Horseback riding seems to have developed not long after horses were thought to have been domesticated in the western Eurasian steppes about the fourth millennium BCE. Between 3000 and 2500 BCE, Yamnaya civilization members had already adopted it as a very standard practice.
The researchers uncovered evidence of horse riding by analyzing the bones of human corpses recovered in 4500-5000-year-old burial mounds known as kurgans.
The Yamnaya culture is associated with earthen burial mounds found in several countries including Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Serbia.
This culture is believed to have originated in the Pontic-Caspian steppes, where a population of mobile cattle and sheep herders on horseback emerged at the end of the fourth millennium BCE.
Eventually, the Yamnayans migrated from their homeland seeking greener pastures in the aforementioned regions.
By using the key innovation of the wheel and wagon, they were able to move around much more easily and take advantage of a huge source of energy that would have been out of reach before: the sea of steppe grass away from the rivers. This gave them the ability to keep large herds of cattle and sheep.
By committing to a new way of life, these pastoralists, if not the first true nomads in the world, grew quickly over the next two centuries to cover more than 5,000 kilometers, from Hungary in the west to Mongolia and western China in the east as part of the so-called Afanasievo culture.
The Yamnayans are credited with being the first to transmit proto-Indo-European languages because they buried their dead in burial pits under large mounds known as kurgans.
“Horseback-riding,” according to researcher Volker Heyd, “seems to have evolved not long after the presumed domestication of horses in the western Eurasian steppes during the fourth millennium BCE. It was already rather common in members of the Yamnaya culture between 3000 and 2500 BCE.”
These areas west of the Black Sea are a contact zone where mobile groups of herders from the Yamnaya culture met farmer communities from the Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic traditions for the first time.
Steppe people’s migration into Southeast Europe during the Early Bronze Age was for a long time seen as an invasion.
With the development of ancient DNA research, the differences between these people who came from the east and the people who already lived there became even clearer.
“Our research is now beginning to provide a more nuanced picture of their interactions,” explains researcher Bianca Preda-Bălănică.
“For example, findings of physical violence as were expected are practically non-existent in the skeletal record so far.
“We also start understanding the complex exchange processes in material culture and burial customs between newcomers and locals in the 200 years after their first contact.”
The horse in particular was a game changer in human history when it came to transportation by animal. The significant increase in mobility and range had a significant impact on commerce, warfare, and land usage.
The majority of recent study has been conducted on the horses themselves. Yet, because horseback riding involves the interaction of two parts—the mount and its rider—human remains are more plentiful and in better shape than early horse remains.
It is hardly surprising that there have been no archeological discoveries related to the first horsemanship, given that riding a horse may be done without particular equipment.
According to Martin Trautmann, the lead author of the study and a bioanthropologist in Helsinki, the research analyzed more than 217 skeletons from 39 sites, with around 150 of them belonging to the Yamnaya culture found in burial mounds.
“Diagnosing activity patterns in human skeletons is not unambiguously. There are no singular traits that indicate a certain occupation or behavior. Only in their combination, as a syndrome, symptoms provide reliable insights to understand habitual activities of the past.”
The international group settled on six diagnostic criteria known to be markers of riding (the so-called “horsemanship syndrome”).
- Muscle attachment sites on pelvis and thigh bone (femur);
- Changes in the normally round shape of the hip sockets;
- Imprint marks caused by the pressure of the acetabular rim on the neck of the femur;
- The diameter and form of the femur shaft;
- Vertebral degeneration caused by repeated vertical impact;
- Traumata typically can be caused by falls, kicks or bites from horses.
The team also used a stricter filtering technique and created a scoring system that accounts for each symptom’s diagnostic value, distinctiveness, and reliability in order to improve diagnostic reliability.
Out of the total sample of 156 adults, at least 24 (15.4%) can be called “possible riders.” Five Yamnaya, two later, and two possibly earlier people can also be called “highly probable riders.”
“The rather high prevalence of these traits in the skeleton record, especially with respect to the overall limited completeness, show that these people were horse riding regularly,” adds Trautmann.
More study is required to determine if horseback riding was primarily used as a convenience in a nomadic pastoral lifestyle, to facilitate more efficient cow herding, as a vehicle for quick and distant raids, or simply as a status symbol.
“We have one intriguing burial in the series” remarks senior co-author David Anthony.
David Anthony, a senior co-author of the study and emeritus Professor of Hartwick College USA, notes that the series includes an “intriguing burial”.
A grave from Csongrad-Kettöshalom in Hungary, dated to about 4300 BCE, was suspected to belong to an immigrant from the steppes based on its pose and artifacts.
Surprisingly, the grave exhibited four of the six riding pathologies, possibly indicating horseback riding a millennium earlier than the Yamnaya culture.
Although an isolated case cannot provide a definitive conclusion, horse remains were occasionally placed in human graves with those of cattle and sheep in Neolithic cemeteries from this era in the steppes, and stone maces were carved into the shape of horse heads.
This suggests that the method should be applied to even older collections to gain further insights.
Source: 10.1126/sciadv.ade2451
Image Credit: Michał Podsiadło