At Smithsonian Magazine:
Who were the earliest humans to look at horses and consider trying to ride them?
Archaeologists are now one step closer to answering that question. A new analysis of 5,000-year-old human skeletal remains has revealed the earliest known direct evidence of horseback riding.
In a recent study published in the journal Science Advances, researchers examined skeletons belonging to a Bronze Age group called the Yamnaya, who lived across the Eurasian steppe between roughly 3000 and 2500 B.C.E. – Julia Binswanger (March 7, 2023)
How long will it be before it’s pushed back to 10,000 years ago? It’s not that difficult a technology to grasp. Absent the internal combustion engine, horses are usually worth more to humans alive than dead.
The paper is open access.
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