We Changed Horses

Horses changed human history. But first we had to change horses.   The horse evolved in North America 50 million years ago, and migrated across the Bering land bridge into Eurasia. Then, during the last Ice Age, it went extinct in the Americas.  Around 5,000 years ago, humans began taming horses in the Eurasian Steppe, in what is today Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine.  There, archaeologists have found residue of mare’s milk in drinking vessels. Some horse skeletons show wear on their teeth suggesting they held bits in their mouth.   But other skeletons have arrow points embedded in bones, suggesting that horses were hunted as much as domesticated.  A thousand years later, a different steppe culture tamed a different horse and, evidence shows, developed a horse culture – so successfully that it replaced the earlier horses.  Genetic testing revealed that this first domesticated breed, called DOM2, became the progenitor of all later horse breeds.  With them, humans could travel farther and faster than ever before. Mounted nomads could cover landscapes. Mounted cavalry could vanquish enemies. Horses could pull carts, and later, plows.  We hardly think about it today, but from 4,000 to just 100 years ago, horses were the driving force in human transportation, settlement and warfare.   The only thing that moved more people was our own two feet.