New DNA evidence published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences earlier this week supports the domestication of horses as having occurred one time, somewhere in the western steppe region of Eurasia, somewhere in what is today Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, or Uzbekistan.
Przewalski's Horse (Equus ferus przewalskii). Pictured are Przewalski's horses, the closest wild relative of the domestic horse ancestor. image courtesy of Vera Warmuth
That's pretty much what the archaeological evidence has been saying for some time, at sites such as Krasni Yar, Botai and Kozhai I in Kazakhstan: that horses were domesticated by pastoralist nomads in the steppe societies perhaps as long ago as 5000 BC. But the new evidence certainly adds conviction to what we've been saying.
- Horse History, including a brief summary of the recent research
- Krasni Yar
- Steppe Societies
Warmuth V, Eriksson A, Bower MA, Barker G, Barrett E, Hanks BK, Li S, Lomitashvili D, Ochir-Goryaeva M, Sizonov GV et al. 2012. Reconstructing the origin and spread of horse domestication in the Eurasian steppe. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Early edition.
Comments
The domestication of the horse by steppe nomads altered
their life style by leaps and bounds.Similar accomplishments
by the native americans-Lakota,Cheyenne and others also changed
their life style by this new mobility making it possible to hunt
bison more efficiently.
The Comanches and Apaches of the American Southwest, through their utilization of the horse, were able to halt the 18th century advance of the Spanish into the area north of the Rio Grande and south of the Edwards Plateau.
Was the northward expansion of the Spanish stopped by the Comanches and Apaches or by the emptiness of the land itself? When Spanish explorers ventured into the American Southwest the land they found was very inhospitable. With little water, little fertile land for farming and grazing, and especially no mineral wealth. Add hostile natives and there was little incentive for the Spanish to colonize the American southwest. And the Spanish did not immigrate to North America in large numbers as did the English. So what Spanish immigration there was stayed mainly in Mexico and Central America.
Spanish colonization in Southwest North America would be an interesting topic for a newsletter article. Why did the Spanish not immigrate more? There must have been many poor people in Spain. Was it just there was so much area in the New World to colonize that there was not enough people to colonize everywhere at the same time?