Cossack Cavalry Charge
Posted on 03/11/2023 7:57:54 AM PST by SunkenCiv
...Archaeologists accidentally discovered the world's earliest horseback riders while studying skeletons found beneath 5,000-year-old burial mounds in Europe and Asia... part of the so-called Yamnaya culture, groups of semi-nomadic people who swept across Europe and western Asia, bringing the precursor to the Indo-European language family with them...
The new analysis came from 217 human skeletons from the Pontic-Caspian steppe, a geographical area that runs roughly from Bulgaria to Kazakhstan... 5,000-year-old horse skeletons show wear on their teeth that could have been from bridles, while others have found possible fenced enclosures. In the same time period, horse milk peptides have been detected in the dental plaque of people from Russia. Importantly, the geographical explosion of the Yamnaya culture — which expanded across 3,000 miles (4,500 kilometers) over a mere century or two — suggests horses may have assisted as transportation animals...
Since bone is a living tissue, it responds to stresses placed on it. Consistent horseback riding can cause trauma and spine degeneration, but it can also result in more subtle changes to the leg and hip bones as the human body adapts to regular riding.
In the skeletons from 39 sites across Eastern Europe, Trautmann and colleagues found that two dozen had at least half of the traits of horsemanship syndrome.
They are most confident, however, about the identification of five Yamnaya culture individuals hailing from what is now Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary as likely equestrians...
Expanding so quickly and spreading their genes over such a vast area would have been difficult without horses.
Although skeletons with horsemanship syndrome are rarely found, their identification by archaeologists gives us new information about what it was like to live on the eastern steppe five millennia ago.
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
I think the issue was developing a bit to control/domesticate the horses, which some archaeologists found evidence of about 4800 BC in the Russian steppes. The Yamnaya culture, referenced in the article, spread from present day Georgia/Azerbaijan, reaching the Danube Valley and the Carpathian Mountains in about 3100 BC. My source: an excellent book called “The Horse, the Wheel and Language” by David W. Anthony.
Cossack Cavalry Charge
https://ehive.com/collections/5946/objects/806971/beccles-damaris-26652
This is a record/photo of my uncle’s champion Suffolk Punch - .
I’ve always imagined the first person to ride a horse as some surly 12 year old who was sent out in the cold and snow to milk the mare. “Screw it,” he said, as he turned over the wooden pail, and impulsively jumped on the horse’s back. Startled, the horse took off, with the kid barely holding on by the mane. Then, “Wooot!”
“bringing the precursor to the Indo-European language family with them”
I wouldn’t put any stock whatsoever in this paper.
Surely they would have arrived by now!
That is probably about how it happened. There is a similar story about Alabama hero John Pelham and a bull he passed by on his way to his one-room school. He was a very rough boy before his West Point days.
You just gotta know that the first attempt to ride a horse went like this:
Dude 1: Big fast beast. Bet you can’t ride it.
Dude 2: Here, hold my beer and watch this.
I suspect we can trace the existence of beer back through all the wild crazy stuff humans have done throughout history and pre-history.
The Yamnaya developed the wheel due to their geography, and are quite renowned for their war-wagons which helped them sweep through Europe, and then back to the Indus valley.
Why would they want a horse to pull a plow? Oxen do a much better job, are less prone to injury and other illness and provide more and better meat.
Horses are good for exactly one thing to get you from one place to another quickly. They also ride the equine short bus as far as brains go. That is why they are ridden in to battle. You try to ride a donkey toward a line of people with spears and donkey will "NOPE" right off the field. His mamma didn't raise the dumb ones.
So it took 7000 years to go from hunting and eating horses to riding them...
Clan of the Cave Bear was a tad early...
[Assuming the last glaciation was about 12k yrs ago...]
I seem to recall that the US plains indians did quite well without using a bit or even a saddle. The development of the stirrup was also an important development for warfare.
Decades ago I saw a National Geographic article about examination of a 50 foot tall village mound in Bulgaria. The oldest pottery was bright and colorfull with a happy mood. Around 5000 years ago the pottery changed to a dull earth color, although well formed. My immediate reaction, was “Wow, sommbody sure rained on that parade. My conclusion was that this society had been conquered and the fate of the women was great misery for centuries thereafter. Historically it has been suggested that around this time a formerly women respecting culture had been overthrown by a strongly patriarcal culture in many places in Eurasia and the middle east.
My son recently had his genes analyzed. It was a well known service, but not the one that includes Neanderthal figures. This service also offered information on parents. My mother’s parents came from East Prussia in the 1880s or 90s. My grandmother was from the Prussian pettit nobility and I have a German geneology paper going back to the 1700s, which I can’t read. My report indicated about 40% genes from Baltic and German sources, but from 6 to 9% from far, far east. My assumption was perhaps conquerers from the Golden Hoard, but who knows, perhaps much earlier. Presumably the Prussian pettit nobility would have included conquerers in the blood line. One of these days I’ll have to do my own DNA, the one that does Neanderthal. My 2 upper lateral incisors have “shoveling” which I have read is a Neanderthal trait, also very large molars.
Interesting, the two posts. Thanks for the ping.
You know isn’t it interesting that the climate change people
have gone after our food resource the cow, but haven’t had
diddly to say about horses.
Don’t they fart?
I should get that genealogy done some day also. It does
interest me.
No! No! If we use Lizzy Warrens’s definition as a guide it was the Cherokee!
Tracing one’s genetic heritage is extremely fascinating and revealing.
I’ve been reading about these people lately. There are three sections to european genetics. Early hunter gathers from before 12000 years ago. The closest moderns to them are from north asia. Some of the DNA from canadian indians tracks with their dna.
About seven thousand years ago farmers from anatolia moved into europe. They interbred fairly evenly with the native hunter gatherers. So males and females alike shared in two sets of genes from the two peoples to varying degrees. The mixing was fairly even because while the farmers were more settled “civilized” —the early hunter gatherers were more healthy. They had a better diet.
Starting about 5000 years ago horsemen from what is now roughly the Ukraine pushed west into europe. They went all the way to Ireland and Spain in the west and Italy and greece in the south and scandenavia in the north. They displaced all the males of hunter gatherer and anatolian farmer stock. Every European man today is desended from these horsemen. They are our fathers. Only European women carry the earlier dna of the anatolian farmers and the early hunter gatherers.
We’ve had a real nice bunch of topics about bronze age Europe lately, the one I almost reposted before I switched to this one had already gone up, I realized it in time. Red Badger posted this one:
https://freerepublic.com/focus/chat/4136020/posts
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