Rewriting the Story of Horses and Human History

by William T. Taylor

 September 12, 2024
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In our world today, it’s pretty unusual to see a horse riding down the street. In most cities and towns around the world, horses have retreated to the edges of daily life – appearing more often in sporting events or novelty tourist trips than in daily commutes for most of us. But it was only few decades ago that horses formed the fabric of life all over the world, functioning in everything from transportation to communication, agriculture, trade, and culture. How did this tremendously important relationship between humans and horses first emerge? And where is it headed?

To answer this question, archaeologists around the world have been seeking clues in the artifacts left behind by ancient people, and especially in the bones of ancient horses themselves. New scientific techniques, from archaeozoology to ancient DNA, are starting to shed light on when, where, and how horses were first domesticated, and how they spread across the ancient world–shaking the foundations of what we thought we knew about the human-horse past.

Ancient horse remains melting from the ice near a glacier
in western Mongolia. Discovered during the author’s
2024 summer fieldwork in western Mongolia.

In my own fieldwork in the Mongolian steppes, archaeologists and herders alike still mount astride horses to traverse the mountains and prairies that hold important archaeological clues to the first human-horse relationships. In my new book, Hoof Beats, I draw together ground-breaking scientific discoveries from the Eurasian steppes and across the ancient world, to tell a new story about how ancient people began using horses for both herding and riding, giving rise to new lifeways, cultures, and empires across the grasslands of Asia, Africa, and the Americas.

 

The author conducting fieldwork in northern Mongolia.

A modern ovoo, or ceremonial cairn, where horse heads
and hooves are adorned with prayer scarves in Mongolia. 

An open sky over the ruins of Khar Balgas, which once
was the capital of a great steppe empire in the 8^th century CE. 

A sunrise illuminates horse burials around monuments
known as deer stones, built by Mongolia’s first horse
herders in the second millennium BCE. 

This piece first appeared on the Unversity of California Press’s blog and is reprinted with permission.

William T. Taylor is an Assistant Professor and Curator of Archaeology at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History in Boulder. He is the author of Hoof Beats: How Horses Shaped Human History