Horses Domesticated 9,000 Years Ago.

For me as well.

 

Science fiction? Ever think of that?? The guy that made that statue was dreaming that one day people would dominate and enslave horses to make them work until they dropped dead.

If these guys could create art they could surely tame horses. Because the whole area around the Middle East was pretty fertile in those days it didn't take a genius to figure out how to farm. You drop some wheat around your camp and the next thing you know there is wheat growing. Same with fruit, nuts and what have you. When we came out of Africa we almost had to pass through the Middle East and the first ones that got a foot hold held on as long as they could. Some passed through and went on with the farming knowledge to populate other areas and some were driven out or killed out over the centuries.

Just about all of us passed through the ME on our way to here. As we can see we left some crazy people behind.

 

Are you familiar with Dilmun?

 

Sure, I've been there. Back in about 3kBC. Nice place but way more conservative than you would like. It was all work and no play - self-reliance all over the place and little rest for the lazy. But it was booming so things were good. I met a guy who electroplated jewelry, we laughed our asses off when he told me that he was sending it to the end of the caravan line so that people buying it would never get back to him and by the time their fingers turned green the caravan would be have way back to Dilmun. They found one of his batteries a while back- dated to 250BC found near Baghdad. Clay pot with a nail in it. Funny that the first use of electricity was to cheat people and on surprise that the liar was from the ME. That was what made people start biting things made of gold to see it they had a hard core.

 

cutsie... so cutsie....

 

We get it, sport. You think it's funny that a businessman cheats his customers.
But you get no points for originality.
Before 9/11, right-wing bigots told the same story with a jew as the target of their ridicule.

 

The certainly weren't primitive back then, but they never evolved any further. That makes them primitive NOW!

 

Why are you turning a perfectly good thread into a partisan cluster (*)(*)(*)(*)?

Oh wait, drones like you can't help yourself.

Please continue with your mindless partisan drivel.

 

Many of those are nothing new. In fact, religious belief has been traced back even further, to Homo Heidelbergensis (Heidelberg Man), between 400-600,000 years ago.

The main reason that more information about agrarian cultures survives is that it is easier to find. Much as artifacts from the Mississippi Culture are more common then those of the Hidatsa. One group settled down in villiages they occupied for over a hundred years, and created large monuments. The other was largely nomadic, and rarely stayed in a single place for more then half a year.

 

Does the Mississippi culture date to 9,000 BC?

 

You miss the point, I never claimed it was.

However, it is a fact in archaeology that trying to compare "sophistication" is relative, and difficult. Especially when you are trying to compare an agrarian civilization with a hunter-gatherer culture. Because hunter-gatherer cultures are by nature nomadic. And they quite often had some amazing degrees of sophistication. It is just that much less of it has survived or been discovered.

However, the degree of sophistication of neolithic cultures can be shown in many of the cave paintings they left behind. And both Neanderthal and Heidelberg cultures have left behind strong signs of religious beliefs, including ritualistic burial of their dead, and even art works. And both of these were much older then 9,000 BCE.

 

The art, artifacts and mummification indicates this wasn't a primitive society.

 

I would remain sceptical about this. 9000 years ago people were still hunting horses rather than riding them. 9000 years ago is about the time when people were domesticating their first animals such as goats. The popular belief has been that horses were first domesticated on the steppes of southern Russia (Kazakhstan?) and then the art of horsebreeding and horseback riding was only introduced into the Middle East by Mitanni and perhaps their sister tribes such as Hurrians. It may have been introduced into Anatolia by Louvians who invaded there circa 2500 BC. If you look at the old Sumerian carvings and reliefs, the draft animals for their chariots are always cattle, not once a horse.

 

Did you read the article at the beginning?

This find long predates the Sumerians... or Dilmun.

 

This is the only time this article mentions a horse. There are cave paintings depicting horses dating to 20,000 or 30,000 years ago, but these were the animals that the primitive man hunted, not its domesticated beast of burden. 9000 years ago, horses were too big and agile for an early Neolithic man to domesticate.

 

You do know that they found granaries dating to 11,000 BC near the Dead Sea. No disrespect, but your "beliefs" hardly trump serious research.

 

Granaries, that's a different matter. A form of a primitive agriculture was practiced in the Middle East in the Mesolithic. Jericho dates back to 8000 BC. Catal Huyuk even before then.

 

Yes.. I am well aware of both.. Have you been to Abha?

 

For example, in Syria and Palestine there was a culture called Kebaran (dating back to 17,000-14,000 years ago) which saw the first exploitation of wild cereals. Wheat and barley were first domesticated at Jericho during the Natufian, but the crops would be planted in mud close to springs and without ground preparation. This happened about 8000 BC.

 

Nope, I heard first about it from you.

 

Of course, "domestication" has a great many useages.

After all, the animal with the longest period of domestication with humans is the dog. And that dates back to around 30,000 kya. Horses of 9 kya were more then likely domesticated not as beasts of burden and transportation, but as a food source.

After all, the earliest record of animal pulled vehicles only dates back around 5 kya. And as can be seen in pre-columbian America, it is often a big stretch between having the capability of making wheeled animal drawn transportation, and somebody actually making one. Indian tribes all over both continents knew about the wheel, and had domesticated livestock. But none of them put the two together to make wheeled animal drawn carts.

And even when introduced to the concept of beasts of burden, most of these cultures (in addition to those in West Asia and Europe) tended to make travois instead of carts and chariots.

 

Horses may have been kept in captivity initially to be used as a food source, but even this came about probably millennia later. Horses will go bizzerck if you chain them or hold them in close confinement day after day, provided you don't have the horseriding skills, and people back then did not. If you hold them in captivity you will need to provide an open range for them, and that requires a lot of fencing. Did people living 9 kya build such elaborate fences, especially if you consider that wood even in more lush parts of the Levant and Middle East is not all that common? It made more sense back then to domesticate something more manageble, such as goats, but even this switch from hunting gazelles to raising goats did not occur until shortly after 8000 BC, and initially only in the Levant and parts of Syria.

As far as horseriding is concerned, this goes together with the arts of horse taming and horse breeding. The first historic record of this comes from Mitanni who invaded and settled in northern Iraq and Syria shortly after 2000 BC.

 

And I honestly could not give less of a (*)(*)(*)(*) about all the Hollywood bonkers crap and related sensitivities, such as 10,000 BC and Don't Mess With the Zohan. They may inspire the keen imagination of Will Smith's fans, but popular culture does not belong in archaeology.

 

You do not need fences, you simply use something that was well known 9 kya, and is still in use today.

It's called a hobble. And they are even used to this day in the Middle East. I myself have seen camels with rope hobbles roaming the deserts of the Arabian Peninsula.

No fences needed, and the lifestock can roam free. And the hobble prevents them from wandering very far.

 

Well, hobbles were so effective immobilizing and taming wild horses 9 kya, yet the same approach was not tried on camels until shortly before a 1000 BC. Why were the camels such a big step-up from horses, 6000 years in the making, given the availability of hobbling?