Exploring the Origins of Horse Herding and Riding in the Mongolian Steppe (original) (raw)
Related papers
Origins of Horse Herding and Transport in the Eastern Steppe
In the dry steppes of eastern Eurasia, domestic horses (E. caballus) provide the economic and cultural foundations of nomadic life. With no written records and sparse archaeological data from early nomadic societies, however, the ecological context of the first horse herding and transport, and its role in the formation of herding societies is poorly understood. Some of the earliest evidence for domestic horses in the region come from small ritual horse burials at sites belonging to the Deer Stone-Khirigsuur (DSK) culture, a late Bronze Age cultural often linked with the first mobile pastoral societies in Mongolia. This dissertation employs archaeological and archaeozoological techniques to assess how DSK people used domestic horses, and evaluates the role of horse herding and transport in the emergence of mobile herding in eastern Eurasia. I present results in five discrete published studies. The first study identifies evidence for selective culling of young and old animals as part of maintaining a breeding herd, with the selective burial of adult male transport horses in prominent ritual mounds along the eastern perimeter of DSK monument sites. A second set of three closely related studies investigates the skulls of contemporary wild and domestic horses, identifying anthropogenic changes to the equine skull caused by exertion, bridling, and pressures related to horseback riding. Applying these criteria to the late Bronze Age DSK archaeological record indicates that DSK people bridled and used horses for transport, and may have engaged in early mounted horseback riding. Finally, a precision radiocarbon model suggests a rapid expansion of DSK horse use around ca. 1200 BCE – during a period of climate amelioration and increased rainfall, and concurrent with major changes in ritual practice and the spread of horses to new parts of the continent. These results provide compelling links between the adoption of horseback riding, new ecological opportunities, and the development of mobile pastoralism in eastern Eurasia.
Horse demography and use in Bronze Age Mongolia
This paper presents new archaeozoological evidence for horse pastoralism and transport in Mongolia's Deer StoneeKhirigsuur (DSK) Complex (circa 1300e700 BCE). As both livestock and transport, the domestic horse fundamentally altered life in the dry steppe of eastern Eurasia. However, the timing and process of mobile pastoralism's adoption in Mongolia and Northeast Asia remains poorly understood. To evaluate previous suggestions of late Bronze Age horse herding in the DSK complex, I produced age and sex estimates for archaeological horse crania from DSK sites across Mongolia. This sample yielded a high proportion of juvenile animals and an elderly female specimen, consistent with the culling practices of contemporary equine pastoralists. However, the sample also contained a significant proportion of 'prime age' adult male animals. This finding is seemingly inconsistent with the practical requirements of pastoral herd management, but comparable with other archaeological assemblages of ritually-sacrificed transport horses. Spatial comparison suggests that these adult males were buried in specific ritual contexts, along the eastern edge of stone mounds known as khirigsuurs, while osteological features of the premaxilla point to harnessing or heavy exertion. Together, these data provide compelling evidence that adult male DSK horses were used for chariotry or mounted riding. Results support the interpretation of DSK people as early mobile pastoralists, and suggest an important role for horse transport in late Bronze Age social dynamics and the development of herding societies in Northeast Asia.
The prehistoric origins of the domestic horse and horseback riding
Bulletins et mémoires de la société d'anthropologie de Paris
Bulletins et Mémoires de la Société d' Anthropologie de Paris Cet article fait suite à une communication invitée présentée lors des 1847 es journées de la Société d'Anthropologie de Paris dans le cadre de la session "Les relations entre les humains et les animaux" Abstract-The findings of Librado et al. (2021) show that modern domestic horses (DOM2) emerged in the lower Don-Volga region. They imply that horseback riding drove selection that resulted in these horses and fuelled their initial dispersal, and also that DOM2 horses replaced other horses because they were more suitable for riding due to their more docile temperaments and resilient backs. In this article, I argue that captive breeding of horses leading to their domestication began in about 4500-3000 BC in the Pontic-Caspian steppe and made horseback riding necessary because managing horses, and especially moving them over long distances, required mounted herding. Horseback riding had been experimented with since the second half of the 5 th millennium BC, became common around 3100 BC during the early stages of the Yamnaya culture, and necessary by the middle of the 3 rd millennium BC at the very latest. As horseback riding became more common, selection for malleable temperaments and resilient backs intensified, resulting in DOM2 horses by about 2300-2200 BC in the lower Don-Volga region. The body size and weight-carrying ability of ancestral and early DOM2 horses were not limiting factors for horseback riding. The initial dispersal of DOM2 horses was facilitated by horseback riding and began by about 2300 +150 BC. Chariotry began to spread together with DOM2 horses after 2000 BC, but its high archaeological visibility may have inflated its importance, since chariots are of limited practical use for herding and other daily tasks. Keywords-horses, domestication, selection, riding, chariotry lisation du char à deux roues s'est dispersée avec les chevaux DOM2 après 2000 av. J.-C., mais une grande visibilité archéologique peut avoir gonflé l'importance du char, qui a une utilité pratique quelque peu limitée dans l'élevage et d'autres tâches quotidiennes.
Librado et al. 2021. The origins the and spread of domestic horses from the Western Eurasian steppes
Nature, 2021
Domestication of horses fundamentally transformed long-range mobility and warfare1. However, modern domesticated breeds do not descend from the earliest domestic horse lineage associated with archaeological evidence of bridling, milking and corralling2–4 at Botai, Central Asia around 3500 bc3. Other longstanding candidate regions for horse domestication, such as Iberia5 and Anatolia6, have also recently been challenged. Thus, the genetic, geographic and temporal origins of modern domestic horses have remained unknown. Here we pinpoint the Western Eurasian steppes, especially the lower Volga-Don region, as the homeland of modern domestic horses. Furthermore, we map the population changes accompanying domestication from 273 ancient horse genomes. This reveals that modern domestic horses ultimately replaced almost all other local populations as they expanded rapidly across Eurasia from about 2000 bc, synchronously with equestrian material culture, including Sintashta spoke-wheeled char...
Librado et al: The origins and spread of domestic horses from the Western Eurasian steppes
2021
Domestication of horses fundamentally transformed long-range mobility and warfare1. However, modern domesticated breeds do not descend from the earliest domestic horse lineage associated with archaeological evidence of bridling, milking and corralling2,3,4 at Botai, Central Asia around 3500 BC3. Other longstanding candidate regions for horse domestication, such as Iberia5 and Anatolia6, have also recently been challenged. Thus, the genetic, geographic and temporal origins of modern domestic horses have remained unknown. Here we pinpoint the Western Eurasian steppes, especially the lower Volga-Don region, as the homeland of modern domestic horses. Furthermore, we map the population changes accompanying domestication from 273 ancient horse genomes. This reveals that modern domestic horses ultimately replaced almost all other local populations as they expanded rapidly across Eurasia from about 2000 BC, synchronously with equestrian material culture, including Sintashta spoke-wheeled chariots. We find that equestrianism involved strong selection for critical locomotor and behavioural adaptations at the GSDMC and ZFPM1 genes. Our results reject the commonly held association7 between horseback riding and the massive expansion of Yamnaya steppe pastoralists into Europe around 3000 BC8,9 driving the spread of Indo-European languages10. This contrasts with the scenario in Asia where Indo-Iranian languages, chariots and horses spread together, following the early second millennium BC Sintashta culture11,12.
The origins the and spread of domestic horses from the Western Eurasian steppes
Nature, 2021
Domestication of horses fundamentally transformed long-range mobility and warfare1. However, modern domesticated breeds do not descend from the earliest domestic horse lineage associated with archaeological evidence of bridling, milking and corralling2–4 at Botai, Central Asia around 3500 bc3. Other longstanding candidate regions for horse domestication, such as Iberia5 and Anatolia6, have also recently been challenged. Thus, the genetic, geographic and temporal origins of modern domestic horses have remained unknown. Here we pinpoint the Western Eurasian steppes, especially the lower Volga-Don region, as the homeland of modern domestic horses. Furthermore, we map the population changes accompanying domestication from 273 ancient horse genomes. This reveals that modern domestic horses ultimately replaced almost all other local populations as they expanded rapidly across Eurasia from about 2000 bc, synchronously with equestrian material culture, including Sintashta spoke-wheeled chariots. We find that equestrianism involved strong selection for critical locomotor and behavioural adaptations at the GSDMC and ZFPM1 genes. Our results reject the commonly held association7 between horseback riding and the massive expansion of Yamnaya steppe pastoralists into Europe around 3000 bc8,9 driving the spread of Indo-European languages10. This contrasts with the scenario in Asia where Indo-Iranian languages, chariots and horses spread together, following the early second millennium bc Sintashta culture11,12.
The Introduction of the Domesticated Horse in Southwest Asia
This compilation of faunal data has allowed the development of a chronology of the dispersal of domesticated horses from the Eurasian steppe into Southwest Asia. During the late Pleistocene, horses were widespread throughout much of the Near East, however increasing aridifi cation led to their extinction from the region. Their presence within the archaeological record of the Late Holocene therefore suggests their spread as a human-controlled domesticate. Early domesticated horses are found at Botai, Kazakhstan, although faunal data indicates that Anatolia, Iran, and the southern Levant contained surviving populations of wild horses during the mid-Holocene. If these remains from the Levant, western Iran, and Anatolia do not belong to native wild progenitors, their presence in Late Chalcolithic deposits indicate an introduction of domesticated horses to this region much earlier than previously assumed. The Buhen horse is the oldest dated domesticated horse in Egypt and was assumed to be anachronistic given the lack of contemporaneous Levantine specimens. However horses were present in the Levant prior to and contemporary with the Buhen horse, illustrating a steady southward distribution from the Eurasian steppe over two millennia dating from the Late Chalcolithic to the Late Bronze Age; a spread likely hastened by the widespread adoption of chariot warfare in the early 2nd millennium BC.
Domestication of horses fundamentally transformed long-range mobility and warfare. However, modern domesticated breeds do not descend from the earliest domestic horse lineage associated with archaeological evidence of bridling, milking and corralling at Botai, Central Asia around 3500 bc. Other longstanding candidate regions for horse domestication, such as Iberia and Anatolia, have also recently been challenged. Thus, the genetic, geographic and temporal origins of modern domestic horses have remained unknown. Here we pinpoint the Western Eurasian steppes, especially the lower Volga-Don region, as the homeland of modern domestic horses. Furthermore, we map the population changes accompanying domestication from 273 ancient horse genomes. This reveals that modern domestic horses ultimately replaced almost all other local populations as they expanded rapidly across Eurasia from about 2000 bc, synchronously with equestrian material culture, including Sintashta spoke-wheeled chariots. We find that equestrianism involved strong selection for critical locomotor and behavioural adaptations at the GSDMC and ZFPM1 genes. Our results reject the commonly held association7 between horseback riding and the massive expansion of Yamnaya steppe pastoralists into Europe around 3000 bc driving the spread of Indo-European languages. This contrasts with the scenario in Asia where Indo-Iranian languages, chariots and horses spread together, following the early second millennium bc Sintashta culture.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2012
Despite decades of research across multiple disciplines, the early history of horse domestication remains poorly understood. On the basis of current evidence from archaeology, mitochondrial DNA, and Y-chromosomal sequencing, a number of different domestication scenarios have been proposed, ranging from the spread of domestic horses out of a restricted primary area of domestication to the domestication of numerous distinct wild horse populations. In this paper, we reconstruct both the population genetic structure of the extinct wild progenitor of domestic horses, Equus ferus, and the origin and spread of horse domestication in the Eurasian steppes by fitting a spatially explicit stepping-stone model to genotype data from >300 horses sampled across northern Eurasia. We find strong evidence for an expansion of E. ferus out of eastern Eurasia about 160 kya, likely reflecting the colonization of Eurasia by this species. Our best-fitting scenario further suggests that horse domesticati...