Vital Evidence of Horse Domestication

Domestication of the horse is one of the ten pivotal events in human history, which had an enormous impact on how people lived, worked and ate. This article is a good summary of the development of research closing in on the time period and at least one possible location for horse domestication. From Yahoo News Researchers Find the First Horse Whisperers Sandra Olsen Carnegie Museum of Natural HistoryLiveScience.com Sandra Olsen carnegie Museum Of Natural Historylivescience.com – Sat Nov 28, 9:31 am ET This Behind the Scenes article was provided to LiveScience in partnership with the National Science Foundation. Paleolithic hunters in Europe and Asia began exploiting horses for meat thousands of years ago when the last continental glaciers disappeared, yet the origin of horse domestication long has eluded archaeologists - for some captivating reasons. One of the biggest reasons is that for many centuries, horse skeletons did not significantly differ in size or physical structure from those of their wild ancestors, making early taming and use of the animal more difficult to identify. But as part of an international team of archaeologists, my colleagues and I may be getting closer to the beginnings as we look for clues in Kazakhstan. Our team conducted extensive research at three sites belonging to the Botai culture in the northern part of the country, at locations dated to the Copper Age around 3,500 B.C. Rest of article.