Prehistoric transport: horse power

The seal of Abbakalla, Animal Disburser for the Sumerian King Shu-Sin, 2050-2040 BCOn land a huge leap in mobility was achieved when pedestrians turned into riders. Across the world man has managed to coax any convenient species into acting as beasts of burden. We have already seen how dogs could be harnessed. Dogs were almost certainly the first species to be domesticated. However the breakthrough in mobility came with the harnessing of the horse. Horses ran wild on the wide grasslands of the Eurasian steppes. Strong and fleet of foot, the horse made an ideal mount for man. The European wild horse, with its short, stiff mane, looked different from modern horses, as we see in one of the earliest depictions of a horse-rider.

Area of deduced horse domestication Identifying exactly where and when the horse was first tamed is no easy process. The earliest images of horse-riders may come from Sumeria, but that is no proof that horses (not native to Mesopotamia) were first ridden there. The problem has been attacked recently from fresh angles. David Anthony and Dorcas Brown discovered that horse harness left characteristic bit marks on horse teeth. They agree with another prominent researcher in this field, Marsha Levine, that a region where horses were constantly hunted for food would be the most likely area for domestication. It might start with an orphaned foal or two reared as pets, or as breeding stock for a herd kept initially for meat. That points to the western Eurasian steppes, roughly between the Dnieper and Ural Rivers. Horses were the chief meat animal there around 5000-4500 BC1D.W. Anthony, The Horse, The Wheel and Language (2007), chap. 10; M. Levine in M. Levine, C. Renfrew, and K. Boyle (eds.),Prehistoric Steppe Adaptation and the Horse (MacDonald Institute Monographs 2003), p.4.

The tarpan, or wild European horse, Equus ferus. Illustration by Daniel Pickering (Carnegie Museum of Natural History)By about 3500 BC the bones of large horses, probably from the steppes, began to appear in the Danube valley, central and western Europe, the North Caucasus, Transcaucasia, and eastern Anatolia. At the same time the Botai Culture appeared in the steppes of northern Kazakhstan. This culture had a unique relationship with the horse. Its people not only hunted horses almost exclusively, but it seems that they rode horses to do so. Traces of bit wear provide the convincing clue. Reinforcing it were phosphorus-enriched soils, suggestive of dung deposits, inside what could be the remains of horse corrals. Naturally this discovery led to claims that the horse was first domesticated by the Botai.2A. K. Outram et al, The Earliest HorseHarnessing and Milking, Science, vol. 323. no. 5919 (6 March 2009), pp. 1332-1335; M.Levine, C. Renfrew, and K. Boyle (eds.),Prehistoric Steppe Adaptation and the Horse (MacDonald Institute Monographs 2003). This is putting the culture before the horse. The Botai appear to be foragers who turned to horse-hunting once they could ride. The apparent spread of horses c.3500 BC east, west and south of the European steppe suggests a trade in tame horses radiating out from somewhere within that region. The Botai acquired horses at around the same time that a group of people from the Volga-Ural steppe trekked east to the Altai Mountains via the Botai territory.3D.W. Anthony, The Horse, The Wheel and Language (2007), chap. 10 and pp. 265, 307-9.

Another fresh approach is the use of genetics. A study by Arne Ludwig and colleagues of coat colour variation in horses concluded that wild horses were either bay or black. They attribute the present variety of shades to captive breeding, which enables them to suggest Siberia and East Europe in or somewhat earlier than third millennium BC as the probable time and place of horse domestication. However the mitochondrial DNA of modern horses is so diverse that it suggests that wild mares of different areas contributed to the modern gene pool. That could be explained by the capture of a few wild foals at different times and places to add to existing domesticated stock, or to raise new stock. Mitochondrial DNA from Iberian horse skeletons of the Neolithic and later showed that Lusitano group C modern horses were descended from wild mares of Iberia.4A. Ludwig et al, Coat Color Variation at the Beginning of Horse Domestication, Science, vol. 324. no. 5926 (24 April 2009), p. 485; T. Jansen et al., Mitochondrial DNA and the origins of the domestic horse, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, vol. 99, no. 16 (6 Aug 2002), pp.10905–10910; J. Lira et al., Ancient DNA reveals traces of Iberian Neolithic and Bronze Age lineages in modern Iberian horses, Molecular Ecology, vol.19, no. 1, pp.64-78.

One place where wild horses could not be captured was Ireland. Though wild horses roamed there once, they were wiped out by the last Ice Age. When horses reappeared in Ireland, it was through the agency of man. The rising sea had submerged the land bridge to Britain and the Continent before the full range of European fauna could return to Ireland. So horse-breeding stock must have ferried across by boat. As with the rest of western Europe, the domesticated horse arrived in the age of metal. The difference is that its domestication can be taken for granted.5F. McCormick, The horse in early Ireland, Anthropozoologica, vol. 42, no. 1 (2007), pp.85-104.

Votive cart from Mérida with a boar hunt. Musée des Antiquités Nationale de St. Germain-en-Laye, Paris.Riding would make it possible to control much larger herds of animals, and to venture further with them. Fighting on horseback in the days before a secure saddle, let alone a stirrup, would be a trickier proposition. So it is not surprising that the first evidence for horses being used in warfare is as chariot-horses.

However the stirrup was invented long after cavalry. We may find it surprising nowadays that riders could keep their seats without a stirrup while throwing a spear, or wielding a sword, but the Roman cavalry did so. Much the same can be said for hunting on horseback. Riders had a huge advantage as hunters. Hunting retained its popularity among Indo-European speakers well past the period of their adoption of pastoralism, and then arable agriculture. From Iberia comes this depiction of a boar hunt, with a man on horseback, his dog beside him, about to spear a boar. (The group is on a wheeled platform. This type of artifact is known as a votive cart.)

The importance of the horse to man is demonstrated in its frequent appearance in art, and on seals and coins.

Notes

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  1. D.W.Anthony, The Horse, The Wheel and Language (2007), chap. 10.
  2. A. K. Outram et al, The Earliest Horse Harnessing and Milking, Science, vol. 323. no. 5919 (6 March 2009), pp. 1332-1335; M.Levine, C. Renfrew, and K. Boyle (eds.), Prehistoric Steppe Adaptation and the Horse (MacDonald Institute Monographs 2003).
  3. D.W. Anthony, The Horse, The Wheel and Language (2007), chap. 10 and pp. 265, 307-9.
  4. A. Ludwig et al, Coat Color Variation at the Beginning of Horse Domestication, Science, vol. 324. no. 5926 (24 April 2009), p. 485; T. Jansen etal., Mitochondrial DNA and the origins of the domestic horse, Proceedings of the NationalAcademy of Sciences USA, vol. 99, no. 16 (6 Aug 2002), pp.10905–10910; J. Lira et al., Ancient DNA reveals traces of Iberian Neolithic and Bronze Age lineages in modern Iberian horses, Molecular Ecology, vol. 19, no. 1, pp. 64-78.
  5. F. McCormick, The horse in early Ireland, Anthropozoologica, vol. 42, no. 1 (2007), pp. 85-104.