The first domesticated horses: 6,000 years of a complex story

New Evidence Suggests Humans Rode Horses 6,000 Years Ago, Far Earlier Than Previously Thought

Horses in Kazakhstan Steppes. Credit: Togzhan Ibrayeva / Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 4.0 For nearly a century, scholars have debated when humans first began using domesticated horses. A new study now argues that people were riding and managing horses across the Eurasian steppes nearly 6,000 years ago, far earlier than some recent genetic studies had suggested. The research, led by archaeologist David Anthony and published in Science Advances, cha…

Humans were riding horses 1,000 years earlier than previously thought

Mass migration of people across Eurasia around 5,000 years ago could have been driven by advent of horsemanship, researchers say

The first domesticated horses: 6,000 years of a complex story

Horses were being ridden, worked, and traded long before anyone thought it possible. New research pushes back the accepted timeline of human use of horses by centuries, showing that humans used horses in organized ways as early as the 4th millennium BCE, if not earlier. The research is published in the journal Science Advances.