The Domestication of Horses: The Equine Impact on Human History

Written by Emir Taha Macit

Alongside dogs, horses have long been considered humanity’s greatest animal allies. Before forming this companionship, humans had only their bodies to rely on for mobility and transport. Researchers suggest horse domestication dates back as far as 3500 BCE, in the Eurasian steppe. While they were mostly hunted as big game prior to their taming, they transformed human civilization in several ways afterward, boosting mobility in battle and travel, improving communication, and, in some cases, defining social status. Through their utility and prominence in history, horses altered the trajectory and scale of human progress after their domestication.

Trade used to be greatly challenging to conduct over distances. Carrying heavy loads of material over rocky paths with hand-drawn carts or pack animals required strenuous labor and considerable time. This led civilizations of the Eurasian steppe to form a bond with horses around 5500 years ago, spreading horse culture to neighboring communities over time. Studies have found that horse remains in the area had developed dental wear and human remains had dental calculus, indicating the use of harnesses and horseback travel, along with the consumption of horse milk. Horses enabled notably faster, more versatile travel, increasing travel distance from 15-20 miles per day to up to 100 miles and enabling navigation through difficult terrain. This was especially useful for the nomadic tribes of Eurasia, allowing for greater mobility in their lifestyle. Apart from the transportation of goods, horses were also useful for communication between settlements. Certain systems were developed to provide riders with messages to collect and deliver, notably the Chapar Khaneh network in the Achaemenid Empire that spanned over 1,600 miles and reduced travel time tenfold.

Horses were additionally prominent in warfare. Not only did they improve the movement of armies outside of battle, but they also created new classes of prominent soldiers: chariots and cavalry. Chariots comprised a two-wheeled platform pulled by horses with a driver and an archer. While the driver, the charioteer, would steer the horse through the battlefield, the archer would fire his arrows from a vantage point relatively safe from enemy attacks thanks to the chariot’s quick movements. Chariots would later give way to cavalry, troops directly riding horses. This shift stemmed from selective breeding that made horses stronger and more durable, allowing them to gallop despite the heavily equipped soldiers they were carrying. Cavalry had its own subclasses that created new battle strategies, such as light mounted archers and heavy knights, which led to it becoming the most prominent class of soldiers in later times, especially in the steppe civilizations that relied on horses for most of their army. They eventually faded in battlefield prominence due to the development of tactics to directly counter their charge, notably pikemen, and the invention of gunpowder weapons that rendered the expensively maintained cavalry obsolete. Despite this decline, they managed to remain an essential element of military strategies for millennia.

Some of these prestigious military classes required lifelong specialized battle experience and therefore brought a good deal of societal prestige. These warriors, such as Roman equites and medieval knights, were seen as powerful figures somewhere adjacent to the ruler. As horses belonged to these individuals, they were the ones paying for their expensive equipment like horseshoes, harnesses, and armor, and held land that they preserved as pasture for their horses. In some cases, rulers would be the ones to grant them said land for their services, providing them with a fief to generate income. Furthermore, horses of some historical figures have also gained popularity, as exemplified by Alexander the Great’s horse Bucephalus. Due to their complete integration into warfare and connection to their riders, horses have also gained some of the status they have granted warriors across civilizations, sometimes being buried alongside their owners.

Ultimately, the domestication of horses has greatly altered human history. From the advancements it brought in transportation and communication to warfare and individual status, it provided us with the most powerful driving force in terms of mobility until the eventual advancements in mechanization. Today, horses are kept as leisure animals that serve as pets or participate in horse racing and various other equestrian sports.

References:

1. Curry, A. (2020). How the horse powered human prehistory. Science 370,646-647. DOI:10.1126/science.370.6517.646 

2. Taylor, W. T. T., Cao, J., Fan, W., Ma, X., Hou, Y., Wang, J., … Miller, B. (2021). Understanding early horse transport in eastern Eurasia through analysis of equine dentition. Antiquity, 95(384), 1478–1494. doi:10.15184/aqy.2021.146 

3. West, E. (2011). The impact of horse culture. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/essays/impact-horse-culture 

4. Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology. (n.d.). Horses and human societies. https://www.shh.mpg.de/391568/horses-and-human-societies 

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