From: João Simões Lopes Filho
Message: 4182
Date: 2000-10-09
----- Original Message -----
From: John Croft <jdcroft@...>
To: <cybalist@egroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, October 08, 2000 10:42 PM
Subject: [tied] Re: Horses
> Excellent research Piotr!
>
> Piotr wrote
> > I invite comments on the implications of horse biology for IE
> origins.
>
> Modern breeds of horse seem to be hybrids of two subspecies.
>
> The Barb (producing breeds such as the Arabian, the Thoroughbred,
> etc) seems to have had a south eastern origin.
>
> The Dun (producing most of the ponies and also working horses eg
> Clydesdale, Shire, Percheron etc) seems to have had a north western
> origin.
>
> That these two are cospecific suggests that they originally came from
> an animal that roamed widely between the two regions. The Lascaux
> horse, E.caballus is the obvious candidate. I would suggest that the
> two subspecies, dun and barb had separated prior to domestication.
>
> The first horse, probably of the European steppe variety could then
> have been back-crossed with the Dun to have produced the species
> found in north western Europe; the Arab, and related breeds equally
> could have been produced by back crosses to the Barb found towards
> the south east.
>
> It has been claimed that the first horses domesticated were too small
> to carry a mounted man. They would have been cultivated initially as
> a meat animal. Their benefit as a beast of burden would have been
> part of the secondary products revolution. No doubt they would have
> first been used with a travois, similar to that used later with the
> North American Indians. The first carts seem to have been little
> more than travois (travoix?) with solid weels added, pulled by oxen
> rather than pulled by horses. It was the lightening of the wheels,
> with the appearance of spokes and rim that gave the steppe ponies
> their head, and saw the rapid sread of chariotry thereafter. There
> is no reason, I feel, to doubt that this invention occurred somewhere
> on the Pontic steppe. The small size of chariot ponies, when
> compared to the Roman cavalry horses, was commented upon by Ceasar in
> Gaul and in Britain. The wheeled chariot, I feel led to the rapid
> spread of Indo-Aryans to the East and South. The Mitanni and Kassite
> aristocrats, with detectable Indo-Aryan affinities probably came from
> this expansion.
>
> Crossing these horses with the Barb seems to have occurred in the
> Middle East, probably during early pre-Hittite times (2,200-1,900).
> Certainly larger horses seem to have spread widely both east and west
> after this period, and the horses so lovingly rendered on Egyptian
> monuments show a clear admixture of Barb genes. It is quite possible
> that the Dun admixtures began at roughly the same time, as horses
> penetrated the north western forests.
>
> These crosses seem to have permitted riders to mount their steeds.
> In the absence of the stirrup this was a risky business. At first
> the preferred posture seems to have been to sit well back on the
> horse's rump. This unsafe position limited the sefulness of the
> horse as a mount to messagers and postal relays (eg. Egyptian New
> Kingdom reliefs show this position). People could be easily
> dismounted. It was a little later that the more modern seating
> position took over, with the mounted warrior seated forward on the
> forward haunches of the horse. This mount position seems to have
> spread in the Eastern Mediterranean only after the end of the Late
> Bronze Age. Once again it seems possible that this new way of
> mounting horses occurred first on the steppe and led to the rapid
> spread of the Iranian language groups.
>
> It is interesting that it has been suggested that the Greeks, not
> familiar with the forward mounted position (having only been familiar
> with chariot ponies), like the later Mexicans at first thought the
> mounted warriors from Thrace were some kind of composite animal, half
> human half horse (the cantaur).
>
> Thanks Piotr again for an interesting post.
>
> Regards
>
> John
>
>
>
>
>