According to one study, humans may have started using horses as mounts around 5,000 years ago. This is indicated by typical traces of skeletal remains in some of the 24 people examined from the so-called Yamnaya and neighboring cultures of present-day Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary, reports a research team in the journal Science Advances. It is possibly the oldest known evidence of the use of horses as mounts.
According to scientists, the first evidence of horse domestication – probably for meat and milk production – dates back to around 5,500 years. According to current knowledge, horses were used to pull carriages from around 4,000 years ago, and possible early pictorial evidence of riding a horse or donkey is also known from this era.
bone changes
The use of horses as mounts made it easier to travel great distances and facilitated exploration, cultural exchange and trade, as well as warfare and migration. But when did humans ride horses? Early equipment is rarely preserved, and remains of horse skeletons are controversial, the researchers explain.
The team led by Martin Trautmann of the University of Helsinki is now looking for alterations and fractures in human remains, especially in the femur, vertebrae and pelvic bones, which normally occur in long-term pilots. Nine of the people examined probably rode regularly. “Taken together, our results provide a strong case that horseback riding was a common activity for some Yamnaya people around 5,000 years ago,” the team writes.