The domestication of horses had a huge effect on human society – latest scientific findings make clear when and where this primary happened

In all of human history, no other animal has influenced human society as much because the horse. But when and the way humans domesticated horses is a scientific mystery.

Half 1,000,000 years ago or more, early human ancestors hunted horses with picket spears, the first weaponsand used their bones for early tools. During the late Paleolithic period, 30,000 years ago or more, ancient artists selected wild horses as their muse: horses are the most often depicted animal in Eurasian cave art.

After their first domestication, horses became Basis of shepherd life within the grassland of Inner Asiaand necessary technological advances akin to the chariot, Saddle and stirrups contributed to horses becoming an important technique of transport for travel, communication, agriculture and war in much of the traditional world. With the assistance of sea travel, these animals eventually reached the coasts of all major land masses – even Antarctica for a short while.

As they spread, horses modified the ecology, social structures and economy on an unprecedented scale. Ultimately, only industrial mechanization displaced their almost universal role in society.

Because of their enormous influence on our shared human history, researching when, why and the way horses were domesticated is a vital step in understanding the world we live in today.

Doing so has proven surprisingly difficult. In my latest book,Hoofbeat: How horses shaped human history” I compile latest archaeological evidence that revises what Scientists like me thought we knew about this story.

A hypothesis on the domestication of horses

Over the years, almost each time and place on Earth has been suggested as a possible origin of horse domestication, from Europe tens of hundreds of years ago to places like Saudi Arabia, Anatolia, China, and even the Americas.

However, by far probably the most predominant model for the domestication of horses was the Indo-European hypothesis, also generally known as the “Kurgan hypothesis”. It is argued that sometime within the fourth millennium BC or earlier, the inhabitants of the steppes of western Asia and the Black Sea, generally known as the Yamnaya, who built large burial mounds called kurgans, were hopping around on horses. The new-found mobility of those early riders, The story continueshelped trigger large-scale migrations across the continent and spread ancient Indo-European languages ​​and cultures throughout Eurasia.

But what evidence supports the Kurgan hypothesis concerning the domestication of the primary horse? Many of an important clues come from the bones and teeth of prehistoric animals, over a Discipline generally known as archaeozoologyOver the past 20 years, archaeozoological data have looked as if it would point to the concept horses were first domesticated at sites of the Botai culture in Kazakhstan, where scientists have found large quantities of horse bones at sites dating to the fourth millennium BC.

Other varieties of compelling evidence piled up. Archaeologists discovered evidence of what looked like holes in fence posts that will have been a part of old corrals. They also found Ceramic shards with greasy horse stays Isotope measurements suggest that they were deposited in the course of the summer months, a time when milk from domestic horses might be collected.

However, the scientific evidence for the early domestication of the horse was a series of Changes within the teeth of some Botai horses and jaw bones. Like the teeth of many modern and ancient riding horses, the teeth of the Botai horses appeared to have been worn down by a bridle or bit.

Taken together, the info strongly suggested that the horse was domesticated in northern Kazakhstan around 3500 BC—not quite within the homeland of the Yamnaya Islands, but geographically close enough to sustain the fundamental Kurgan hypothesis.

Some facets of the Botai story, nonetheless, never quite fit together. From the start, several studies showed that the combo of horse stays found at Botai was different from that of most later pastoral cultures: Botai is made up of equal parts female and male horses, mostly of healthy reproductive age. Regularly killing healthy, reproductive animals like this might devastate a breeding herd. But this demographic mix is ​​common amongst animals that were hunted. Some Botai horses even have projectile points of their ribs, showing that they died from hunting relatively than a controlled slaughter.

These unresolved open questions overshadowed a fundamental consensus linking the Botai culture to the domestication of horses.

New scientific instruments raise latest questions

In recent years, with the rapid improvement of archaeological and scientific tools, necessary assumptions concerning the Botai, Yamnaya cultures and the early chapters of human-horse history have been refuted.

First, improved biomolecular tools show that whatever happened in Botai had little to do with the domestication of horses alive today. In 2018, nuclear genome sequencing revealed that Botai horses weren’t the ancestors of domestic horses, but of Przewalski's horsea wild relative and steppe dweller who, not less than in recorded history, has never been domesticated.

When my colleagues and I then examined the skeletal features related to horse riding at Botai, we found that Similar problems will also be observed in wild horses from the Ice Age from North America that was definitely never ridden. Although riding may cause noticeable changes to teeth and jaw bones, we reasoned that the small problems observed in Botai horses may possibly be related to natural variation or life history.

This finding raises the query again: were there any horse transports in Botai in any respect?

Leaving the Kurgan hypothesis prior to now

Over the previous couple of years, the try to understand the archaeological evidence referring to the domestication of the horse has turn out to be an increasingly controversial matter.

For example, in 2023, archaeologists found that human hip and leg skeletal problems present in Yamnaya and early Eastern European graves were very much like problems seen in mounted riders, consistent with the Kurgan hypothesis. But problems like these will be brought on by other varieties of animal transport, including Cattle carts found at Yamnaya-period sites.

So how should archaeologists interpret these contradictory signals?

A clearer picture could also be closer than we predict. An in depth genomic study of early Eurasian horses, published in June 2024 within the journal Natureshows that Yamnaya horses weren’t the ancestors of the primary domesticated horses, generally known as the DOM2 lineage. And Yamnaya horses showed no genetic evidence of tight control of reproduction, akin to changes related to inbreeding.

Instead, the primary DOM2 horses appear shortly before 2000 BC, long after the Yamnaya migrations and shortly before the primary horse and chariot burials appear within the archaeological finds.

At present, all evidence seems to suggest that the domestication of the horse probably occurred within the Black Sea steppes, but much later than the Kurgan hypothesis requires. Rather, human mastery of the horse began shortly before the explosive spread of horses and chariots throughout Eurasia within the early second millennium BC.

Of course, more stays to be determined. In the most recent study, the authors point to some odd patterns within the Botai data, particularly fluctuations in genetic estimates of generation time—essentially, how long it takes on average for a population of animals to supply offspring. Could these suggest that the Botai people were still breeding these wild Przewalski's horses in captivity, but just for meat, with no role in transportation? Perhaps. Future research will tell us needless to say.

Be that as it might, one thing is evident from these contradictory signals: the primary chapters of the human-horse story should be retold.