What do we know about the domestication of the horse and its connection with the spread of Indo-European peoples across Eurasia?

New research shows how Indo-European languages spread across Asia. The domestication of the horse was a milestone in human history that allowed people, their languages, and their ideas to move further and faster than before, leading both to widespread farming and to horse-powered warfare.

How did Proto Indo-European spread?

According to the widely accepted Kurgan hypothesis or Steppe theory, the Indo-European language and culture spread in several stages from the Proto-Indo-European Urheimat in the Eurasian Pontic steppes into Western Europe, Central and South Asia, through folk migrations and so-called elite recruitment.

Was horse a word Proto Indo-European?

The usually given German word for horse is Pferd, which sounds nothing like the words for horse in the Romance languages. However, this word originated from another Latin word paraveredus. This word originally had a very specific meaning of a spare post horse in a way station.

Why did people domesticate horses?

Archaeological evidence suggests horses were tamed in the western part of the Eurasian Steppe (Ukraine, southwest Russia and west Kazakhstan). Experts think they were used for riding, and as a source of meat and milk.

How did horses spread?

The true horse migrated from the Americas to Eurasia via Beringia, becoming broadly distributed from North America to central Europe, north and south of Pleistocene ice sheets. It became extinct in Beringia around 14,200 years ago, and in the rest of the Americas around 10,000 years ago.

Who domesticated the horse?

“While it is true that the Botai were the first to domesticate the horses, it wasn’t their horses that became widespread.” The Przewalski’s Horse is considered the closest genetic relative to the horse population of the ancient Botai.

Are donkeys equestrian?

Equus is a genus of mammals in the family Equidae, which includes horses, donkeys, and zebras. The genus most likely originated in North America and spread quickly to the Old World. Equines are odd-toed ungulates with slender legs, long heads, relatively long necks, manes (erect in most subspecies), and long tails.

Who tamed the horse?

“We actually have two independent events of horse domestication,” says Peter de Barros Damgaard, a molecular biologist from the Natural History Museum of Denmark who led the project. “While it is true that the Botai were the first to domesticate the horses, it wasn’t their horses that became widespread.”

Was the horse the first domesticated animal?

Horses: 3000 BC Humans acquire their most important single ally from the animal kingdom when they domesticate the horse, in about 3000 BC. Wild horses of various kinds have spread throughout most of the world by the time human history begins.

When did horses get to Europe?

The history of horses in Europe is an expansive and complicated subject. Horses have been a part of European culture since ancient times, but it wasn’t until around 4500 BC that they were domesticated for use as livestock or transportation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTb_WmAEQyk