When were horses first domesticated?
The question is not an easy one to answer, with much of the tack used by early horsemen being made of materials that would have rotted away thousands of years ago. But United States researchers have taken us a lot closer to understanding when humankind first began its unique relationship with horses.
Work at a Copper Age site in northern Kazakhstan has produced evidence that horses were domesticated up to 5600 years ago.
Researchers from the Carnegie Museum of Natural History and the University of Pittsburgh discovered phosphorus-enriched soils inside what appear to be the remains of horse corrals beside pit houses. The soil matches what would be expected from earth once enriched by horse manure.
"There's very little direct evidence of horse domestication," said Sandra Olsen, an archaeologist and horse domestication researcher at the museum.
That's because 5600 years ago there were no saddles or metal bits to leave behind. Equipment such as bridles, leads, and hobbles would have been made from thongs of horse hide and would have rotted away long ago. Likewise, horses themselves have not changed much physically as a result of domestication, unlike dogs or cattle. So ancient horse bones don't easily reveal the secrets of domestication.
The Krasnyi Yar site was inhabited by people of the Botai culture of the Eurasian Steppe, who relied heavily on horses for food, tools, and transport.
With research funding from the National Science Foundation, Olsen's team took a different tack. They looked for circumstantial evidence that people were keeping horses.
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