---
lsroute66@... wrote:
> --- In cybalist@..., george knysh <gknysh@...>
> wrote:
> > they discovered bit
> > wear on the teeth of a horse in Ukraine dated to
> 4000
> > BC the earliest horse known to have been ridden
> > anywhere in the world."
>
> The bit wear I believe was on the Dereika head. In
> the article
> mentioned, Anthony now identifies the the site of
> domestication
> somewhere to the east - Khazadstan or there abouts -
> with dates about
> 3500BC.
****GK:More at
http://www.archaeologytoday.net/1100toc/121900-horses.shtml:
"Testing their hypothesis, the researchers [GK:
Anthony and Dorcas]examined preserved horse teeth from
museum collections, searching for the telltale wear.
They found it on five premolar teeth of at least three
horses found at the Botai site in northern Kazakhstan,
which is firmly dated to 3500 to 3000 B.C.
"The bit wear at Botai is currently the earliest
direct evidence for the use of the horse as a
transport animal," Anthony said, "but we think that
riding actually started even earlier." ===GK: I think
this probably explains why their website continues to
advertise the earlier quote re 4000 BC. The Dereivka
horse head is no longer relevant, but its 6 horse bits
are. Non-recognition of this is what flawed Marsha
Levine's research.****
Recent DNA evidence on the other hand,
> which seems to have
> identified the wild ancestors of attle and most
> other early
> domesticates, found multiple ancestry for
> domesticated horses,
> suggesting perhaps multiple centers of
> domestication.
*****GK: That sounds plausible enough. Would you have
references for that also? Ukraine's Dereivka still
remains the earliest known site but a few hundred
years either way, and a possible wider spread along
the steppes won't make much difference to the larger
picture".
>
> Stev
>
>
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