Earliest signs of horse riding found in 5000-year-old human remains

The earliest evidence of horse riding came from 5,000-year-old human bones in southeastern Europe.

Skeletons of nine men from tombs in Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania show equestrian characteristics in the wear patterns of the spine, legs, and pelvis.

The adoption of horse riding is considered one of the important developments in history. Because horseback riding helped people herd livestock, facilitated trade and migration, and ultimately transformed warfare.

Martin Trautmann of the University of Helsinki, Finland, said, “Suddenly people can move five times faster and carry more than ten times as much as they used to. This is a breakthrough. It is.”

It has long been suspected that the first peoples to domesticate horses were the Yamnaya, herders who originated in the Eurasian steppes north of the Black Sea and Caucasus Mountains. They colonized much of Europe and are considered by some archaeologists to be a murderous rampage.

Traces of horse milk have been found in pot fragments. This indicates that people kept horses, but it is not known when they started riding horses, as they may have been kept for milk and meat at first.

Trautmann’s team analyzed the skeletal remains of 217 people previously found in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Serbia, looking for signs of bone wear that could indicate horse riding. . They are 3000 to 7000 years old. “Bone is a living tissue, and attached muscles and ligaments put pressure on the bone during certain activities throughout life,” says Volker Heyd, also a member of his team at the University of Helsinki. .

Several characteristics have been previously proposed as characteristics of horseback riding, which are sometimes found in modern people who spend a lot of time on horseback. They include wear on the upper and lower surfaces of the spine caused by the up-and-down motion experienced by the horse.

Another potential sign is that the thigh muscle is thick and rough where it joins the thigh bone, indicating frequent use of the thigh. This may be because the horse has to be gripped by the legs. say.

The team evaluated all skeletons for six such features. Five showed the strongest evidence of horse riding, with 5 or more signs. Another of his four skeletons showed his four signs. All nine are male and date from 4500 to 5000 years ago.

But William Taylor of the University of Colorado Boulder says evidence of other types of horseback riding, such as bridle remnants, doesn’t appear in the archaeological record for the area until about 1,000 years later. “Even though we’re expanding this region of the steppes as our homeland, we’re almost a thousand years off.”

The pattern of bone wear is not conclusive evidence of horse riding, as it could have been caused by other activities such as riding carts pulled by cattle. There is no data that I would like to see in order to do so.”