The theories regarding horse domestication have been quite controversial among scientists, however, the fact that most of them agreed on was the hypothesis that they were domesticated approximately 4 millenniums ago. However, a recent discovery by an international team of archaeologists comes to show that in fact these animals were domesticated 5,500 years ago.
The new findings, which appear this week in the journal Science, point to a much earlier date of horse domestication in Kazakhstan, during the Botai culture. These animals were believed to have been used not only for riding, but also to provide food, including through milking.
This makes the Kazakhstan population the earliest to have developed such activities involving horses. It wasn’t until 2,000 years later that domesticated horses began spreading across Eurasia, with main uses in transportation and warfare.
By analyzing ancient pottery found in Kazakhstan, the team of researchers found traces of fat and horse milk, which proves that people back then used horses as a source of food. People in Kazakhstan are still using to this date mare milk.
The team of archaeologists, led by University of Exeter and University of Bristol researchers, brought to light three lines of evidence of early horse domestication, namely that in the fourth millennium BC horses were selectively bred for domestic use, were being harnessed and were milked.
“The domestication of horses is known to have had immense social and economic significance, advancing communications, transport, food production and warfare,” said lead author of the research, Dr Alan Outram, of the University of Exeter. “Our findings indicate that horses were being domesticated about 1,000 years earlier than previously thought. This is significant because it changes our understanding of how these early societies developed.”
Ancient horse remains suggested that they were similar to Bronze Age domestic horses, and that they were different from wild horses in the same region, which means people were selecting wild horses for their physical attributes, researchers said.
Previous research revealed that horses were first kept as a source of food, before being used in working activities. However, this new study suggests that horses had been harnessed, and may have also been used for riding in the fourth millennium BC.
Placing the beginnings of horse domestication here is not surprising at all, considering the region was once a thriving habitat for wild horses. Ice Age horses are known to have been hunted for their meat all across Europe, Eurasia and North America, and in some places, extensive hunting even caused them to become extinct.
But thousands of years later, the populations in the steppes of Kazakhstan seized the opportunity, and became horse breeders, rather than herders, simply because horses are much more resistant to tough weather conditions than cattle, sheep or goats, scientists said.
