I1a3_Young
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The first study puts forth an idea of organized mounted warfare that depends on the earliest appearance of bronze jointed bits. They acknowledge that horses were domesticated 3500-4500 BC but that bits weren't in common use until 1000 BC.
I think that's a leap to say that there could not have been organized mounted warfare in 2500-3500 years of having domesticated horses.
You don't need a complicated bit or a saddle to fight on horseback, and certainly not a chariot
From: http://www.academia.edu/3535004/The_...d_warfare_2011
I think that's a leap to say that there could not have been organized mounted warfare in 2500-3500 years of having domesticated horses.
You don't need a complicated bit or a saddle to fight on horseback, and certainly not a chariot
From: http://www.academia.edu/3535004/The_...d_warfare_2011
On the subject of horse sizes, the Eneolithic (5200–3300 BC) horses of the Eurasian steppes were big enough to ride into battle. More than 70% of the Late Eneolithic horses at Dereivka,Ukraine (4200–3700 BC) and Botai, Kazakhstan (3600–3100 BC) stood 136–144 cm a tthe withers (shoulders), or about 13–14 hands high (Benecke and von den Dreisch2003;Bibikova1970). The horses ridden into battle by Roman cavalrymen commonly measured 120–150 cm at the withers (Hyland1990, p. 68), and those of the American Plains Indians stood about 130–140 cm, or ‘a little under 14 hands’ (Ewers1955, p. 33. Eneolithic steppe horses were about the same size as Roman and American Indian cavalry horses. On the question of rope bits, the authors conducted a riding experiment in which two expert riders rode never-bitted horses with rope and leather bits (Brownand Anthony1998; Anthony et al.2006). Our riders had ‘no problem’ controlling their horses. The American Plains Indians, regarded in the nineteenth century as among thefinest light cavalry in the world, used a ‘war bridle’ that was just a rope looped around the lower jaw (Ewers1955, p. 76). History and experiment both show that horses the same size as Eneolithic steppe horses can be ridden effectively at a gallop, even in warfare, with a rope bit
Horses probably were domesticated as an inexpensive source of winter meat by people who already possessed herds of domesticated cattle and sheep. The bones of domesticated cattle and sheep first appeared in sites in the western steppes, between the Dnieper and Ural Rivers, north of the Black and Caspian Seas, about 5300–4800 BC
Horse-head maces signaled an iconic status for horses in the lower Danube valley at about 4200–3800 BC; just when horses were introduced, the intrusive Suvorovo graves appeared, and hundreds of long-established tell settlements were abandoned. Mounted raiding could have contributed to the Karanovo VI–Gumelnit¸a collapse(Anthony2007, chapter 11,2010).