculous. Training a wild horse, without the use of a previously trained horse, is nigh impossible. However, if a young foal were captured, after the killing of its mother, it would be quite easy to train that horse. Very much in the same way that wolf puppies we're probably trained, to be domestic companions. I think that modern archaeologists have a tendency to belittle the abilities of ancient peoples. It is important to remember that they were every bit as smart as we are. To say that early peoples were not capable of doing what we do all the time, shows a tremendous amount of hubris. If they were eating horses, they had access to foals. If they had access to foals, then they had access to rideable mounts. Personally, I believe that domestication occurred very early. However, archaeological proof of such domestication would be unlikely to survive. This is why we have not found walrus skin boots, from ancient times. But that's another topic, entirely. Enjoyed the video. Keep it up
You are 100 percent correct, just like archaeologists claimed that Ancient Man selected the wolves with little fear for humans that followed the camp, no they didn't they took puppies and the puppies had no fear of humans because they are pack animals same thing with horses oh, they killed and ate the adult and raised the foal which had no fear of human
You are my kind of man! I read this thinking, I might as well have written it - including the opinion on archaeologists. 👍🏻 however what I meant to comment myself is, I wonder if there aren't any ancient legends on taming the horse. As with the archaeologists (these poor people's careers can be ruined if they dared speculate as we can!), we also underestimate the ancient legends. I started believing in them when I read about the discovery of Celtic burial in the Bull's Rock cave in Moravia. There had been legends (by the word of mouth) about men in white robes and fire and yelling and moaning... when they excavated the cave, the burial was 3.5 thousand years old! So if a legend can survive that long, why not ten thousand? Ok, and the reason why I wonder is that a domestication of horse was done by "the people", but taming of first horse was done (possibly) by one person, and then the whole tribe learned the skill. And such person gets a special place in legends, and possibly even supernatural powers. So I'd be researching the tales of the folks in the likely areas where the horses were tamed. That could give us surprising clues. Just looking at the Epona story is interesting: why is a woman associated with horse godess? Isn't it showing the special relationship we see today (most of the members of any youth horse club are girls)? What if the first horse tamer was girl? Also, how old is the Epona worship? Can we assume that before becoming a deity some three thousand years ago, there could be centuries of more detailed legend that are now lost? Why should we assume that Epona cult started suddenly, without prior history before becoming a cult? Can we not guess the age of the story by researching the variations of Epona and horse names in various indoeuropean languages? We know "equus" (q changed to P in some Celtic languages), we have "pony", in my native Czech we have "kůň", which is obviously from the same origin, the possibilities are many.
@@peterkratoska3681 I've seen the video on feral dog but that is not wolves 60000 years ago when wolves would have been a serious threat to humans although I have been looking into toxoplasmosis in animals making them less aggressive toxoplasmosis may have led to domestication of many animals. I don't know if anyone is studying this but it is an interesting topic
I once rode a horse bareback without reins or hackamore inside a fenced area, his name was Dandy who was also blind in one eye. We connected and as we walked around the pasture, he responded to my hand touch and leg pressure…I was holding onto his mane above his shoulder…. He was awesome. My three favorite horses were Dandy, Dixie and Tony, all unique individuals, all a joy to ride and I connected with all of them and many times I rode bareback as well, so it is possible to ride a horse without tack of any kind, but the connection between horse and rider is a must gift for this ability, besides including kindness, a sincere understanding and a deep respect is a must between horse and rider. These horses were NOT mine, they belonged to someone else, but they let me ride them. I still think about them often. I’m 74 now, and unable to ride horses anymore, and of which I do greatly miss. 👍❤️🙏🏼
I think that the role of children in the development of riding has been ignored. If captured ponies were being used as pack animals or to pull travois, it would not be long before they were used to carry small children, in the same way that burros and asses are commonly used. Everywhere in agricultural societies, you see children astride a variety of domesticated animals (my Philipino nephew was riding water buffalo practically from birth). I suspect that this practice familiarized the horse with the human and the human with the horse in such a way that older and older children remained on the horses until they began to direct them autonomously, rather than just being carried as baggage.
@@xScooterAZxPerhaps so. But why is it hard to imagine tough, bold kids playing with fierce horses ? People today have no clue what free kids are like. My father drove the farm truck (Model A Ford) to town on errands as soon as he could reach the pedals, and hunted with a 4 10 shotgun when he was 9. In many parts of the world it was the role of boys to guard the pasturing herds from large predators.
@@mondopinion3777 Did I say it was hard? No,I didnt. I simply was thinking of how a child might be tired and his Father picking him up and sitting him on a horse. Why does that bother you? Tough,bold,kids with fierce horses? I know the horses my Dad would buy me at auction were always fierce. Half broken so they were bought in bulk cheaply,..and I didnt have any tack,just a rope around their bottom jaw to ride with. He got me 5 in an auction one time. I had to work those horses every day after school. Oh,and I am old enough to remember living in Hungry Horse Montana and going out on my pony cart to get our Milk cannister,which was about 2 1/2 feet high. and taking it home. I'm quite old,and remember doing manual labour type chores. Chopping wood,and stacking it in the barn,etc. So what's your point about your father riding a bike and hunting. Most people I know from my generation know how to do those things. I had my first rifle when I was 5 years old. My Dad had a Model A,..I have photos of him it it too :}
@@xScooterAZx We are much alike then. You should understand what my point is. (but I said my dad was driving a truck, not a bike, to town.) These academic theorists make me irritated with their testosterone-driven stress on war in the domestication of horses, and so do the lame comments by sheltered folk who overprotect their kids and cannot conceive what free kids are like. I thought you were one of them. Sorry.
I wonder if anyone has tried tracing the centaur myths to their origins. I always imagined they were the result of the first mounted warriors attacking a village or people that hadn’t seen horses before or at least never seen someone ride one. “Man they came out of no where big 4 legged animals with human torsos attached to them and just started killing us!!”
The Aztec at first thought that Cortez's horsemen were animals with two heads. So, it's easy to see the concept of the centaur being a folkloric survival of the encounter with horse riding nomadic peoples.
I'm reminded of the idea that you couldn't use a lance on horseback as a shock trooper before the invention of stirrups. Then some people tested it and found out that you could even use a lance on horseback without the benefit of any sort of riding gear. Instead the stirrup probably better enabled melee on horseback, making it so a fighter could extend his reach by using his legs to regain his balance and make it that much harder for footmen to dehorse him.
@@derrickbonsell there is a saddle that was used that allowed some degree of stability. I belive it was first used my the acheminid empire and then used by Alexander's cavalry.
But then you have evidence from the ancient world explicitly saying that. Xenophon says they couldn't strike with a spear from horseback without risk of falling off.
Yeah for some time historians believed the Roman saddle was of a soft leather kind until archeologists discovered actual surviving wood and leather roman saddles with the four horn tree design, enabling much more stability. The earliest saddles with hard pieces rather than only blankets and leather found so far are from about 500 BC I think on the eastern steppe.
I didn't know male horses have canine teeth . My gosh , I am 62 yrs old and still learning new things and more interested in learning than ever before in my life .
I've owned horses for 60 years. I can't remember more than a few mares that didn't have them. They are often removed because of the bit hitting them causing pain /infection
Hello Dan, There was a very interesting documentary on the invention of trousers done by the Deutsches Archaologisches Institut a couple years ago (uploaded to youtube). They posited that the development was necessitated by horse riding. The artifact that was being analyzed was a pair of the oldest known trousers of 2,500 years ago. They were found in a burial site that also had a whip and bridles. It was found in the Tarim basin in East and Central Asia. Worth watching.
The first horsemen were the kids that raised the little foal, with the help of several of the old tribe elders. They played with it, used it to help them gather firewood and other items.. As the colt grew, and several of the youngsters managed to learn to ride it, the young horse and rider began scouting for the tribe, accomplishing in hours, what would otherwise have taken days. Thus the value of the young horse and rider was understood beyond question. Similarly, paleo kids were probably the first to use flattened frozen hides/skins as play to slide down snowy slopes and hills.. Huge fun and learning experience.
I can see early man killing a mare…..and the scared foal hung around. Plus, it smelled its mom on them. While old enough to eat grass, it was still attached to mom. So it follows the hunters home because the rest of the herd is long gone. Initially confused, the hunters laugh this off as a snack following it home. Making for a easy kill later on. Well, the foal hangs around, at out of loneness decides to hang around a younger non aggressive human for companionship. This human child may be the kid of a high ranking clan member, so the parent tells the other hunters to leave the foal be for now, since it makes his kid happy. Well, you know kids. They love climbing on things. Ever see them with a dog? After a few months, the kid and foal get really attached. The foal grows, and the kid likes the crawl on it. The now older horse is kind of a quiet omega animal, so it decides it’s better to put up with these scary humans, then being alone. Plus, one human feeds it treats sometimes and keeps nasty predators away. Well, one day, the kid fully sits on the young horses back. Horse crow hops a few times, turns its head, sniffs, and decides to just keep grazing. Kid is initially just thrilled with that. But seeing the horse move around, and even run he starts to get an idea. He teaches the horse how to respond to a rope(pressure) on the ground (so it won’t wonder off either). He fashions a crude halter, gets on its back, and applies pressure with the halter and legs for the young horse to move. Horse, initially startled, decides to do what the “alpha” is telling it do do. After some trial and error, he is able to ride around, maybe even putting a leather thong around the neck, or a crude blanket on the horses back for grip. This definitely got the tribes attention, and the young ladies swooning at the sight. This of course gets the other guys attention. They want to impress the ladies too. Perhaps they catch other young horses after a hunt and try to copy the first guy. A few succeed and other uses for horses for hunting , travel, warfare, scouting, and packing goods is quickly discovered. I am convinced a young man or kid was the first to get on a horses back, and impressed the adults.
When I lived in New Zealand we would come across wild horses around a place called Waiouru, quite magnificent to see them running free, I have a Hungarian horse bow but alas as close as I've come to a wild horse in the UK was a Tesco's lasagna. 😬
How about the ghostly sights of a giant moose in the fog..on the south island in N.Z...i think south island..I read about Theodore Roosevelt bringing them there..but very rarely seen if at all..but I only read such news and know not from truth or false..
@@tashaarellano7680 I've not seen a moose in New Zealand, and done plenty of hunting in my time with rifle and bow there. I would surmise that it was a fiordland wapiti which grow huge in size with massive antlers that was mistaken for a moose if one the person who 'spotted it' was unfamiliar with moose or maybe the wapitis antlers were covered in undergrowth giving a moose like appearance, I've seen plenty of moose in Scandinavia and I could understand the mistake. That been said there are some strange tails of unaccountable creatures sneaking around in the depths of some of those dark forests in the South Island. I've learnt not to write off any accounts from tails of the forests as I have personally witnessed time itself stop and have myself and a friend stand in limbo for what must have been hours, a life changing experience with no explanation.
@@terryharris1291 at least at night you could hear the horses clip clop when they came up on your hole to give you a sniff, not so with the Maori sergeants , sneaky mofos Hit it Brother th-cam.com/video/Bto47Lq7sCs/w-d-xo.html
If Botai horses were not domesticated then we need not assume Przewalski's horses were ever domesticated since they descend from Botai horses. The big DNA paper looking at steppe horse DNA has been in the pipeline since 2018 and still isn't published but when it is out we will know for sure whether modern horse breeds descend from WSH horses and that will be very telling in regards to who domesticated them. As for mounted warfare - i don't believe WSH used horses in battle either. I think they would be perfect for scouting and also as symbols of power to intimidate enemies though.
Yeah there's now no good evidence the Przewalski's ancestors were ridden but some researchers believe there was some domestication - herding or managing and milking. Although other evidence suggests they weren't even doing that. I dunno what Alan Outram reckons as of 2021. But loose management systems are extremely difficult to detect. And for sure - a band of large men coming over the horizon riding horses slowly toward your village would have been absolutely baffling and horrifying. And it's quite possible that only a select few early people were "the riders" in their society. Experts at travelling distances rapidly. Hard to imagine that cultures where raiding was so central to their culture would not have taken advantage of it.
@@DanDavisHistory Amino acids preserved in Botai pottery confirm horse milk was used. This is proof of horse domestication for cattle-like purposes (milk and meat). Frozen Scythian remains preserve at least three versions of horse harnessing.
If you look at the Norwegian fjord horse, there is a lot of likenesses to the Przewalski horses. So much so, that there must have been breeding and domestication. By the way, how do you milk a horse without domesticating it?
@@PotPoet An interesting fact is that humans cannot consume horse milk, due to its high lactose content. However, horse milk's high sugar content means that it will ferment within 24 hours, to create airag or khumis. So, one wonders what was kind of horse milk was in the pottery? Alcohol wouldn't leave a residue, I suppose? Horse milk can be made into yogurt balls - qurt or kurut, a staple of all horse riding nomads. www.atlasobscura.com/articles/what-is-qurt
@@oduffy1939 Stupid question. If horse milk is to high lactose to drink, then how does consuming it in other ways also not have high lactose? People I know who are lactose intolerant usually stay away from things like ice cream or other dairy products Wouldn't the lactose remain to high, of it's to high to drink?
I have watched modern Lakota in South Dakota ride bare over hilly terrain back using the manes to hold onto. Their relatives did so too with only a couple centuries experience with horses. I have also watched amazing horse riding acrobatics in Hungary where only simple harnesses were used. It is easy to conclude that ancient nomadic cultures probably had even greater knowledge and skill from a millennia of living with their 4 legged companions.
that said, these early horses were still at the advent of their development, genes that gave them stronger backs, longer legs, better heart endurance, easier trainability is still just developing which makes it all the more impressive
I ride bareback and without a bit all the time, you don't control a horse with a bit, you control them with their nose. Its not impossible to ride without. Maybe for someone who doesn't know horses. I also ride a dominant mare, the head mares are worth their weight in gold, she was search and rescue. Bought her for about 500$ and learned to ride on a dominant male gelding, and gentled the ex stud in my profile pic. I have some quams with the experts, I actually went to school for equine studies, and have lots of yeses and nos. I recommend looking up mustang makeover contestants if you really wanna learn about the wild ones. Bits also predate the wheel, riding did come first, I remember that test question in My equine history class very well. It was stirrups that were the HUGE game changer. Mongolia and Kahastekstan were the first to domesticate and did it around the same time. Many native tribes in rhe US favored mares for their overprotectiveness and willingness to defend their riders. Mares, and horses in general will lay down their life for you. Mules and donkeys, to the 11th degree. Even though we originally domesticated for food, they're mankind's most underrated and misunderstood MVP. Horses originated in North America, migrated, and died off, but continued to live everywhere else
You're right about the stirrup, which the Huns brought to Europe in the 5th century. About horses protecting the rider, Mongolian epic poetry and folklore always depicts the hero's horse as his faithful companion, who in the midst of battle fights alongside the hero. The horse also speaks to the hero and is often the one who exhorts the hero when he falters.
@@Yarblocosifilitico Horses got across the the Stepps by the same route the First Nations peoples were supposed to have gotten to North America - from what is now currently Alaska to Russia. That being the case, its likely the Mongolians were the first humans to see horses since they lived in the area.
@@Whistlewalk the Mongolians? really? Not even proto-Mongols, PIEs or Scythians? If we're only talking about 'seeing' horses, well, the Denisovans coexisted with some proto-horses about 24,000 years ago. I don't think the Mongolians can top that ;P siberiantimes.com/science/casestudy/news/n0877-remains-of-extinct-zebra-like-horse-found-at-denisova-cave-home-of-ancient-man/ I guess Denisovans aren't technically 'humans', but still, plenty of ancient humans before the Mongolians. It's probably impossible to know which hominid saw horses for the first time. Horses might have gotten to the Americas through Siberia to Alaska but that doesn't mean they weren't roaming the rest of Eurasia long before that. Horses and hominids could've met for the first time pretty much anywhere in Eurasia.
The detail on horse domestication in the Horse, the Wheel and Language was one of the best parts of the book.Domestication of the horse was the central most important basis for spurring the economy of the steppe people, from what I have read in this and other sources. I think it's what makes the steppe cultures so very fascinating. They were such innovators and this one thing changed the course of all of future civilizations. It's vital to the history of human civilization, so you need to devote enough time to sufficiently explore it.
Greetings from Canada I think I watched this great little documentary a while ago, but this time thru I’m wondering if the debate about how migratory human populations controlled their horse herds during travel phases. Maybe it was just something that didn’t come up, in the sense that the migratory routes were generations old, and the horses were recognized as being the best navigators of any one of a number of variations and detour necessitating events and obstacles? One thing that is fairly unarguable is how much more confident arrogant presumptuous and fallible human beings are nowadays then they were ten thousand years ago. The narrator almost gets to the point of introducing this type of theory by about minute 24 I think….
I have a horse who was a wild stallion. I ride with no bit and trained him initially without a saddle. My daughter jumps him bareback and bridleless. The bit is meant to be communication tool, not a control mechanism. It informs the head and shoulders while the legs inform the barrel and hind end.
I learned earlier this year that horses were already present in America before the Spanish and they even said that it was those horses that made it over to Asia across the land bridge. It was basically the complete opposite of what had been established. I love this sort of archeological research because every year, we learn more and more, with every dig, book found, etc., etc. It's pretty cool! Seeing all those old culture names was pretty amazing, since they were so foreign to me. It really makes you think about how humans developed over time and who survived and what got passed down to today, if anything at all.
not only horses... camels too... they both evolved in the Americas and when the landbridge brought the Siberians open, the animals spread to Asia and beyond... but the Siberians in the Americas ate the horses in the continent, and considering that the escaping to Asia horses were the size of a dog... then yes!... the Spaniards brought back an all-new species...
@user-McGiver Yeah, they weren't anything like what we have now. They were pretty small...I think even smaller than miniature horses. Would have made for a tasty snack for someone or something!
@@Shifang Yeah!... try ''everyone and everything'' better, and explain that to the horse too... that by finding a use for it and ''evolving'' it we saved it... the thing is that those invading from Siberia ''Mongols'' [ same religion and customs ] ate the entire mega-fauna of the Americas... outa ''love and respect for life and Nature'' [crap]
Horses of th present variety were present in North America 18000 years ago and the ancestors of our Indigenous cousins slaughtered over 1000 Genera of species including the horse (the Pleistocene Extinction). I grew up around Plains Indians and they say "the horse made us" but none of them realize it was actually the Spanish who made them by re-introducing horses to North America ... but this time they were smart enough to ride them rather than slaughter them. The notion of the ecological in tune Indian is worse that a myth - it is a lie.
that's not the opposite of what had been established - the fact that horses originate in America, from where they migrated into Asia, is well known for quite some time. Other thing is that American wild horses later died out and were only reintroduced by Europeans in early modern times... now, there is some evidence that some American horses potentially survived into later pre-Columbian times, but the clear pattern of horse-riding spreading and completely altering lifestyle of plain tribes in early modern times shows that these potential survivors weren't domesticates and didn't have any real impact on pre-Colombian society...
Make sens, considering that this took place over a wide era, thousands of years, so sure, they was used to horse, hunted them for ages, observed and knowed them well. Maybe they became less with time for some reason, then people protected their food ressources against other people and predators. With the time, some foals was raised, and of course, became still tamer, and one day, why not, one hopped on them after lot other trials. ;) - Fall was hard, but would do it again !
Probably the first to try were teenage boys playing with horses that were being kept for food. You get some boys around any kind of animal big enough to ride, and they'll try it.
more simple, someone placed a child on the back of tamed horse, that started it, or at first they put a basket on the horse while walking to help carry things, and then a basket with a baby and then a kids.. it is simple enough. I have seen 3 year children who have no idea what a horse is get on the back of a big dog.
People raised cattle, sheep, goats, pigs and chickens. "If they were raising them, someone would try riding them" is either wrong or all the attempts were so spectacularly unsuccessful that no-one bothered to try a second time.
@@davidgould9431 People have been riding water buffalos in Indonesia for a long time. My cousin had a cow trained to take a saddled and ride it. People have used oxen for a long time too. I remember it was fun trying to ride the hog.
As a child, I rode horses bareback and used my knees and the horses' manes to transmit commands. I often use a halter instead of a bridle. I have seen people giving commands to horses with their feet while standing up on them and also using clucking sounds. A wild horse can be trained for basic riding in less than a month. Surely modern horses, even wild ones, probably have traits selected over time by humans that makes training easier. I suspect, however, that those traits were always there in some horses. While I doubted it until I saw it, there is the phenomenon of the horse whisperer. I wonder how that could have played into the domestication of horses to allow riding them. There's something special between some people and some horses.
@@maggiethedruid9010 I'll bet you don't wear spurs, either. I haven't used them since I was about 12. Really, with a trained horse spurs aren't necessary, and I wouldn't use them today at any point in a horse's training.
I'd say that once horses started being domesticated for food that's when the riding began. It's a natural progression of human thought. Human wants to sit on rock, stone or log as opposed to ground. Here's a seemingly docile animal right next to me about hip height, I'll indulge my curiosity or your dare and see what happens if I do this.
@@zenolachance1181 The horses referred to in this video and that I am referring to are pony sized or not much bigger than. You're speaking of modern horses, this video is not.
Even if they weren't riding them into battle, I could easily see a band using them to get from point a to point b, then dismount to fight. Like Dragoons originally did during the 16th and early 17th centuries. Being able to move quickly on a horse from your camp to a fight had to be valuable in of itself or just lash the loot or supplies to the horse as you move along. Even if a cavalry charge wasn't a thing. I could easily see horses and horse riding being a valuable aspect of warfare during the Indo-European migration.
Excellent. I absolutely admire Steppe culture, but I think the later argument has more evidence. With history, one never knows what will come to light at a later date.
@@DanDavisHistory yes lol. Arabian folklore states the first horses were tamed by them. I study Arab culture a lot and have a lot of Arab friends. Trust me even non nationalist Arabs think they tamed the first horses
I think a good piece of evidence for the early riding hypothesis is the high value placed on horses by Yamnaya (and descendant peoples) who were mainly eating sheep and cows. They were burying people with horse skulls and hides, had horse head shaped maces, and horse inscribed stones. Also the horse was very important ritually to the indo european peoples, with a common ritual significance shared by peoples whose ancestry split before the late horse riding hypothesis is dated to.
I was wondering about that. I can buy that maybe the spread of the Proto-Indo-Europeans was due to the mastery of cart/chariot technology rather than horseback riding, but it really surprised me to hear that there was nothing before the first millennium BC (not even in the Vedas?) that suggested a more intimate/"bums on backs" relationship between Indo-Europeans and the horses that seemed to be pretty important to them judging by the texts and legends that have come down to us and our ability to identify so many horse-related words of Proto-Indo-European by tracing existing cognates of later and even modern Indo-European languages back to common roots...
Actually it was the botai culture not the yamnaya and they were speaking uralic language. You can find the article on the pubmed by searching keywords.
Most people are not aware how cold resistant horses actually are: the breed of the turkic yakut/Sakha people in north-east siberia can deal with temperatures of -70°C/-94°F, being outdoors all the year - and winter lasts almost 9 month there. The yakut cattle is extremly resistant too - although it is less resilient than the horses and is usually brought to stables during winter occasionally cattle escapes into the wild and survives to the next spring. I'm extremly fascinated by the yakut/Sakha who fled from the mongols to the north and adapted their typical turkic nomadic lifestyle to one of the harshest environments on earth.
@@oduffy1939 Yes, they are also reindeer herders - but so are the mongols. The republic of Sakha (yakutia) is a gigantic territory, the largest subnational region of the world and comparably big as the european union - so it depends where exactly you are. Further north yakutia is characterized by tundra where the reindeer which can live of mosses is the primary lifestock, further south the horse plays are role. The sakha/yakut migrated from regions further south to their lands to escape the mongols in the middle ages and took their horses with them. Their non-turkic neighbors who partly share their territory rely less on horse and cattle and are more specialized on the reindeer.
Thanks for a great video and for having the humility to present the various theories in as fair a way as is possible, and without pretending to know things that probably nobody knows for sure.
I watch a lot of historical content, and I'd say you're easily one of the best. You have a wonderful voice and your diction is flawless. You make it a pleasure to learn about these ancient societies. My thanks.
The "chariot first" theory for warfare makes more sense to me. Trying to fight and control a large animal by yourself seems daunting. Having someone else drive leaves you free to shoot and throw. It is also a much shorter leap from wagons to chariots, than wagons to riding.
From what I've read about Sumerian chariots, they were rather slow moving cumbersome four wheeled vehicles drawn by onagers compared to the fast moving two spoke-wheeled Egyptian/Hittite chariots of the late Bronze Age. They were difficult to manuever and could only be made to charge into battle in one direction on flat grounds. The need to turn direction would've being difficult to achieve, while rocky ground would've been dangerous as it could knock the charioteers off their platform, or shatter the chariot's wheels or overturn the vehicle. It would've been intimidating for the mountain tribes that periodically invaded Mesopotamia who'dve been unused to the sight though, and as a result it would've been an effective psychological weapon.
@@bc7138 also you have terrifying option of just putting blades on your chariot and lighting it on fire suicide bombing the front lines of your enemy of course I mean that later on in history when horses could run a tad bit faster
A pulling horse takes 3 x the training of a ridden horse. With a wagon/chariot only the bit gives clues of what to do. A good horseman can ride with no bit, just using legs & body movement's to let the horse know what to do. Ever notice that troops pulling cannon always have at least one troop mounted when pulling. Not expert, but have trained a few horses to both ride & pull.
To this day, in my native dialect of Croatia we still call livestock of all kind "blago" which in literal sense means treasure/wealth. As such, a man blessed with livestock/horses is blessed in wealth indeed. This most of all regards to bovines and horses.
@@DanDavisHistory I find your videos extremely interesting and wish you all the best in your future works ! I am happy your videos are picking up, they certainly deserve the attention. Bronze Age is criminaly underresearched and lacking its presence in attention of people who are interested in history. But I am happy that in recent few years both archeology and people like you are doing great work to bring up this very interesting age into its deserved spotlight.
The Anglo-Saxon word "fee" come from the word for cattle. As with most Indo-European pastoral peoples, cattle was the currency. In ancient Ireland, a man could only have a wife if he had the required number of cows, sheep, and horses; and he would pay the bride's family in a set number of cattle.
Wow! Blago means something good in Russian. Blagodarit' - "to thank", where darit' means "to give". So that literally means "to give cattle". I've just learned something new. Thanks 👍 P.s. I can't give you any cattle, though, as I don't own any. 😁😁😁
Many of the native peoples here in North America who captured and used the feral horses that escaped from the Spanish, trained and rode them without bits and bridles. They used a leather thong with a loop in the end that was placed in the horse's mouth for steering and control. Other leather straps were braided into the horse's mane for a handhold, and a simple pad and strap were used for a saddle. The person riding the horse invested a lot of time and effort into training it to work with the rider, just like people do today. Different methods, similar results. There's no reason why the ancient steppe people didn't do the same thing. The leathers would leave it no trace being organic, and it was more than likely only some people were of a mind to try the idea out... There's always one guy or gal who says "I wonder what would happen if..." So, I am of the mind that horse taming and riding was early, but the idea didn't exactly spread like wildfire until later
That was already accounted for by Anthony. They trained horses using leather and hemp bits; their findings suggest that they too would leave marks on horses' teeth.
I grew up with horses and even though I live in a city now, I've never stopped being fascinated by horses and I'm always researching and learning as much as I can about these incredible animals. This video taught me some super cool facts I didn't know, like stallions having evolved canines for fighting and those amazing cheek plates - just wow! I'm so appreciative!! Love your videos xo
I imagine the early horse-eaters used them somewhat as the Suomi use reindeer. Riding, if it happened at all, would be of minor importance, and I can't see it happening at all until well after mares were first milked. Possibly horses were first used as pack animals, or to pull a travois. The early Irish used to hitch horses to the plough by tying it to their tail. The Mesopotamian horse racing looks remarkably like a donkey derby, and that is still the most popular way to ride a donkey bareback. A proper saddle, even a Roman style one with no stirrups, makes a great difference in speed for either horse or donkey.
@@SigurdVolsunga On the contrary. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Act_against_Plowing_by_the_Tayle,_and_pulling_the_Wooll_off_living_Sheep I read the Estyn Evans essay that it cites many years ago.
@@SigurdVolsunga the Spanish in Mexico used the horses tail to rope cattle before they developed a saddle with a horn . Saddles with roping horns are a recent development , about 300 years old . As well the plow you are thinking of is a moldboard plow which is also very recent development , the earlier plows were just a sharp stick with a beam , which could easily be pulled by a horse tail . Some times they were pulled by the farmers wife
@@jenniferbrien3408 it must have been an ard (a point for breaking the ground) rather than a true plough. A horse simply wouldn't be able to actually plough by pulling it with it's tail. There is just way to much force required to pull an actual plough through the ground. An online search on this mainly found Irish sources calling tales of them tieing inplements to horses tails slander, and descriptions of crude harrows tied to horses tails.
"Numidian horsemen rode without saddles or bridles, controlling their mounts with a simple rope around their horse's neck and a small riding stick. They had no form of bodily protection except for a round leather shield or a leopard skin, and their main weapon were javelins in addition to a short sword." (Wikipedia) So the technology needed to be effective mounted warriors would certainly have been available to neolithic horse herders. Whether the horses were capable of being used in the style of the numidians is another question and just because something was possible doesn't mean people actually did it, but it seems a lot more likely that early horsemen would have fought primarily with javelins than as shock troops with battleaxes.
It appears that the Numidian Horsemen were superb. The Roman Cavalry could neither chase them off or close with them to engage. They probably had some sort of gear on their mounts to carry javelins and water/wine bottles at the very least.
@@cliffordjensen8725 artwork from the period shows them carrying a bundle of spare javelins in their off hand. A waterskin could have been slung over their shoulder if they needed it.
As a horsewoman and behaviourist, your account of equine hierarchy, herd structure and behaviour in such a succinct and informed way is one of the best I have ever heard.... from history or indeed from any horse behaviourist or trainer! Brilliant 👏
That Mesopotamian 'horse' led by a nose ring (19:54) looked more like wolf to me, like some mythic godlike entity riding a giant wolf and leading it by a nose ring after the fashion of bulls being led by nose rings.
Another excellent video! This vid made me think about James Burke’s “Connections” when he talked about how the “stirrup” changed horse mounted warfare drastically. As an innovation it was a turning point that made shock war on horseback even more effective.
When we speak about the invention of gunpowder, one of the arguments against its convergent invention in Europe and China is that it appears in European historical record alongside basic firearms. While Mesopotamia might have left first concrete evidence of horses being ridden, wouldn't there then have been a period when horses were used for other purposes there, like gunpowder was used for medicine and later fireworks in China, before it was used for weaponry?
Great topic! Always fascinated with how our ancestors lived. I appreciate your use of photos of the covers of the books you referenced. It gives me a subtle motivation to consider buying the books you have used.
To start off with, I love horses. It is hard to remember when I first saw a horse. But I do remember the first time I was close up to a horse. I was maybe 4 years old and to me the horse was so huge. I had to go or shall I say sneak past his stall to go to the toilet each time I needed to go. This was on the farm our family owned in Norway. When I came to Australia at the age of 8 there were several horses in the paddock at the back of our house. These were owned by the commissioner of Police at the time here in Brisbane. I helped the boys from the farm to feed the horses and one of the horses was my favourite. His name was Smokey. I would hop onto his back by grabbing his mane and throwing my leg over his back and holding on for life and limb. He was agisted on a 10 acre, though a long block of land with the other horses and halfway along the block there were some tea trees growing. He would gallop towards the trees with me hanging on, as I said with for dear life. One of the trees had a horizontal branch growing out from it that Smokey was able to fit under whilst galloping at a rather fast speed, though he did slow down a little as he knew I could not fit with me on top of him. So, I always ended up on the ground with him eating grass a foot or so away from my head, probably thinking, 'are you stupid or something boy? We have done this so many times now so you should know what happens'. But I did not care. I would get up and pat and talk to him. Grab him around the neck and swing about off the ground while he still ate grass. But he surprised me one day. I had just filled his container full of chaff and I was standing on his left side as one does when mounting a horse. He was eating and I was stroking him, then suddenly he grabbed me by one of my 9 year old boy boobs and lifted me over the container he was eating from and put me down on his righthand side. He then continued to eat. He had not actually hurt me, nor broken the skin at all, though I did develop a bit of a bruise from his teeth. Even so, I kept stroking him till he was finished so I could put his container, a galvanised baby bath, away. Unfortunately, he ended up with tetanus a couple of years later and had to be destroyed. I have owned my own horses since then and I named one of the Smokey. oooops, that was a rather long story.🙂
It's hard for me to except horses were not ridden until 6,000 yrs ago . I was obsessed with horses my whole childhood . As a 5yr old walked up to this local boarding place "the corrals" and I'd have a length of cotton rope with me , to use like the Indians , I'd seen in books and TV. I choose a pony or horse, catch it slip this rope into their mouth , put my pre-tied loop around the lower jaw and climb on . The climbing on was tricky , sometimes waiting for them to put their head down , step over behind the ears , they'd lift their head and up I'd go ! Slip down to the withers and turn around ! It felt GREAT every time . I'd climb up a fence pulling the animal close an launch to land where I needed to be . I'd ride around the corral awhile , if all's well then , open the gate and out and about I'd go ! As other comment's mention , I too rode anything that could support me , goats by far were the easiest to practice with . But sheep , were hands down the funnest . Especially in the winter . My friends and I would have the time of our lives having these woolies drag us through the mud , great days . Now I'm missing , more and more , the horsedays of my life . Thinking , I need another in my last chapter of this life . Just feels right to be out in the hills riding , looking for another adventure to experience. ✌️🙈🙊🙉👍
We have an old saying in Germany ""Get a Foal and you get the Mare and then you get the Stallion for free"" The Importens is the Foal and the next foal , you let it grow with a young Boy and it will let him sit on top of it , in Mongolia the Jockey are mostly young boys
Is it at all possible that horse riding started in the Indus valley . Researchers have indicated that for the spread of the Indo European languages , horses were the means of covering vast amounts of territory. Therefore mobility could only be achieved by the utilization of horses. I am looking forward to the responses.
@@phillipmaasdorp9491 The hierarchy is bones leather as Wappen meat and milke as food than pulling carring for transport and ad the last came horse riding .The ratio soldier/horse never got ander 4/1 like in ww 2 so I know
I never had the impression from reading Anthony that he was suggesting the Yamnaya were capable of mounting actual armed cavalry operations. But it isn't hard to imagine that armed warriors, skilled enough in horse control to manage herds, might have also used them for getting to a location for a quick raid and then escaping on them afterwards. People on foot would have difficulty catching up with raiders who could get away on horses even if for a short distance with relative primitive means of controlling the animals. In fact, this would have been such a valuable advantage that it is hard to imagine someone would not have developed the tactic at a relative early date. One might further conjecture that actual cavalry tactics might have developed later as a means of defending against such predation.
@@DanDavisHistory It is interesting to speculate if improved horsemanship might have played a role in the Bronze Age collapse. More effective mounted forces would have played havoc on the long trade routes that had developed up to that time. And that could be why the Iron age saw the growing use of horses as a military asset.
@@DanDavisHistory I don't think Mr. Shannon was suggesting large scale cavalry operations; but rather small scale raids, perhaps along the lines of the Táin Bó Cúailnge from Irish myth? Cattle raids are a feature of all nomadic/pastoral peoples, with or without horse (or camel) riding. Ten guys riding bareback without horse bits, arrive to the camp of whomever they're raiding. Get off the horses, steal whatever they're stealing, and get back on the horses to escape. Raiding, for pastoral peoples, is what passed for warfare for thousands of years.
I have to put my two bits in. As a kid on the prairies, maybe nine to ten years old, I rode and loved a horse that I rode everywhere with nothing but touch, love, and a halter. My girl would lower her head so I could put my foot in the loop of the halter rope, then raise her head and let me slide down her neck to her back. Don't discount those kind of bonds in prehistory. Notice that modern humans make pets of some of the animals that they raise for slaughter...that is not a thing of civilization but profoundly old.
Well,yes they are. However you need to learn balance for both though. First you need to learn to ride,then to use weapons,then to learn to use them together. Ancient Mongols did both,..on the run.
Ancient riders probably rode on the back side of the horse because horses spine wasn't adapted to heavy loads in the middle. Even modern horses have a lot of spine problems, even with modern saddles
Oddly, today I heard a radio report that (among other things) said that the genetics of the modern horse gives them a stronger spine than the horse types which are now extinct.
I think the ability to ride wagons or even horses TO battle was already a massive advantage, making one group able to quickly invade and settle new lands deep inside others’ territory. This was later complimented by light battle wagons followed by ultra light charriots and eventually by war horses bred for riding into battles.
I think I take something of a middling position in terms of the Yamnaya riding horses into Europe: using horses in warfare =/= fighting your opponents from horseback. I agree with Drews that some random steppe herder on horseback wouldn't be a particularly big combat multiplier for them in a face-to-face fight. But I wouldn't discount the value of mobility when it comes to the type of warfare that would have been happening in the EBA. The Yamnaya probably used horses much as early modern dragoons, ride up to the fight before dismounting to do the fighting. And keep in mind that there would have been little in the way of 'pitched battles' during the centuries long, decentralized movement into Europe. Most 'warfare' would have consisted of endemic skirmishing and cattle rustling. Where that sort of 'dragoon' fighting style would have been a massive combat multiplier, without a single herder having to ever needing swing an axe from horseback.
Apparently, people who are much more experienced equestrians than I have confirmed that bareback horse ridding is not only possible, but common. In that case, it might be that the use of horses as battlefield cavalry was a later development than most people thought, but none the less, I would imagine the ability to ride horses would enable a roving tribe of conquerors a much greater mobility advantage over their enemies, even if the horse was simply a means of transportation between battles and sieges.
Personally I think that the early steppe peoples would have used horses to move to and from raids rather than fight from horse back, I remember reading that naitive american tribes when they first got the horse did a similar thing before they got the hang of fighting from horse back
Ancient Mongolians used horses to fight with. They used bows and arows to fight while riding them.They were famous for doing so. As a matter of fact,one of the most famous Horse people were the Scythians.
@@oduffy1939 His comment was this,in part:: "Personally I think that the early steppe peoples would have used horses to move to and from raids rather than fight from horse back." The part about the Native Americans is the part that was much later than what I was saying. I was also simply adding to his comment,not attempting to refute it.
Dear Dan, Any history of Equus is welcomed by me. The Anthropological dealings with Equus in Ancient History is fascinating to say the least. I always used to say that St. Paul (was struck off his horse: a white Andulisian - of course) when he met with his conversion, to today; with the diaspora of Equus throughout the world. Well done! As this was a wonderful documentary; reaching back that far. P
My ancestors had bow shaped legs, because of riding horses. A Russian tourist in his memoir touring around Mongolian country side, wrote that how he didn’t understand why windows in traveling shops made in so high, then he understood nomad Mongols shop while still on their horse😊
I believe that as soon as young men discovered that riding a horse any distance at all impressed young women it would have become a major activity . Virtually as soon as they were herded . Call it the Rodeo hypothesis
My guess is that horse riding developed after seeing people ride oxen. We see Rock Art in the Sahara of people riding oxen and some South-African Tribes like the Khoi-Khoi and Xhosa also rode oxen into battle. So I think Neolithic Europeans also used oxen for riding on occasion. Horse Milk residue was found on human teeth from the 3rd Millennium BC. somewhere in the Black Sea Steppe. So again not a massive jump from milking cows to milking horses. Same with pulling carts or a travois. Cattle basically served as blueprint for what can possibly be achieved by using the horse.
Have you got a source for the battle oxen in South Africa? Everything I have seen on warfare in the region records them both as fighting on foot, and riding oxen into battle would have been remarkable, so likely to be recorded and commented on.
I believe the riding oxen into battle is apocryphal. People have been riding oxen here in Africa for millennia, but what use would an ox be in battle? Ox-back archer? I think Europeans saw people riding oxen like horses and then assumed they used them in other ways horses are used, as in battle.
@@philipgeyer926Not apocryphal at all. They used oxen in this manor to charge horses of the Vryburgers and with some success were able to injure some horses. Basically used as a shock tactic but not extensively afterwards in battle. Gaan kyk maar na een van die frescoes in die Voortrekker monument.
@@SigurdVolsunga Voortrekker Monument. I do not have a better source than the Frescoe but I read it in a book many years ago about this so have to go look where I read it.
In Chinese history, there is details of when they learn riding horses from there northern neighbor the Xiong. But thousands of years before that, there were already horses pulling carriage and Chariots.
Very interesting video, thank you for it I'm firmly on the early riding hypothesis: you can ride a horse without nearly anything at all, especially if as other people mentioned you grew up with it Other thing is I grew up on the farm and I tried to ride any animal we ever had (out of curiosity) - and while adults wouldn't probably do it, I'm sure some of Neolithic kids would have a go: you're just curious and adventurous as a kid. How on Earth do you llive among horses for thousands of years and never try to ride one? Ridiculous.....
There is also the issue of viewing horse riding in terms of warfare as only fighting from horseback, we know of a plenthora of troops throughout history who did not fight on horseback but travelled on a horse but fought on foot. The mere notion of being able to transport and deploy your soldiers to one place or the other and then have them fight on foot was a massive advantage by itself, and possibly predated fighting directly from horseback by centuries, if not millenias.
Look for signs of riding in the bones of the riders and any artifacts related to riding. There is a video of the oldest trousers discovered in Kazakhstan and go from there
Funy tho sad, that non-academic people are forced to go around and rediscover what was well documented before, bocouse of limited availibility of sources in public domain.
' Kuş Kanatlı Türk Atli= Bird with wings Turk with horse'... Whether Eastern, Western or Eurasian part of our human ancesstors' had domesticated it, horses are our beloved animal...It is good to trace the roots, but it is even better seeing alll humanity loves this wonderfull animal...
There is part of the video where you talk about maybe they rode basically bareback gripping the mane controlling the horse with legs, possibly a blanket and belly band (made out of materials that rotted away) but that this wouldn't be militarily useful. I agree that you couldn't do shock cavalry with it. However there are all sorts of other military relevant options. 1. Scout 2. Horse archery from stationary horse. (Ride, stop, shoot, ride...or just the extra range you get from being up higher give a boon) 3. Dragoon style. Ride up, most men dismount and go about their warefare, return to the horses and ride off. This would be very beneficial in raids where you can zoom in, strike, and when the alarm is raised, run out throw your loot on your horse and ride away. Also great for attacking where the enemy army is not, or bringing troops around to attack from the rear.
I wonder how it would affect overall the Kurgan hypothesis, if the Kurgans were in fact not those aggressive horse-riders, but rather just fancied horse meat and were really good husbandmen
Yeah Anthony points out mechanisms that could have resulted in steppe dominance other than waves of pure violence. Some people would like to find multiple massacre sites before they believe it was conquest by systemic violence.
@@DanDavisHistory Well, Horseriders were first to get iron, and whole Celtic was inspired by them. Also, By some sources, Scythians were botch very warior-like and somewhat pacefule, by achemenid standards.
I used to,work at a stable, mucking out stalls. Had mean, neutral, and sweet stallions. One “mean” expensive stallion was an Egyptian Arab who would bite you at any chance. What’s worse I had to clean the stall with him loose in it. Wearing thick soft rubber boots, one “horse kick” to his chest when he snaked behind me and bit me in the butt. That one kick gave him a much needed attitude adjustment. He behaved in a corner after that. I showed the owner the bite mark and told them what happened. Horse was fine, and while upset I kicked him….they admitted he had been getting nasty and bitey. They saw how when he saw me, he went to a clean corner and just stood there, nose down, being quiet. Plus, he was fine, no bruising or mark on his chest. Not animal abuse when done once, and prevented him from taking a chunk out of my ass. One super sweet smart stud was HB Cool Cat. He was a rare grey Grullio and always a saint when his stall was cleaned. It was so easy, I would scratch his withers as a reward, and he would gently nibble on my back at the same time. I miss that stallion 20 years later, he was a dream stallion for any young girl. Heck, he barely looked at mares in heat, at most a little nicker and a look. He may give other studs “the look” but was never physically aggressive. He knew he was strong, he was confident, and was totally chill about it.
I enjoyed this video very much, as I have others of yours I stumbled across recently. I' have read Anthony's book and find it very compelling, especially because he is willing to consider different hyphotheses along with sifting through a lot of evidence. You do that too, and I value that highly; also that you give your references so generously. Granted, that only encourages my dreadful book buying habit, but there are worse habits. I like your view that the early horse riding was simply hanging onto the mane. That's a solution to how people were able to herd horses, which are so much faster than cattle and sheep, and also better at self-defense. And, it would make it likely that people would not slaughter the biggest, strongest and most biddable horses, but rather keep them, and allow them to breed..
"Chariots first" idea assumes that the wheel preceded horse riding. I'm not sure about that. Having a herd of pack animals, who can pull primitive sleds seems like a major improvement to mobility. Suddenly you don't need to carry all your belongings on your own back. 1. Taming and herding first. 2. Domestication. 3. Utilization as pack and draft animals. 4. The wheel, once it's absolutely obvious, because you do have a bunch of draft animals already. Where horse-riding comes into this picture? I don't know, really.
That’s counterintuitive. Without domesticated livestock, there was more selective pressure for humans to be innovative. Why do think the cultures belonging to [the relatively petite] Neolithic West Eurasians were so much more sophisticated (e.g. stratified, urban, and agricultural) than those belonging to the [physically larger, more robust, and better adapted] Western Hunter-Gatherers that preceded them? For the same fundamental reasons that caused Cro-Magnon man to be intellectually and technologically superior to Homo neanderthalensis.
@@thebrocialist8300 west eurasians needed to band together to support their irrigation systems, eurasian herders did not need any of that, so they had much lower population density and hence less inovation
@@thebrocialist8300 Both early agrarians and early pastoralists went through a period of misery during their transition to a new lifestyle. The agrarians had very poor diet. Mostly grains, very little meat (no domesticated animals), most of vegetables were not domesticated, etc. They suffered accordingly. Similarly, pastoralists went through similar hardship when they started to rely on milk in large quantities. Lactose intolerance is still the norm among humans, so it definitely was for them too. Those who couldn't digest milk well, simply suffered. Apparently, it can be seen in their remains. Which lifestyle has more favorable selection toward innovation? It's probably settled lifestyle, simply because it allows for amassing wealth. Excess food production creates niches, which allow for new inventions that fit those new environments, but I'm not sure that the selection pressures are easy to distinguish. Plenty of important innovations came from the steppes. Definitely domestication of many animals, quite possibly the wheel, lots of cultural traditions (Zoroastrianism, Vedic religions), composite bow, probably more. Settled lifestyle allows for specialization, nomadic lifestyle encourages trade and exchange of ideas. Which one was more selective toward innovation? I simply can't tell. Eventually the issue totally disappeared, as pastoralism became a part of settled agriculture. Ever since it happened, it's a moot point.
Gosh thoroughly enjoyed this. Thank you. Back in the 1970's I used to work for a horse dealer (just north of London!) he would buy unbroken three year olds from local markets like Southall, Stow etc., and within a few weeks having gained their trust I could handle them eg brush, groom, pick out hoofs etc., get them used to traffic on a lead rope and back and bring them on for basic commands walk, trot canter etc., before they were sold on. Trust and kindness was everything and patience. I'd never heard of 'free riding' back then (without bridles and saddles) but there are plenty of vids about it here on TH-cam. This again is very much based on trust. I'm guessing this how how people may have ridden initially far more in tune and connected to the natural world including horses than many of us are now? PS The men riding on this vid have appalling seats and are using the bits/ reins for balance. Horses heads are up and open trying to evade the pain. Terrible. Painful to watch.
Me and my brothers rode bareback and always were trying some trick or another with our horses from 3 on. When you have a close relationship with your horse you understand each other, you’re bonded, you’re family.
This is so fascinating. I'm in the Late rider camp. We just talked about evolution of the horse in our Mongols series. Thank the Gods that you mentioned the riding on the wrong area of the horse. I said the same in our video but couldn't find the pictures to back it so folks probably thought I was justified being goofy. I am really enjoying your content, I just wish I had found it earlier.
Hmm...I tend more to favor the earlier version for a couple of reasons. 1) It's easier to train a horse to ride than pull any form of a wagon. 2) The damage done by a horse acting up while pulling a wagon is going to be far greater than just falling off one. 3) The harness needed for a horse to pull a wagon is a fairly complex piece of craftsmanship. Far more complex than the bridle used to ride one. 4) Taking the step from riding a horse and using a horse to fight from is a major evolutionary step that takes time, and honestly doesn't need to have been taken for centuries, even millennium. Also the last cavalry during WWII used their horses just to travel from point A to point B. Why wouldn't the first have done the same? I would say that it sounds logical to me that horses were first ridden with no intent on doing more than travel quicker. Then came the travois, only later someone came up with the idea to put wheels on a travois. And, as far as no evidence of bits, I've known trained horses that could not take one without getting infection. They're really not that necessary, American Indians rarely used a bridle with any kind of a bit. I also feel that the final say should be an evolutionary genetic evaluation, that can determine how long it took for the domestication. So far, either could be right, or both wrong. They are both just hypotheses.
Very good observations. I have to agree with you and maybe add the migration of the Tocharians across the entire Khazak steppe as possible further evidence. Such a journey would require enormous mobility and the ability to scout ahead of the group to asses dangers and to find routes of travel. It's interesting to note that the Botia culture began domestication around the time of the Tocharian migration to the Altai.
That I can agree with. Though not as old, some of the Tarim mummies (Tocharian) wore britches. Which is a clear evidence of only being needed if riding horses for longer periods of time. (And, those britches weren't leggings, rather very complex and detailed, designed especially for riding a horse.) That could show evidence of riding being already well advanced as far back as 3800 years ago.
4)Mounted combat is likely older than X ce. BC. by asocietion witch Kimmerian culture. And, if Chineese sources are to be belive (doutably) it could be older than XX ce. BC.
Agree, (+/-) 1,000/2,000 B.C. is far too late. There isn't enough time for the evolutionary trial and error to have taken place. Things just don't pop up out of nowhere. It takes time, lots of time. (Our PoV is too skewed by the modern day ability to produce a massive amount of development within a short time.)
Yeah, as someone who likes to go on long hikes...I wholeheartedly agree. There is no way, nomadic people didn't jump at the chance of having an animal carry their luggage and, if possible, themselves. Imagine how useful ridden scouts or hunters would have been, even if most of the tribe would still have been on foot.
Just a brief side note, I was mostly trained in art history and one flaw I often see in general historical and paleontological/archaeological research is that condensing everything down to how it can be used in warfare/hunting is not the whole story of humanity. I am heartened to see this kind of idea presented in such an elegant way to the public. Not everything is governed by the technology of violence and surely this is true in our ancestors going much farther back than the history of writing. Not that warfare has zero affect or that it shouldn't be covered, but consideration of what a person is doing when they aren't killing something is also important.
It might be a bit of contemporary projection, because so much of our current daily-use technology (microwaves, cellphones, cars) were originally designed for military purposes but only later redeveloped for civilian use. However this might not necessarily have been the case in horses or ancient history.
My understanding is that men started to wear pants when they started riding horses. Pants give move protection and padding to the rider. Maybe you should start with who started wearing pants and when. Just a thought.
The funny thing is that we have some cave paints with spears in hand, I'd bet that this is a far older evidence than in Mesoptamia. Plus the idea that you can herding horses without riding it's symply redicoulus because the horses are born runners not like sheep, goat or cows.
@@JacarandaMusic can be built it's true but the stone age tools would make challenging to make it big enough to keep fed the captured horses if we thinking about long term keeping, not to be killed next week.
I think horses would have been ridden to take men to war long before they were used in the battles themselves. The former is far simpler than the latter yet still provides significant military advantage in both mobility of forces and a relative lack of fatigue from travel. In raiding it adds the ability to take more booty after the fighting is done.
I am reading this book Poland by James Michener.. although it does not address the domestication of horses, it tells about the invasion of Polish villages and towns by Tatar people from Asia (Mongolia) who were considered very good horse riders, in fact, that was the key for their success. The dates for such events occurred in the 8th century.. interesting to come across your documentary, which I enjoyed it much and made me think about the matter of domestication of animals and the skills developed by people at early ages of human moves, thanks. I see things from the veterinary perspective as it is important to take into account historical events to understand present times..
ALSO: I am in a Bible study group. We read the entire NRSV Bible in a year. One of the things that impressed me was that King Saul rode to battle on a donkey! According to Wikipedia, his reign is usually placed in the 11th Century BCE. Horses, at least riding horses, did not reach Israel, and get mentioned in the Bible, until later. But the idea of riding a four-legged, "horse-like" creature was around by the 11th Century BCE.
Ukraine or the Sredny Stog cultural area in ancient times was probably swampy in addition to being steppe-like. Unlike the central and eastern steppes, the western steppes had many rivers traversing it, and the remnants of a major swamp region still exists along the Ukraine-Belarus border; likely this swamp was much bigger in ancient times. Is it possible that a swampy environment triggered horse domestication somehow? You might be a bit more willing to climb onto a horse for the first time if it was wading in the water, so falling off happens with a splash rather than a thud. And for certain river corridors, fording with horses would be the ideal way of getting across, more so than with boats.
Horses are, as you say, social animals used to following leaders. So are sheep and cattle and, even more so, dogs. I've always been fascinated by how well today's dogs get along with today's horses, whilst it's an other kettle of fish (or tea if you prefer...) altogether between dogs and donkeys. I've taken daily care of a donkey and my late dog Kate and she very quickly became great chums, but when I got a 6 weeks old pup I had to start the socialising process with the donkey from scratch again. As a biologist, I think thata very important difference between horses and dogs is that the former follow the lead to get to the right places to eat but are, once there, in competition for the best places ("best" both in food availability and in safety from predators), wild canids depend on team work to get their pails filled. WIth dogs you don't need material stimuli (tidbits) to train them, social compensations suffice. With horses, you need material rewards first and can then shift to social ones, which I called "from carrot to cuddle". I'd like to get other people's opinion on this. Be all this how it may, both our latter-day dogs and our latter-day horses are, of course, light years away in behaviour from their wild ancestors.
Everyone loves an animal story. Perhaps dog domestication would be a good topic. Also, taking another example of Native American fighting style, the Apache are great dragoons. They rode up to battle and then fought on foot.
That's certainly mired in controversy. Almost the only thing known about early dog domestication is the 13,000 yo bone knife that appears to show a collared wolf like animal carved into its grip.
My first horse as a child and young adult was to ride my mare with just a halter and lead rope around our large pasture. I'd be grooming her then too lazy to go back and get her bridle so I'd take the lead rope and tie it on the other side to make a long loop then throw it over her head for a pair of reins and exercise her for a short while. For riding, I used a hackamore with her (which has no bit). I now use a bosal on my current horse. A bosal is made from rawhide. All those options would show no sign of riding on horses' teeth. Personally, I prefer bitless options.
Great, thought-provoking video. I think it's possible to reconcile the two theories. Maybe bareback horse riding (that doesn't leave a lot of evidence) developed in the earlier period but was only useful to relatively small numbers of steppe people traveling long distances with herds. Beyond the steppes, owning a horse was a sign of nobility among urban populations that didn't grow up alongside horses on vast plains and didn't have the same level of comfort and intuitive understanding of handling horses. So chariot warfare was both easier to learn and a more recognizable sign of wealth and prestige in more urban populations of antiquity, and also more of an overwhelming combat advantage that only nobility could afford. The later developments of the saddle, and then the stirrup, made horse-riding more practical than charioteering, and thus mounted warriors replaced replaced chariots. Bigger, stronger warhorses were bred and sold in larger numbers further afield.
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I would not say it's a niche topic. Horse domestication is one of the fundamental events of human history.
You did a great job explaining the two main theories.
I can think of two reasons for riding a horse either on the hip or at the withers. If you look at an equine skeleton you will see that the vertebrae over the centre back have bony protrusions sticking upwards (called spinous processes) where ligaments and muscles attach. These upward-pointing spikes make riding without a saddle very uncomfortable. However, they get smaller at the base of the neck and over the hips. Another reason could be that earlier horses which had not been selectively bred were quite weak in the middle. Cave paintings depict horses with very straight backs which would not have had the elasticity conferred by the more curved back of the modern horse. Of course, it could also mean that the spinous processes were larger and even more uncomfortable than they are today.
The way I was taught in university was that the early Indo Europeans used chariots as horses at the time were too small to be ridden on and only once horses reached larger sizes due to selective breeding. The first large scale of horse back riding was in Assyria in the iron age. At least that's what they taught us 20+ years back.
Certainly was a game changer, along with making fire, space flight, atom bomb, and gene sequencing. (Horse domestication)
Hi Dan - I would like to take the opportunity to thank you for your great content, I really appreciate it!
The bronze age is the epoch when our modern world started to form, in its best and worst aspects.
Sometimes I think that I'm suffering what one could call "epoch dysphoria" - the wish to have lived in another time when the world was "more magical" and everything was meaningful, when a voyage of one hundred kilometers was a (potentially life-threatening) adventure but there were also no borders and you could be in the wilderness for weeks without finding any hint of other humans.
But I'm also not naive and aware that it is easy to romanticise these times from our modern perspective, times when families died of starvation because the winter was a little longer than expected, a man of 40 years was considered old and women were considered legitimate loot in warfare.
People were more free and less free as we are today at the same time. Strange.
I think the “experts” might not have enough experience with horses. Riding without saddle & bit is not an impossibility. Doing so with skill & speed is something I’ve witnessed children do. Certainly, growing up with your foal and learning young creates a friendship between rider & horse. This bond is mutually affectionate. In that circumstance, the rider using legs only to control their horse while using weapons is easy enough. Of course no evidence of that is likely to be found
A friend of mine used to work in a jousting show and had ridden since childhood, he tells me good riders direct more with their knees than their bridles.
@@SigurdVolsunga Exactly
@De Alvarado Which Spanish chronicles? I doubt those indigenous dwarves could even mount a horse during most of the Spanish imperial period.
@@thebrocialist8300 Man what a disagreeable racist individual you have to be. Sometimes I think people are generally kind and good, and then people like you come along….
At the same time, though, the modern horse has been bred to be a riding animal. So it is not clear that analogies from modern horses capture all the difficulties of riding early domesticated horses.
As a rider of dressage, I can readily see where riding a horse bareback without saddle or bridle would be extremely easy given
time to adjust the body to relax and give "signals" through the seat bones and legs. I often rode my horse without saddle or bridle and found that by turning my torso, moving my legs back or forward, would cause my horse to turn or stop depending on pressure of my upper thigh or lower leg. Even turning my shoulders would cause change of direction. All is dependent on the rider's relaxation or minute tension, and going with the horses movement. I suspect early man would have wanted to move with the speed of a running horse at some time or another and would have eventually tried to get on the back of a horse just to go fast. I suspect all this happened much earlier than scientists believe as the curiosity of the human is far stronger than most believe.
Hi Suzanne, I too ride with legs and balance, and no need at all for bridles and saddles on a well trained horse. :)
I primarily ride/event/show/etc my horses bareback and bridleless due to my Ehlers Danlos Syndrome causing the slight tension from saddles and reins to dislocate my joints. It's not overwhelmingly difficult/impossible to communicate with your horse without aids; as long as you spend time with it, working on bodily control, and approach it with a "I'm with you as a partner, not here to micromanage you" attitude. It's definitely not out of the realm of possibility that they did the same back then in order to ride horses.
@@KickAssCowgirl27 You go, girl!
The first human to ride a horse must have been a badass. It probably took a long time for this to be a normal practice and even longer to be widespread but it happened everywhere horses are which is most of Eurasia.
@@KickAssCowgirl27 the American Plains Indians had no experience of horses till the Spanish brought them back in the 14th century- yet the Apache were renowned as the greatest light cavalry. They weren't much for saddles either. Fr
I think it is a mistake, to assume that the bit is the only way to control a horse. Spanish riding traditional uses what is called a hackamore. A woven strip of rawhide encircles the horses muzzle. Pressure on the muzzle, controls the horse.
In modern times, the people of Mongolia ride horses very similar to ancient horses. Very short, and very stocky. The argument that short and stocky horses would not be an advantage, is somewhat ridiculous.
Training a wild horse, without the use of a previously trained horse, is nigh impossible. However, if a young foal were captured, after the killing of its mother, it would be quite easy to train that horse. Very much in the same way that wolf puppies we're probably trained, to be domestic companions.
I think that modern archaeologists have a tendency to belittle the abilities of ancient peoples. It is important to remember that they were every bit as smart as we are. To say that early peoples were not capable of doing what we do all the time, shows a tremendous amount of hubris. If they were eating horses, they had access to foals. If they had access to foals, then they had access to rideable mounts.
Personally, I believe that domestication occurred very early. However, archaeological proof of such domestication would be unlikely to survive. This is why we have not found walrus skin boots, from ancient times. But that's another topic, entirely.
Enjoyed the video. Keep it up
Thank you. And I appreciate your insights - you're right, much of what our ancestors did will not show up in the archeology.
You are 100 percent correct, just like archaeologists claimed that Ancient Man selected the wolves with little fear for humans that followed the camp, no they didn't they took puppies and the puppies had no fear of humans because they are pack animals same thing with horses oh, they killed and ate the adult and raised the foal which had no fear of human
You are my kind of man! I read this thinking, I might as well have written it - including the opinion on archaeologists. 👍🏻 however what I meant to comment myself is, I wonder if there aren't any ancient legends on taming the horse. As with the archaeologists (these poor people's careers can be ruined if they dared speculate as we can!), we also underestimate the ancient legends. I started believing in them when I read about the discovery of Celtic burial in the Bull's Rock cave in Moravia. There had been legends (by the word of mouth) about men in white robes and fire and yelling and moaning... when they excavated the cave, the burial was 3.5 thousand years old! So if a legend can survive that long, why not ten thousand? Ok, and the reason why I wonder is that a domestication of horse was done by "the people", but taming of first horse was done (possibly) by one person, and then the whole tribe learned the skill. And such person gets a special place in legends, and possibly even supernatural powers. So I'd be researching the tales of the folks in the likely areas where the horses were tamed. That could give us surprising clues. Just looking at the Epona story is interesting: why is a woman associated with horse godess? Isn't it showing the special relationship we see today (most of the members of any youth horse club are girls)? What if the first horse tamer was girl? Also, how old is the Epona worship? Can we assume that before becoming a deity some three thousand years ago, there could be centuries of more detailed legend that are now lost? Why should we assume that Epona cult started suddenly, without prior history before becoming a cult? Can we not guess the age of the story by researching the variations of Epona and horse names in various indoeuropean languages? We know "equus" (q changed to P in some Celtic languages), we have "pony", in my native Czech we have "kůň", which is obviously from the same origin, the possibilities are many.
@@zenolachance1181 and they no doubt put their kids up on the backs of the horses as a game...
@@peterkratoska3681 I've seen the video on feral dog but that is not wolves 60000 years ago when wolves would have been a serious threat to humans although I have been looking into toxoplasmosis in animals making them less aggressive toxoplasmosis may have led to domestication of many animals. I don't know if anyone is studying this but it is an interesting topic
I once rode a horse bareback without reins or hackamore inside a fenced area, his name was Dandy who was also blind in one eye. We connected and as we walked around the pasture, he responded to my hand touch and leg pressure…I was holding onto his mane above his shoulder…. He was awesome. My three favorite horses were Dandy, Dixie and Tony, all unique individuals, all a joy to ride and I connected with all of them and many times I rode bareback as well, so it is possible to ride a horse without tack of any kind, but the connection between horse and rider is a must gift for this ability, besides including kindness, a sincere understanding and a deep respect is a must between horse and rider. These horses were NOT mine, they belonged to someone else, but they let me ride them. I still think about them often. I’m 74 now, and unable to ride horses anymore, and of which I do greatly miss. 👍❤️🙏🏼
Love horses and how they played a role in our history. RIP to all the horses that died in battle
Big Role ! You can even see it in humans Body structures , Mongolian, and others , short legs long upper body - my ancestors 600 years on horse back 🐎
I think that the role of children in the development of riding has been ignored. If captured ponies were being used as pack animals or to pull travois, it would not be long before they were used to carry small children, in the same way that burros and asses are commonly used. Everywhere in agricultural societies, you see children astride a variety of domesticated animals (my Philipino nephew was riding water buffalo practically from birth). I suspect that this practice familiarized the horse with the human and the human with the horse in such a way that older and older children remained on the horses until they began to direct them autonomously, rather than just being carried as baggage.
What I think too. I rode our farm cows before my dad finally got me a horse.
Perhaps by accident. A father picking up his tired son on a long journey,and sitting him atop a horse carrying supplies maybe.
@@xScooterAZxPerhaps so. But why is it hard to imagine tough, bold kids playing with fierce horses ? People today have no clue what free kids are like. My father drove the farm truck (Model A Ford) to town on errands as soon as he could reach the pedals, and hunted with a 4 10 shotgun when he was 9. In many parts of the world it was the role of boys to guard the pasturing herds from large predators.
@@mondopinion3777 Did I say it was hard? No,I didnt. I simply was thinking of how a child might be tired and his Father picking him up and sitting him on a horse. Why does that bother you? Tough,bold,kids with fierce horses?
I know the horses my Dad would buy me at auction were always fierce. Half broken so they were bought in bulk cheaply,..and I didnt have any tack,just a rope around their bottom jaw to ride with. He got me 5 in an auction one time. I had to work those horses every day after school.
Oh,and I am old enough to remember living in Hungry Horse Montana and going out on my pony cart to get our Milk cannister,which was about 2 1/2 feet high. and taking it home. I'm quite old,and remember doing manual labour type chores. Chopping wood,and stacking it in the barn,etc. So what's your point about your father riding a bike and hunting. Most people I know from my generation know how to do those things. I had my first rifle when I was 5 years old.
My Dad had a Model A,..I have photos of him it it too :}
@@xScooterAZx We are much alike then. You should understand what my point is. (but I said my dad was driving a truck, not a bike, to town.) These academic theorists make me irritated with their testosterone-driven stress on war in the domestication of horses, and so do the lame comments by sheltered folk who overprotect their kids and cannot conceive what free kids are like. I thought you were one of them. Sorry.
I wonder if anyone has tried tracing the centaur myths to their origins. I always imagined they were the result of the first mounted warriors attacking a village or people that hadn’t seen horses before or at least never seen someone ride one. “Man they came out of no where big 4 legged animals with human torsos attached to them and just started killing us!!”
Interesting, I never thought of it that way before!
The Aztec at first thought that Cortez's horsemen were animals with two heads. So, it's easy to see the concept of the centaur being a folkloric survival of the encounter with horse riding nomadic peoples.
Well, it was likely made by tales of people that stambled upon Kimmerians or scytchians before big greak colonization.
Yes whole papers have been written on it.
@@jozefkozon4520 Yes, I also heard somewhere that the myth of the centaur could have been derived from tales of the Scythians.
I feel like these academics have never actually rode on a horse. That should be a requirement in order to fully understand what they are theorizing.
I'm reminded of the idea that you couldn't use a lance on horseback as a shock trooper before the invention of stirrups. Then some people tested it and found out that you could even use a lance on horseback without the benefit of any sort of riding gear. Instead the stirrup probably better enabled melee on horseback, making it so a fighter could extend his reach by using his legs to regain his balance and make it that much harder for footmen to dehorse him.
@@derrickbonsell there is a saddle that was used that allowed some degree of stability. I belive it was first used my the acheminid empire and then used by Alexander's cavalry.
But then you have evidence from the ancient world explicitly saying that. Xenophon says they couldn't strike with a spear from horseback without risk of falling off.
Yeah for some time historians believed the Roman saddle was of a soft leather kind until archeologists discovered actual surviving wood and leather roman saddles with the four horn tree design, enabling much more stability. The earliest saddles with hard pieces rather than only blankets and leather found so far are from about 500 BC I think on the eastern steppe.
@@DanDavisHistory They would have learned to strike with a spear on horseback just as they would have on foot. It's all about balance.
I didn't know male horses have canine teeth . My gosh , I am 62 yrs old and still learning new things and more interested in learning than ever before in my life .
I've owned horses for 60 years. I can't remember more than a few mares that didn't have them. They are often removed because of the bit hitting them causing pain /infection
Hello Dan,
There was a very interesting documentary on the invention of trousers done by the Deutsches Archaologisches Institut a couple years ago (uploaded to youtube). They posited that the development was necessitated by horse riding. The artifact that was being analyzed was a pair of the oldest known trousers of 2,500 years ago. They were found in a burial site that also had a whip and bridles. It was found in the Tarim basin in East and Central Asia. Worth watching.
Tarim is in Central Asia.
Wow! Thank you for sharing!!!
Yep. The Tocharians, evidence of that in Ukraine 6k yrs ago, as well.
The first horsemen were the kids that raised the little foal, with the help of several of the old tribe elders. They played with it, used it to help them gather firewood and other items.. As the colt grew, and several of the youngsters managed to learn to ride it, the young horse and rider began scouting for the tribe, accomplishing in hours, what would otherwise have taken days. Thus the value of the young horse and rider was understood beyond question. Similarly, paleo kids were probably the first to use flattened frozen hides/skins as play to slide down snowy slopes and hills.. Huge fun and learning experience.
I can see early man killing a mare…..and the scared foal hung around. Plus, it smelled its mom on them.
While old enough to eat grass, it was still attached to mom. So it follows the hunters home because the rest of the herd is long gone.
Initially confused, the hunters laugh this off as a snack following it home. Making for a easy kill later on.
Well, the foal hangs around, at out of loneness decides to hang around a younger non aggressive human for companionship.
This human child may be the kid of a high ranking clan member, so the parent tells the other hunters to leave the foal be for now, since it makes his kid happy.
Well, you know kids. They love climbing on things. Ever see them with a dog?
After a few months, the kid and foal get really attached. The foal grows, and the kid likes the crawl on it.
The now older horse is kind of a quiet omega animal, so it decides it’s better to put up with these scary humans, then being alone. Plus, one human feeds it treats sometimes and keeps nasty predators away.
Well, one day, the kid fully sits on the young horses back. Horse crow hops a few times, turns its head, sniffs, and decides to just keep grazing.
Kid is initially just thrilled with that.
But seeing the horse move around, and even run he starts to get an idea.
He teaches the horse how to respond to a rope(pressure) on the ground (so it won’t wonder off either).
He fashions a crude halter, gets on its back, and applies pressure with the halter and legs for the young horse to move.
Horse, initially startled, decides to do what the “alpha” is telling it do do.
After some trial and error, he is able to ride around, maybe even putting a leather thong around the neck, or a crude blanket on the horses back for grip.
This definitely got the tribes attention, and the young ladies swooning at the sight.
This of course gets the other guys attention. They want to impress the ladies too.
Perhaps they catch other young horses after a hunt and try to copy the first guy.
A few succeed and other uses for horses for hunting , travel, warfare, scouting, and packing goods is quickly discovered.
I am convinced a young man or kid was the first to get on a horses back, and impressed the adults.
When I lived in New Zealand we would come across wild horses around a place called Waiouru, quite magnificent to see them running free, I have a Hungarian horse bow but alas as close as I've come to a wild horse in the UK was a Tesco's lasagna. 😬
The New Forest ponies aren't wild but they roam around and it's lovely seeing them walking about free beneath the trees.
How about the ghostly sights of a giant moose in the fog..on the south island in N.Z...i think south island..I read about Theodore Roosevelt bringing them there..but very rarely seen if at all..but I only read such news and know not from truth or false..
@@tashaarellano7680 I've not seen a moose in New Zealand, and done plenty of hunting in my time with rifle and bow there. I would surmise that it was a fiordland wapiti which grow huge in size with massive antlers that was mistaken for a moose if one the person who 'spotted it' was unfamiliar with moose or maybe the wapitis antlers were covered in undergrowth giving a moose like appearance, I've seen plenty of moose in Scandinavia and I could understand the mistake. That been said there are some strange tails of unaccountable creatures sneaking around in the depths of some of those dark forests in the South Island. I've learnt not to write off any accounts from tails of the forests as I have personally witnessed time itself stop and have myself and a friend stand in limbo for what must have been hours, a life changing experience with no explanation.
I used to see them when training in the Waiouru area.Way back in the early 1980's.
@@terryharris1291 at least at night you could hear the horses clip clop when they came up on your hole to give you a sniff, not so with the Maori sergeants , sneaky mofos
Hit it Brother
th-cam.com/video/Bto47Lq7sCs/w-d-xo.html
If Botai horses were not domesticated then we need not assume Przewalski's horses were ever domesticated since they descend from Botai horses. The big DNA paper looking at steppe horse DNA has been in the pipeline since 2018 and still isn't published but when it is out we will know for sure whether modern horse breeds descend from WSH horses and that will be very telling in regards to who domesticated them.
As for mounted warfare - i don't believe WSH used horses in battle either. I think they would be perfect for scouting and also as symbols of power to intimidate enemies though.
Yeah there's now no good evidence the Przewalski's ancestors were ridden but some researchers believe there was some domestication - herding or managing and milking. Although other evidence suggests they weren't even doing that. I dunno what Alan Outram reckons as of 2021. But loose management systems are extremely difficult to detect.
And for sure - a band of large men coming over the horizon riding horses slowly toward your village would have been absolutely baffling and horrifying. And it's quite possible that only a select few early people were "the riders" in their society. Experts at travelling distances rapidly. Hard to imagine that cultures where raiding was so central to their culture would not have taken advantage of it.
@@DanDavisHistory Amino acids preserved in Botai pottery confirm horse milk was used. This is proof of horse domestication for cattle-like purposes (milk and meat). Frozen Scythian remains preserve at least three versions of horse harnessing.
If you look at the Norwegian fjord horse, there is a lot of likenesses to the Przewalski horses. So much so, that there must have been breeding and domestication. By the way, how do you milk a horse without domesticating it?
@@PotPoet An interesting fact is that humans cannot consume horse milk, due to its high lactose content. However, horse milk's high sugar content means that it will ferment within 24 hours, to create airag or khumis. So, one wonders what was kind of horse milk was in the pottery? Alcohol wouldn't leave a residue, I suppose? Horse milk can be made into yogurt balls - qurt or kurut, a staple of all horse riding nomads. www.atlasobscura.com/articles/what-is-qurt
@@oduffy1939 Stupid question. If horse milk is to high lactose to drink, then how does consuming it in other ways also not have high lactose?
People I know who are lactose intolerant usually stay away from things like ice cream or other dairy products
Wouldn't the lactose remain to high, of it's to high to drink?
I have watched modern Lakota in South Dakota ride bare over hilly terrain back using the manes to hold onto. Their relatives did so too with only a couple centuries experience with horses. I have also watched amazing horse riding acrobatics in Hungary where only simple harnesses were used. It is easy to conclude that ancient nomadic cultures probably had even greater knowledge and skill from a millennia of living with their 4 legged companions.
that said, these early horses were still at the advent of their development, genes that gave them stronger backs, longer legs, better heart endurance, easier trainability is still just developing which makes it all the more impressive
The Comanche were weak and beat on tribes , until the Horse 🐎 then became one of the strongest people in North America
I'm also living in Parkston South Dakota where are you in the state?
Trying to ride a hard-to-find horse sounds a lot like modern rodeo
I ride bareback and without a bit all the time, you don't control a horse with a bit, you control them with their nose. Its not impossible to ride without. Maybe for someone who doesn't know horses. I also ride a dominant mare, the head mares are worth their weight in gold, she was search and rescue. Bought her for about 500$ and learned to ride on a dominant male gelding, and gentled the ex stud in my profile pic. I have some quams with the experts, I actually went to school for equine studies, and have lots of yeses and nos. I recommend looking up mustang makeover contestants if you really wanna learn about the wild ones. Bits also predate the wheel, riding did come first, I remember that test question in My equine history class very well. It was stirrups that were the HUGE game changer. Mongolia and Kahastekstan were the first to domesticate and did it around the same time. Many native tribes in rhe US favored mares for their overprotectiveness and willingness to defend their riders. Mares, and horses in general will lay down their life for you. Mules and donkeys, to the 11th degree. Even though we originally domesticated for food, they're mankind's most underrated and misunderstood MVP. Horses originated in North America, migrated, and died off, but continued to live everywhere else
You're right about the stirrup, which the Huns brought to Europe in the 5th century. About horses protecting the rider, Mongolian epic poetry and folklore always depicts the hero's horse as his faithful companion, who in the midst of battle fights alongside the hero. The horse also speaks to the hero and is often the one who exhorts the hero when he falters.
@@oduffy1939 thats beautiful
Denisovans might have been the first to domesticate horses tho
@@Yarblocosifilitico Horses got across the the Stepps by the same route the First Nations peoples were supposed to have gotten to North America - from what is now currently Alaska to Russia. That being the case, its likely the Mongolians were the first humans to see horses since they lived in the area.
@@Whistlewalk the Mongolians? really? Not even proto-Mongols, PIEs or Scythians? If we're only talking about 'seeing' horses, well, the Denisovans coexisted with some proto-horses about 24,000 years ago. I don't think the Mongolians can top that ;P
siberiantimes.com/science/casestudy/news/n0877-remains-of-extinct-zebra-like-horse-found-at-denisova-cave-home-of-ancient-man/
I guess Denisovans aren't technically 'humans', but still, plenty of ancient humans before the Mongolians. It's probably impossible to know which hominid saw horses for the first time. Horses might have gotten to the Americas through Siberia to Alaska but that doesn't mean they weren't roaming the rest of Eurasia long before that. Horses and hominids could've met for the first time pretty much anywhere in Eurasia.
The detail on horse domestication in the Horse, the Wheel and Language was one of the best parts of the book.Domestication of the horse was the central most important basis for spurring the economy of the steppe people, from what I have read in this and other sources. I think it's what makes the steppe cultures so very fascinating. They were such innovators and this one thing changed the course of all of future civilizations. It's vital to the history of human civilization, so you need to devote enough time to sufficiently explore it.
Theay got Iron first. In X ce. BC.
Greetings from Canada
I think I watched this great little documentary a while ago, but this time thru I’m wondering if the debate about how migratory human populations controlled their horse herds during travel phases.
Maybe it was just something that didn’t come up, in the sense that the migratory routes were generations old, and the horses were recognized as being the best navigators of any one of a number of variations and detour necessitating events and obstacles?
One thing that is fairly unarguable is how much more confident arrogant presumptuous and fallible human beings are nowadays then they were ten thousand years ago.
The narrator almost gets to the point of introducing this type of theory by about minute 24 I think….
I have a horse who was a wild stallion. I ride with no bit and trained him initially without a saddle. My daughter jumps him bareback and bridleless. The bit is meant to be communication tool, not a control mechanism. It informs the head and shoulders while the legs inform the barrel and hind end.
I learned earlier this year that horses were already present in America before the Spanish and they even said that it was those horses that made it over to Asia across the land bridge. It was basically the complete opposite of what had been established. I love this sort of archeological research because every year, we learn more and more, with every dig, book found, etc., etc. It's pretty cool! Seeing all those old culture names was pretty amazing, since they were so foreign to me. It really makes you think about how humans developed over time and who survived and what got passed down to today, if anything at all.
not only horses... camels too... they both evolved in the Americas and when the landbridge brought the Siberians open, the animals spread to Asia and beyond...
but the Siberians in the Americas ate the horses in the continent, and considering that the escaping to Asia horses were the size of a dog... then yes!... the Spaniards brought back an all-new species...
@user-McGiver Yeah, they weren't anything like what we have now. They were pretty small...I think even smaller than miniature horses. Would have made for a tasty snack for someone or something!
@@Shifang Yeah!... try ''everyone and everything'' better, and explain that to the horse too... that by finding a use for it and ''evolving'' it we saved it... the thing is that those invading from Siberia ''Mongols'' [ same religion and customs ] ate the entire mega-fauna of the Americas... outa ''love and respect for life and Nature'' [crap]
Horses of th present variety were present in North America 18000 years ago and the ancestors of our Indigenous cousins slaughtered over 1000 Genera of species including the horse (the Pleistocene Extinction).
I grew up around Plains Indians and they say "the horse made us" but none of them realize it was actually the Spanish who made them by re-introducing horses to North America ... but this time they were smart enough to ride them rather than slaughter them.
The notion of the ecological in tune Indian is worse that a myth - it is a lie.
that's not the opposite of what had been established - the fact that horses originate in America, from where they migrated into Asia, is well known for quite some time. Other thing is that American wild horses later died out and were only reintroduced by Europeans in early modern times... now, there is some evidence that some American horses potentially survived into later pre-Columbian times, but the clear pattern of horse-riding spreading and completely altering lifestyle of plain tribes in early modern times shows that these potential survivors weren't domesticates and didn't have any real impact on pre-Colombian society...
My opinion is if they were raising them, someone would try riding them.
Make sens, considering that this took place over a wide era, thousands of years, so sure, they was used to horse, hunted them for ages, observed and knowed them well. Maybe they became less with time for some reason, then people protected their food ressources against other people and predators. With the time, some foals was raised, and of course, became still tamer, and one day, why not, one hopped on them after lot other trials. ;) - Fall was hard, but would do it again !
Probably the first to try were teenage boys playing with horses that were being kept for food. You get some boys around any kind of animal big enough to ride, and they'll try it.
more simple, someone placed a child on the back of tamed horse, that started it, or at first they put a basket on the horse while walking to help carry things, and then a basket with a baby and then a kids.. it is simple enough. I have seen 3 year children who have no idea what a horse is get on the back of a big dog.
People raised cattle, sheep, goats, pigs and chickens. "If they were raising them, someone would try riding them" is either wrong or all the attempts were so spectacularly unsuccessful that no-one bothered to try a second time.
@@davidgould9431 People have been riding water buffalos in Indonesia for a long time. My cousin had a cow trained to take a saddled and ride it. People have used oxen for a long time too. I remember it was fun trying to ride the hog.
As a child, I rode horses bareback and used my knees and the horses' manes to transmit commands. I often use a halter instead of a bridle. I have seen people giving commands to horses with their feet while standing up on them and also using clucking sounds.
A wild horse can be trained for basic riding in less than a month. Surely modern horses, even wild ones, probably have traits selected over time by humans that makes training easier. I suspect, however, that those traits were always there in some horses.
While I doubted it until I saw it, there is the phenomenon of the horse whisperer. I wonder how that could have played into the domestication of horses to allow riding them. There's something special between some people and some horses.
I've never used more than a halter or rope around the horses neck
@@maggiethedruid9010 I'll bet you don't wear spurs, either. I haven't used them since I was about 12. Really, with a trained horse spurs aren't necessary, and I wouldn't use them today at any point in a horse's training.
I'd say that once horses started being domesticated for food that's when the riding began. It's a natural progression of human thought. Human wants to sit on rock, stone or log as opposed to ground. Here's a seemingly docile animal right next to me about hip height, I'll indulge my curiosity or your dare and see what happens if I do this.
About hip height? I had to climb in a tree to get on my horse bareback... I was only about four foot ten when I was 13
@@zenolachance1181 The horses referred to in this video and that I am referring to are pony sized or not much bigger than. You're speaking of modern horses, this video is not.
But, in the Orient, did prehistoric people **SIT ON A WOK**?...(ROFL)
@@CLASSICALFAN100 Lmao!
@@CLASSICALFAN100 I can't bring myself to clear this comment, it's just too funny!
Even if they weren't riding them into battle, I could easily see a band using them to get from point a to point b, then dismount to fight. Like Dragoons originally did during the 16th and early 17th centuries. Being able to move quickly on a horse from your camp to a fight had to be valuable in of itself or just lash the loot or supplies to the horse as you move along. Even if a cavalry charge wasn't a thing. I could easily see horses and horse riding being a valuable aspect of warfare during the Indo-European migration.
Excellent. I absolutely admire Steppe culture, but I think the later argument has more evidence. With history, one never knows what will come to light at a later date.
This debunks Arab nationalist who think Horses were first tamed in Arabia (they literally believe that)
Do they really? Well I guess everyone has their own historical myths.
The same with coffee, or CovFeFe as many now call it, to which they also lay claim, but it came from Ethiopia.
@@DanDavisHistory yes lol. Arabian folklore states the first horses were tamed by them.
I study Arab culture a lot and have a lot of Arab friends.
Trust me even non nationalist Arabs think they tamed the first horses
The only thing they domesticated were camels but even that’s debatable. Camel domestication likely happened in east africa.
@@ChromeMan04Arabia is actually extension of Africa itself.Not a separate entity.
I think a good piece of evidence for the early riding hypothesis is the high value placed on horses by Yamnaya (and descendant peoples) who were mainly eating sheep and cows.
They were burying people with horse skulls and hides, had horse head shaped maces, and horse inscribed stones. Also the horse was very important ritually to the indo european peoples, with a common ritual significance shared by peoples whose ancestry split before the late horse riding hypothesis is dated to.
I was wondering about that. I can buy that maybe the spread of the Proto-Indo-Europeans was due to the mastery of cart/chariot technology rather than horseback riding, but it really surprised me to hear that there was nothing before the first millennium BC (not even in the Vedas?) that suggested a more intimate/"bums on backs" relationship between Indo-Europeans and the horses that seemed to be pretty important to them judging by the texts and legends that have come down to us and our ability to identify so many horse-related words of Proto-Indo-European by tracing existing cognates of later and even modern Indo-European languages back to common roots...
Actually it was the botai culture not the yamnaya and they were speaking uralic language. You can find the article on the pubmed by searching keywords.
@@ghostriderb.9914 no, it's debunked
Most people are not aware how cold resistant horses actually are: the breed of the turkic yakut/Sakha people in north-east siberia can deal with temperatures of -70°C/-94°F, being outdoors all the year - and winter lasts almost 9 month there. The yakut cattle is extremly resistant too - although it is less resilient than the horses and is usually brought to stables during winter occasionally cattle escapes into the wild and survives to the next spring.
I'm extremly fascinated by the yakut/Sakha who fled from the mongols to the north and adapted their typical turkic nomadic lifestyle to one of the harshest environments on earth.
Weren't the Yakut primarily a reindeer herding people, who also happened to have horses and other cattle? I understand they also ride reindeer.
@@oduffy1939
Yes, they are also reindeer herders - but so are the mongols. The republic of Sakha (yakutia) is a gigantic territory, the largest subnational region of the world and comparably big as the european union - so it depends where exactly you are. Further north yakutia is characterized by tundra where the reindeer which can live of mosses is the primary lifestock, further south the horse plays are role. The sakha/yakut migrated from regions further south to their lands to escape the mongols in the middle ages and took their horses with them. Their non-turkic neighbors who partly share their territory rely less on horse and cattle and are more specialized on the reindeer.
#51.
Thanks for a great video and for having the humility to present the various theories in as fair a way as is possible, and without pretending to know things that probably nobody knows for sure.
I watch a lot of historical content, and I'd say you're easily one of the best. You have a wonderful voice and your diction is flawless. You make it a pleasure to learn about these ancient societies. My thanks.
The "chariot first" theory for warfare makes more sense to me. Trying to fight and control a large animal by yourself seems daunting. Having someone else drive leaves you free to shoot and throw. It is also a much shorter leap from wagons to chariots, than wagons to riding.
Wooden carts with wheels were most definitely just flopped on a horse and blam “chariot/wagon”
From what I've read about Sumerian chariots, they were rather slow moving cumbersome four wheeled vehicles drawn by onagers compared to the fast moving two spoke-wheeled Egyptian/Hittite chariots of the late Bronze Age. They were difficult to manuever and could only be made to charge into battle in one direction on flat grounds. The need to turn direction would've being difficult to achieve, while rocky ground would've been dangerous as it could knock the charioteers off their platform, or shatter the chariot's wheels or overturn the vehicle. It would've been intimidating for the mountain tribes that periodically invaded Mesopotamia who'dve been unused to the sight though, and as a result it would've been an effective psychological weapon.
@@bc7138 also you have terrifying option of just putting blades on your chariot and lighting it on fire suicide bombing the front lines of your enemy of course I mean that later on in history when horses could run a tad bit faster
A pulling horse takes 3 x the training of a ridden horse. With a wagon/chariot only the bit gives clues of what to do. A good horseman can ride with no bit, just using legs & body movement's to let the horse know what to do. Ever notice that troops pulling cannon always have at least one troop mounted when pulling. Not expert, but have trained a few horses to both ride & pull.
@@MrBobVick well then that means they must have had some really well trained horses then huh
To this day, in my native dialect of Croatia we still call livestock of all kind "blago" which in literal sense means treasure/wealth. As such, a man blessed with livestock/horses is blessed in wealth indeed. This most of all regards to bovines and horses.
That's wonderful! And absolutely right.
@@DanDavisHistory I find your videos extremely interesting and wish you all the best in your future works ! I am happy your videos are picking up, they certainly deserve the attention.
Bronze Age is criminaly underresearched and lacking its presence in attention of people who are interested in history. But I am happy that in recent few years both archeology and people like you are doing great work to bring up this very interesting age into its deserved spotlight.
Thank you, I really appreciate that.
The Anglo-Saxon word "fee" come from the word for cattle. As with most Indo-European pastoral peoples, cattle was the currency. In ancient Ireland, a man could only have a wife if he had the required number of cows, sheep, and horses; and he would pay the bride's family in a set number of cattle.
Wow! Blago means something good in Russian. Blagodarit' - "to thank", where darit' means "to give". So that literally means "to give cattle". I've just learned something new. Thanks 👍
P.s. I can't give you any cattle, though, as I don't own any. 😁😁😁
Many of the native peoples here in North America who captured and used the feral horses that escaped from the Spanish, trained and rode them without bits and bridles. They used a leather thong with a loop in the end that was placed in the horse's mouth for steering and control. Other leather straps were braided into the horse's mane for a handhold, and a simple pad and strap were used for a saddle. The person riding the horse invested a lot of time and effort into training it to work with the rider, just like people do today. Different methods, similar results. There's no reason why the ancient steppe people didn't do the same thing. The leathers would leave it no trace being organic, and it was more than likely only some people were of a mind to try the idea out... There's always one guy or gal who says "I wonder what would happen if..." So, I am of the mind that horse taming and riding was early, but the idea didn't exactly spread like wildfire until later
That was already accounted for by Anthony. They trained horses using leather and hemp bits; their findings suggest that they too would leave marks on horses' teeth.
Your videos are brilliant. Keep reading and keep making them.
I grew up with horses and even though I live in a city now, I've never stopped being fascinated by horses and I'm always researching and learning as much as I can about these incredible animals. This video taught me some super cool facts I didn't know, like stallions having evolved canines for fighting and those amazing cheek plates - just wow! I'm so appreciative!! Love your videos xo
I imagine the early horse-eaters used them somewhat as the Suomi use reindeer. Riding, if it happened at all, would be of minor importance, and I can't see it happening at all until well after mares were first milked. Possibly horses were first used as pack animals, or to pull a travois. The early Irish used to hitch horses to the plough by tying it to their tail.
The Mesopotamian horse racing looks remarkably like a donkey derby, and that is still the most popular way to ride a donkey bareback. A proper saddle, even a Roman style one with no stirrups, makes a great difference in speed for either horse or donkey.
No way could a horse pull a plough with its tail, it would just pull the hair out. It takes a large amount of force to pull a plough through the soil.
Fair Blessed Gwenhwyfar, the Irish like to tell the tall tails! The tales are there for amusement!
@@SigurdVolsunga On the contrary. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Act_against_Plowing_by_the_Tayle,_and_pulling_the_Wooll_off_living_Sheep I read the Estyn Evans essay that it cites many years ago.
@@SigurdVolsunga the Spanish in Mexico used the horses tail to rope cattle before they developed a saddle with a horn . Saddles with roping horns are a recent development , about 300 years old . As well the plow you are thinking of is a moldboard plow which is also very recent development , the earlier plows were just a sharp stick with a beam , which could easily be pulled by a horse tail . Some times they were pulled by the farmers wife
@@jenniferbrien3408 it must have been an ard (a point for breaking the ground) rather than a true plough. A horse simply wouldn't be able to actually plough by pulling it with it's tail. There is just way to much force required to pull an actual plough through the ground.
An online search on this mainly found Irish sources calling tales of them tieing inplements to horses tails slander, and descriptions of crude harrows tied to horses tails.
"Numidian horsemen rode without saddles or bridles, controlling their mounts with a simple rope around their horse's neck and a small riding stick. They had no form of bodily protection except for a round leather shield or a leopard skin, and their main weapon were javelins in addition to a short sword." (Wikipedia)
So the technology needed to be effective mounted warriors would certainly have been available to neolithic horse herders. Whether the horses were capable of being used in the style of the numidians is another question and just because something was possible doesn't mean people actually did it, but it seems a lot more likely that early horsemen would have fought primarily with javelins than as shock troops with battleaxes.
It appears that the Numidian Horsemen were superb. The Roman Cavalry could neither chase them off or close with them to engage. They probably had some sort of gear on their mounts to carry javelins and water/wine bottles at the very least.
@@cliffordjensen8725 artwork from the period shows them carrying a bundle of spare javelins in their off hand. A waterskin could have been slung over their shoulder if they needed it.
Excellent analysis & formed - reassured my opinion of early horsemen. Thank you
Thank you for watching.
As a horsewoman and behaviourist, your account of equine hierarchy, herd structure and behaviour in such a succinct and informed way is one of the best I have ever heard.... from history or indeed from any horse behaviourist or trainer! Brilliant 👏
Wow, love the presentation of different hypotheses!
Terrific, informative video, thanks Dan. 👍🌱🌿
This channel needs more subs. Great stuff. 100 k subs this year
Thank you very much. Let's hope so.
That Mesopotamian 'horse' led by a nose ring (19:54) looked more like wolf to me, like some mythic godlike entity riding a giant wolf and leading it by a nose ring after the fashion of bulls being led by nose rings.
Another excellent video! This vid made me think about James Burke’s “Connections” when he talked about how the “stirrup” changed horse mounted warfare drastically. As an innovation it was a turning point that made shock war on horseback even more effective.
When we speak about the invention of gunpowder, one of the arguments against its convergent invention in Europe and China is that it appears in European historical record alongside basic firearms. While Mesopotamia might have left first concrete evidence of horses being ridden, wouldn't there then have been a period when horses were used for other purposes there, like gunpowder was used for medicine and later fireworks in China, before it was used for weaponry?
cogent
Great topic! Always fascinated with how our ancestors lived.
I appreciate your use of photos of the covers of the books you referenced. It gives me a subtle motivation to consider buying the books you have used.
Thanks, glad you liked it.
Thank u for ur videos man. Ur work is endlessly fascinating.
To start off with, I love horses. It is hard to remember when I first saw a horse. But I do remember the first time I was close up to a horse. I was maybe 4 years old and to me the horse was so huge. I had to go or shall I say sneak past his stall to go to the toilet each time I needed to go. This was on the farm our family owned in Norway. When I came to Australia at the age of 8 there were several horses in the paddock at the back of our house. These were owned by the commissioner of Police at the time here in Brisbane. I helped the boys from the farm to feed the horses and one of the horses was my favourite. His name was Smokey. I would hop onto his back by grabbing his mane and throwing my leg over his back and holding on for life and limb. He was agisted on a 10 acre, though a long block of land with the other horses and halfway along the block there were some tea trees growing. He would gallop towards the trees with me hanging on, as I said with for dear life. One of the trees had a horizontal branch growing out from it that Smokey was able to fit under whilst galloping at a rather fast speed, though he did slow down a little as he knew I could not fit with me on top of him. So, I always ended up on the ground with him eating grass a foot or so away from my head, probably thinking, 'are you stupid or something boy? We have done this so many times now so you should know what happens'. But I did not care. I would get up and pat and talk to him. Grab him around the neck and swing about off the ground while he still ate grass. But he surprised me one day. I had just filled his container full of chaff and I was standing on his left side as one does when mounting a horse. He was eating and I was stroking him, then suddenly he grabbed me by one of my 9 year old boy boobs and lifted me over the container he was eating from and put me down on his righthand side. He then continued to eat. He had not actually hurt me, nor broken the skin at all, though I did develop a bit of a bruise from his teeth. Even so, I kept stroking him till he was finished so I could put his container, a galvanised baby bath, away. Unfortunately, he ended up with tetanus a couple of years later and had to be destroyed. I have owned my own horses since then and I named one of the Smokey. oooops, that was a rather long story.🙂
It's hard for me to except horses were not ridden until 6,000 yrs ago . I was obsessed with horses my whole childhood . As a 5yr old walked up to this local boarding place "the corrals" and I'd have a length of cotton rope with me , to use like the Indians , I'd seen in books and TV. I choose a pony or horse, catch it slip this rope into their mouth , put my pre-tied loop around the lower jaw and climb on . The climbing on was tricky , sometimes waiting for them to put their head down , step over behind the ears , they'd lift their head and up I'd go ! Slip down to the withers and turn around ! It felt GREAT every time . I'd climb up a fence pulling the animal close an launch to land where I needed to be . I'd ride around the corral awhile , if all's well then , open the gate and out and about I'd go ! As other comment's mention , I too rode anything that could support me , goats by far were the easiest to practice with . But sheep , were hands down the funnest . Especially in the winter . My friends and I would have the time of our lives having these woolies drag us through the mud , great days .
Now I'm missing , more and more , the horsedays of my life . Thinking , I need another in my last chapter of this life . Just feels right to be out in the hills riding , looking for another adventure to experience. ✌️🙈🙊🙉👍
all bare back short lived and a great deal of fun thats how riding skills where developed
We have an old saying in Germany ""Get a Foal and you get the Mare and then you get the Stallion for free"" The Importens is the Foal and the next foal , you let it grow with a young Boy and it will let him sit on top of it , in Mongolia the Jockey are mostly young boys
Is it at all possible that horse riding started in the Indus valley . Researchers have indicated that for the spread of the Indo European languages , horses were the means of covering vast amounts of territory. Therefore mobility could only be achieved by the utilization of horses. I am looking forward to the responses.
@@phillipmaasdorp9491 The hierarchy is bones leather as Wappen meat and milke as food than pulling carring for transport and ad the last came horse riding .The ratio soldier/horse never got ander 4/1 like in ww 2 so I know
I never had the impression from reading Anthony that he was suggesting the Yamnaya were capable of mounting actual armed cavalry operations. But it isn't hard to imagine that armed warriors, skilled enough in horse control to manage herds, might have also used them for getting to a location for a quick raid and then escaping on them afterwards. People on foot would have difficulty catching up with raiders who could get away on horses even if for a short distance with relative primitive means of controlling the animals. In fact, this would have been such a valuable advantage that it is hard to imagine someone would not have developed the tactic at a relative early date. One might further conjecture that actual cavalry tactics might have developed later as a means of defending against such predation.
No Anthony specifically argues against armed cavalry invasions, he says that is a feature of the Iron Age but he does talk about mounted raiders.
@@DanDavisHistory It is interesting to speculate if improved horsemanship might have played a role in the Bronze Age collapse. More effective mounted forces would have played havoc on the long trade routes that had developed up to that time. And that could be why the Iron age saw the growing use of horses as a military asset.
@@DanDavisHistory I don't think Mr. Shannon was suggesting large scale cavalry operations; but rather small scale raids, perhaps along the lines of the Táin Bó Cúailnge from Irish myth? Cattle raids are a feature of all nomadic/pastoral peoples, with or without horse (or camel) riding. Ten guys riding bareback without horse bits, arrive to the camp of whomever they're raiding. Get off the horses, steal whatever they're stealing, and get back on the horses to escape. Raiding, for pastoral peoples, is what passed for warfare for thousands of years.
The Botai taught them and they merged, cementing the Proto Indo European language and their technology conquered the earth.
@@TigerWoodsLibido It would be a thousand years before anyone was conquering anyone from the back of a horse.
I have to put my two bits in. As a kid on the prairies, maybe nine to ten years old, I rode and loved a horse that I rode everywhere with nothing but touch, love, and a halter. My girl would lower her head so I could put my foot in the loop of the halter rope, then raise her head and let me slide down her neck to her back. Don't discount those kind of bonds in prehistory. Notice that modern humans make pets of some of the animals that they raise for slaughter...that is not a thing of civilization but profoundly old.
Riding and fighting from horse back would be different things.
Well,yes they are. However you need to learn balance for both though. First you need to learn to ride,then to use weapons,then to learn to use them together. Ancient Mongols did both,..on the run.
@@xScooterAZx While being 5.
Ancient riders probably rode on the back side of the horse because horses spine wasn't adapted to heavy loads in the middle. Even modern horses have a lot of spine problems, even with modern saddles
Oddly, today I heard a radio report that (among other things) said that the genetics of the modern horse gives them a stronger spine than the horse types which are now extinct.
I think the ability to ride wagons or even horses TO battle was already a massive advantage, making one group able to quickly invade and settle new lands deep inside others’ territory. This was later complimented by light battle wagons followed by ultra light charriots and eventually by war horses bred for riding into battles.
One of the most important “steps” for human progress was the “taming” of the horse ! The horse then became the biggest helper of men, for everything !
I think I take something of a middling position in terms of the Yamnaya riding horses into Europe: using horses in warfare =/= fighting your opponents from horseback. I agree with Drews that some random steppe herder on horseback wouldn't be a particularly big combat multiplier for them in a face-to-face fight. But I wouldn't discount the value of mobility when it comes to the type of warfare that would have been happening in the EBA. The Yamnaya probably used horses much as early modern dragoons, ride up to the fight before dismounting to do the fighting.
And keep in mind that there would have been little in the way of 'pitched battles' during the centuries long, decentralized movement into Europe. Most 'warfare' would have consisted of endemic skirmishing and cattle rustling. Where that sort of 'dragoon' fighting style would have been a massive combat multiplier, without a single herder having to ever needing swing an axe from horseback.
Bless this man and all his links in the description. I've been looking for great maps of pre-historic migrations.
Apparently, people who are much more experienced equestrians than I have confirmed that bareback horse ridding is not only possible, but common. In that case, it might be that the use of horses as battlefield cavalry was a later development than most people thought, but none the less, I would imagine the ability to ride horses would enable a roving tribe of conquerors a much greater mobility advantage over their enemies, even if the horse was simply a means of transportation between battles and sieges.
Personally I think that the early steppe peoples would have used horses to move to and from raids rather than fight from horse back, I remember reading that naitive american tribes when they first got the horse did a similar thing before they got the hang of fighting from horse back
Yeah their mobility would still convey and advantage even if the warriors dismounted before battle.
Ancient Mongolians used horses to fight with. They used bows and arows to fight while riding them.They were famous for doing so. As a matter of fact,one of the most famous Horse people were the Scythians.
@@xScooterAZx But that's thousands of years later, from the time horses were domesticated, which I think is the author's point.
@@oduffy1939 His comment was this,in part::
"Personally I think that the early steppe peoples would have used horses to move to and from raids rather than fight from horse back."
The part about the Native Americans is the part that was much later than what I was saying. I was also simply adding to his comment,not attempting to refute it.
Dear Dan, Any history of Equus is welcomed by me. The Anthropological dealings with Equus in Ancient History is fascinating to say the least. I always used to say that St. Paul (was struck off his horse: a white Andulisian - of course) when he met with his conversion, to today; with the diaspora of Equus throughout the world. Well done! As this was a wonderful documentary; reaching back that far. P
My ancestors had bow shaped legs, because of riding horses. A Russian tourist in his memoir touring around Mongolian country side, wrote that how he didn’t understand why windows in traveling shops made in so high, then he understood nomad Mongols shop while still on their horse😊
Love your presentations. Thank you for your dedication and fine production.
I appreciate your scholarship based on open-mindedness.
I believe that as soon as young men discovered that riding a horse any distance at all impressed young women it would have become a major activity . Virtually as soon as they were herded . Call it the Rodeo hypothesis
My guess is that horse riding developed after seeing people ride oxen. We see Rock Art in the Sahara of people riding oxen and some South-African Tribes like the Khoi-Khoi and Xhosa also rode oxen into battle. So I think Neolithic Europeans also used oxen for riding on occasion.
Horse Milk residue was found on human teeth from the 3rd Millennium BC. somewhere in the Black Sea Steppe. So again not a massive jump from milking cows to milking horses. Same with pulling carts or a travois. Cattle basically served as blueprint for what can possibly be achieved by using the horse.
Have you got a source for the battle oxen in South Africa? Everything I have seen on warfare in the region records them both as fighting on foot, and riding oxen into battle would have been remarkable, so likely to be recorded and commented on.
Angkor Wat has some carvings of what appears to be people riding Rhino's.
I believe the riding oxen into battle is apocryphal. People have been riding oxen here in Africa for millennia, but what use would an ox be in battle? Ox-back archer? I think Europeans saw people riding oxen like horses and then assumed they used them in other ways horses are used, as in battle.
@@philipgeyer926Not apocryphal at all. They used oxen in this manor to charge horses of the Vryburgers and with some success were able to injure some horses. Basically used as a shock tactic but not extensively afterwards in battle. Gaan kyk maar na een van die frescoes in die Voortrekker monument.
@@SigurdVolsunga Voortrekker Monument. I do not have a better source than the Frescoe but I read it in a book many years ago about this so have to go look where I read it.
In Chinese history, there is details of when they learn riding horses from there northern neighbor the Xiong.
But thousands of years before that, there were already horses pulling carriage and Chariots.
Chariots were introduced via the steppe cultures too.
@@DanDavisHistory yes, so I believe that human learned to use horses for chariots years before learning to ride
Just came upon your channel this morning and, im definitely impressed! Fantastic content
Love this!! Very well presented. Will try your other programmes, Thank you.
Very interesting video, thank you for it
I'm firmly on the early riding hypothesis: you can ride a horse without nearly anything at all, especially if as other people mentioned you grew up with it
Other thing is I grew up on the farm and I tried to ride any animal we ever had (out of curiosity) - and while adults wouldn't probably do it, I'm sure some of Neolithic kids would have a go: you're just curious and adventurous as a kid. How on Earth do you llive among horses for thousands of years and never try to ride one? Ridiculous.....
There is also the issue of viewing horse riding in terms of warfare as only fighting from horseback, we know of a plenthora of troops throughout history who did not fight on horseback but travelled on a horse but fought on foot. The mere notion of being able to transport and deploy your soldiers to one place or the other and then have them fight on foot was a massive advantage by itself, and possibly predated fighting directly from horseback by centuries, if not millenias.
Look for signs of riding in the bones of the riders and any artifacts related to riding. There is a video of the oldest trousers discovered in Kazakhstan and go from there
Just found a vid about those trousers a few weeks ago! İndeed. Good point. 👍Need to find the published work now. Hopefully.😊
I wondered about that. People who grew up riding and rode for long hours tend to have bowed legs and other anatomical indicators.
Funy tho sad, that non-academic people are forced to go around and rediscover what was well documented before, bocouse of limited availibility of sources in public domain.
' Kuş Kanatlı Türk Atli= Bird with wings Turk with horse'... Whether Eastern, Western or Eurasian part of our human ancesstors' had domesticated it, horses are our beloved animal...It is good to trace the roots, but it is even better seeing alll humanity loves this wonderfull animal...
There is part of the video where you talk about maybe they rode basically bareback gripping the mane controlling the horse with legs, possibly a blanket and belly band (made out of materials that rotted away) but that this wouldn't be militarily useful. I agree that you couldn't do shock cavalry with it. However there are all sorts of other military relevant options.
1. Scout
2. Horse archery from stationary horse. (Ride, stop, shoot, ride...or just the extra range you get from being up higher give a boon)
3. Dragoon style. Ride up, most men dismount and go about their warefare, return to the horses and ride off. This would be very beneficial in raids where you can zoom in, strike, and when the alarm is raised, run out throw your loot on your horse and ride away. Also great for attacking where the enemy army is not, or bringing troops around to attack from the rear.
Before horse-riding, I would guess a thousand years at least of small horses for haulage, perhaps first without and later with, wheels.
I wonder how it would affect overall the Kurgan hypothesis, if the Kurgans were in fact not those aggressive horse-riders, but rather just fancied horse meat and were really good husbandmen
Yeah Anthony points out mechanisms that could have resulted in steppe dominance other than waves of pure violence. Some people would like to find multiple massacre sites before they believe it was conquest by systemic violence.
@@DanDavisHistory Well, Horseriders were first to get iron, and whole Celtic was inspired by them. Also, By some sources, Scythians were botch very warior-like and somewhat pacefule, by achemenid standards.
Horses are absolutely magnificent creatures that should be respected and protected.
I used to,work at a stable, mucking out stalls.
Had mean, neutral, and sweet stallions.
One “mean” expensive stallion was an Egyptian Arab who would bite you at any chance. What’s worse I had to clean the stall with him loose in it.
Wearing thick soft rubber boots, one “horse kick” to his chest when he snaked behind me and bit me in the butt. That one kick gave him a much needed attitude adjustment.
He behaved in a corner after that.
I showed the owner the bite mark and told them what happened. Horse was fine, and while upset I kicked him….they admitted he had been getting nasty and bitey.
They saw how when he saw me, he went to a clean corner and just stood there, nose down, being quiet.
Plus, he was fine, no bruising or mark on his chest.
Not animal abuse when done once, and prevented him from taking a chunk out of my ass.
One super sweet smart stud was HB Cool Cat. He was a rare grey Grullio and always a saint when his stall was cleaned.
It was so easy, I would scratch his withers as a reward, and he would gently nibble on my back at the same time.
I miss that stallion 20 years later, he was a dream stallion for any young girl.
Heck, he barely looked at mares in heat, at most a little nicker and a look.
He may give other studs “the look” but was never physically aggressive. He knew he was strong, he was confident, and was totally chill about it.
How delightful to find a video by a fellow writer! I did not expect that!
I enjoyed this video very much, as I have others of yours I stumbled across recently. I' have read Anthony's book and find it very compelling, especially because he is willing to consider different hyphotheses along with sifting through a lot of evidence. You do that too, and I value that highly; also that you give your references so generously. Granted, that only encourages my dreadful book buying habit, but there are worse habits.
I like your view that the early horse riding was simply hanging onto the mane. That's a solution to how people were able to herd horses, which are so much faster than cattle and sheep, and also better at self-defense. And, it would make it likely that people would not slaughter the biggest, strongest and most biddable horses, but rather keep them, and allow them to breed..
"Chariots first" idea assumes that the wheel preceded horse riding. I'm not sure about that. Having a herd of pack animals, who can pull primitive sleds seems like a major improvement to mobility. Suddenly you don't need to carry all your belongings on your own back.
1. Taming and herding first.
2. Domestication.
3. Utilization as pack and draft animals.
4. The wheel, once it's absolutely obvious, because you do have a bunch of draft animals already.
Where horse-riding comes into this picture? I don't know, really.
That’s counterintuitive. Without domesticated livestock, there was more selective pressure for humans to be innovative. Why do think the cultures belonging to [the relatively petite] Neolithic West Eurasians were so much more sophisticated (e.g. stratified, urban, and agricultural) than those belonging to the [physically larger, more robust, and better adapted] Western Hunter-Gatherers that preceded them? For the same fundamental reasons that caused Cro-Magnon man to be intellectually and technologically superior to Homo neanderthalensis.
@@thebrocialist8300 west eurasians needed to band together to support their irrigation systems, eurasian herders did not need any of that, so they had much lower population density and hence less inovation
@@thebrocialist8300 Both early agrarians and early pastoralists went through a period of misery during their transition to a new lifestyle. The agrarians had very poor diet. Mostly grains, very little meat (no domesticated animals), most of vegetables were not domesticated, etc. They suffered accordingly.
Similarly, pastoralists went through similar hardship when they started to rely on milk in large quantities. Lactose intolerance is still the norm among humans, so it definitely was for them too. Those who couldn't digest milk well, simply suffered. Apparently, it can be seen in their remains.
Which lifestyle has more favorable selection toward innovation? It's probably settled lifestyle, simply because it allows for amassing wealth. Excess food production creates niches, which allow for new inventions that fit those new environments, but I'm not sure that the selection pressures are easy to distinguish.
Plenty of important innovations came from the steppes. Definitely domestication of many animals, quite possibly the wheel, lots of cultural traditions (Zoroastrianism, Vedic religions), composite bow, probably more.
Settled lifestyle allows for specialization, nomadic lifestyle encourages trade and exchange of ideas. Which one was more selective toward innovation? I simply can't tell. Eventually the issue totally disappeared, as pastoralism became a part of settled agriculture. Ever since it happened, it's a moot point.
Gosh thoroughly enjoyed this. Thank you.
Back in the 1970's I used to work for a horse dealer (just north of London!) he would buy unbroken three year olds from local markets like Southall, Stow etc., and within a few weeks having gained their trust I could handle them eg brush, groom, pick out hoofs etc., get them used to traffic on a lead rope and back and bring them on for basic commands walk, trot canter etc., before they were sold on. Trust and kindness was everything and patience. I'd never heard of 'free riding' back then (without bridles and saddles) but there are plenty of vids about it here on TH-cam. This again is very much based on trust. I'm guessing this how how people may have ridden initially far more in tune and connected to the natural world including horses than many of us are now?
PS The men riding on this vid have appalling seats and are using the bits/ reins for balance. Horses heads are up and open trying to evade the pain. Terrible. Painful to watch.
Me and my brothers rode bareback and always were trying some trick or another with our horses from 3 on. When you have a close relationship with your horse you understand each other, you’re bonded, you’re family.
This is so fascinating. I'm in the Late rider camp. We just talked about evolution of the horse in our Mongols series. Thank the Gods that you mentioned the riding on the wrong area of the horse. I said the same in our video but couldn't find the pictures to back it so folks probably thought I was justified being goofy. I am really enjoying your content, I just wish I had found it earlier.
Hmm...I tend more to favor the earlier version for a couple of reasons.
1) It's easier to train a horse to ride than pull any form of a wagon.
2) The damage done by a horse acting up while pulling a wagon is going to be far greater than just falling off one.
3) The harness needed for a horse to pull a wagon is a fairly complex piece of craftsmanship. Far more complex than the bridle used to ride one.
4) Taking the step from riding a horse and using a horse to fight from is a major evolutionary step that takes time, and honestly doesn't need to have been taken for centuries, even millennium. Also the last cavalry during WWII used their horses just to travel from point A to point B. Why wouldn't the first have done the same?
I would say that it sounds logical to me that horses were first ridden with no intent on doing more than travel quicker. Then came the travois, only later someone came up with the idea to put wheels on a travois.
And, as far as no evidence of bits, I've known trained horses that could not take one without getting infection. They're really not that necessary, American Indians rarely used a bridle with any kind of a bit.
I also feel that the final say should be an evolutionary genetic evaluation, that can determine how long it took for the domestication. So far, either could be right, or both wrong. They are both just hypotheses.
Very good observations. I have to agree with you and maybe add the migration of the Tocharians across the entire Khazak steppe as possible further evidence. Such a journey would require enormous mobility and the ability to scout ahead of the group to asses dangers and to find routes of travel. It's interesting to note that the Botia culture began domestication around the time of the Tocharian migration to the Altai.
That I can agree with. Though not as old, some of the Tarim mummies (Tocharian) wore britches. Which is a clear evidence of only being needed if riding horses for longer periods of time. (And, those britches weren't leggings, rather very complex and detailed, designed especially for riding a horse.) That could show evidence of riding being already well advanced as far back as 3800 years ago.
4)Mounted combat is likely older than X ce. BC. by asocietion witch Kimmerian culture. And, if Chineese sources are to be belive (doutably) it could be older than XX ce. BC.
Agree, (+/-) 1,000/2,000 B.C. is far too late. There isn't enough time for the evolutionary trial and error to have taken place. Things just don't pop up out of nowhere. It takes time, lots of time. (Our PoV is too skewed by the modern day ability to produce a massive amount of development within a short time.)
@@michaelwittkopp3379 Well, there are some deniable sugestions for mounted archery in the time of stone henge creation.
Walk around the steppes for a few weeks and you'll figure out how soon people started riding horses after domestication...
Yeah, as someone who likes to go on long hikes...I wholeheartedly agree. There is no way, nomadic people didn't jump at the chance of having an animal carry their luggage and, if possible, themselves. Imagine how useful ridden scouts or hunters would have been, even if most of the tribe would still have been on foot.
The "early" guys are always right. The dates of everything keep getting pushed back further and further with more evidence.
Just a brief side note, I was mostly trained in art history and one flaw I often see in general historical and paleontological/archaeological research is that condensing everything down to how it can be used in warfare/hunting is not the whole story of humanity. I am heartened to see this kind of idea presented in such an elegant way to the public.
Not everything is governed by the technology of violence and surely this is true in our ancestors going much farther back than the history of writing.
Not that warfare has zero affect or that it shouldn't be covered, but consideration of what a person is doing when they aren't killing something is also important.
It might be a bit of contemporary projection, because so much of our current daily-use technology (microwaves, cellphones, cars) were originally designed for military purposes but only later redeveloped for civilian use.
However this might not necessarily have been the case in horses or ancient history.
My understanding is that men started to wear pants when they started riding horses. Pants give move protection and padding to the rider. Maybe you should start with who started wearing pants and when. Just a thought.
Yes great idea.
Well, Otzi, the ice mumy from Alps did wear proto-pants.
Well, Romans rode horses….and only toward the end of their empire did they wear pants.
They viewed pants as…….barbaric.
The funny thing is that we have some cave paints with spears in hand, I'd bet that this is a far older evidence than in Mesoptamia. Plus the idea that you can herding horses without riding it's symply redicoulus because the horses are born runners not like sheep, goat or cows.
Sheep and goats can outrun humans. Don't believe it? Try to catch one. Humans in concert can overcome every animal from wolves to elephants.
@@dbmail545 still, horses are much less trusty of humans, they run as soon as you're anywhere close to them unless already tamed
Well you'd probably be looking at young foals being taken, and kept tied up or corralled in. No need to run after them then.
@@JacarandaMusic can be built it's true but the stone age tools would make challenging to make it big enough to keep fed the captured horses if we thinking about long term keeping, not to be killed next week.
@@tamasvarga6673 Not realy. It would take triple the time, but Pastorals have plenty of time.
I think horses would have been ridden to take men to war long before they were used in the battles themselves. The former is far simpler than the latter yet still provides significant military advantage in both mobility of forces and a relative lack of fatigue from travel. In raiding it adds the ability to take more booty after the fighting is done.
Many Anglo Saxons in Britain seemed to take the horses to battle, dismount and then fight. Great observation.
I am reading this book Poland by James Michener.. although it does not address the domestication of horses, it tells about the invasion of Polish villages and towns by Tatar people from Asia (Mongolia) who were considered very good horse riders, in fact, that was the key for their success. The dates for such events occurred in the 8th century.. interesting to come across your documentary, which I enjoyed it much and made me think about the matter of domestication of animals and the skills developed by people at early ages of human moves, thanks. I see things from the veterinary perspective as it is important to take into account historical events to understand present times..
Thank you. The Mongol invasion of Europe is fascinating. I read a book about that a few years ago.
@@DanDavisHistory You are well documented, every detail in history counts for a better understading of things, right..?
ALSO: I am in a Bible study group. We read the entire NRSV Bible in a year. One of the things that impressed me was that King Saul rode to battle on a donkey! According to Wikipedia, his reign is usually placed in the 11th Century BCE. Horses, at least riding horses, did not reach Israel, and get mentioned in the Bible, until later. But the idea of riding a four-legged, "horse-like" creature was around by the 11th Century BCE.
Ukraine or the Sredny Stog cultural area in ancient times was probably swampy in addition to being steppe-like. Unlike the central and eastern steppes, the western steppes had many rivers traversing it, and the remnants of a major swamp region still exists along the Ukraine-Belarus border; likely this swamp was much bigger in ancient times. Is it possible that a swampy environment triggered horse domestication somehow? You might be a bit more willing to climb onto a horse for the first time if it was wading in the water, so falling off happens with a splash rather than a thud. And for certain river corridors, fording with horses would be the ideal way of getting across, more so than with boats.
That makes sense.
Horses are, as you say, social animals used to following leaders. So are sheep and cattle and, even more so, dogs. I've always been fascinated by how well today's dogs get along with today's horses, whilst it's an other kettle of fish (or tea if you prefer...) altogether between dogs and donkeys. I've taken daily care of a donkey and my late dog Kate and she very quickly became great chums, but when I got a 6 weeks old pup I had to start the socialising process with the donkey from scratch again. As a biologist, I think thata very important difference between horses and dogs is that the former follow the lead to get to the right places to eat but are, once there, in competition for the best places ("best" both in food availability and in safety from predators), wild canids depend on team work to get their pails filled. WIth dogs you don't need material stimuli (tidbits) to train them, social compensations suffice. With horses, you need material rewards first and can then shift to social ones, which I called "from carrot to cuddle". I'd like to get other people's opinion on this.
Be all this how it may, both our latter-day dogs and our latter-day horses are, of course, light years away in behaviour from their wild ancestors.
Everyone loves an animal story. Perhaps dog domestication would be a good topic. Also, taking another example of Native American fighting style, the Apache are great dragoons. They rode up to battle and then fought on foot.
That's certainly mired in controversy. Almost the only thing known about early dog domestication is the 13,000 yo bone knife that appears to show a collared wolf like animal carved into its grip.
Comanches fought on horseback.
@@dbmail545 I think a 14,000 year old dog skeleton that was recently found showed signs of domestication, which is pretty cool
Your video's are always food for thought!
Thanks!
My first horse as a child and young adult was to ride my mare with just a halter and lead rope around our large pasture. I'd be grooming her then too lazy to go back and get her bridle so I'd take the lead rope and tie it on the other side to make a long loop then throw it over her head for a pair of reins and exercise her for a short while. For riding, I used a hackamore with her (which has no bit). I now use a bosal on my current horse. A bosal is made from rawhide. All those options would show no sign of riding on horses' teeth. Personally, I prefer bitless options.
Great, thought-provoking video. I think it's possible to reconcile the two theories. Maybe bareback horse riding (that doesn't leave a lot of evidence) developed in the earlier period but was only useful to relatively small numbers of steppe people traveling long distances with herds. Beyond the steppes, owning a horse was a sign of nobility among urban populations that didn't grow up alongside horses on vast plains and didn't have the same level of comfort and intuitive understanding of handling horses. So chariot warfare was both easier to learn and a more recognizable sign of wealth and prestige in more urban populations of antiquity, and also more of an overwhelming combat advantage that only nobility could afford. The later developments of the saddle, and then the stirrup, made horse-riding more practical than charioteering, and thus mounted warriors replaced replaced chariots. Bigger, stronger warhorses were bred and sold in larger numbers further afield.
Thank you Marc