Earliest signs of horse riding found in

5000-year-old human remains

The bones of nine men from graves in Bulgaria, Hungary and
Romania show hallmarks of horse riding in the patterns of wear on
their spines, legs and pelvises

The earliest evidence of horse riding has been found in 5000-year-old

human skeletons from south-east Europe.

A grave in Malomirovo, Bulgaria, containing a human skeleton bearing

evidence of horse riding

The bones of nine men from graves in Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania
show hallmarks of horse riding in the patterns of wear on their spines,
legs and pelvises.

The adoption of horse riding is seen as one of the key developments of

history, as it helped people to herd livestock, promoted trade and
migration, and eventually transformed warfare.
“Suddenly, people had the possibility to move five times as fast and carry
10 times more than they were able to transport before – that’s
revolutionary,” says Martin Trautmann at the University of Helsinki in
Finland.

It has long been suspected that the first people to domesticate horses
were the Yamnaya, livestock herders originating in the Eurasian steppe
north of the Black Sea and Caucasus mountains. They went on to colonise
most of Europe in what some archaeologists see as a murderous rampage.

Traces of horse milk have been found in shards of their pots. Although
this shows that people kept horses, they may have done so first for their
milk and meat, so it is unclear when they might have begun riding the
animals.

Trautmann’s team analyzed the remains of 217 human skeletons that had
previously been found in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Serbia for signs
of wear on their bones that could indicate horse riding. They dated from
between 3000 and 7000 years ago. “Bones are living tissue and if you are
doing certain activities throughout your life, the attached muscles and
ligaments exert pressure on the bones,” says team member Volker Heyd,
also at the University of Helsinki.

Several features have previously been proposed as hallmarks of horse

riding, as they are sometimes present in modern people who spend a lot
of time on horseback. They include wear of the top and bottom surfaces
of the spinal vertebrae, caused by the up-and-down motion experienced
on a horse.

Another potential sign is a thicker and rougher area where thigh muscles
join to thigh bones, showing heavy use of the thighs, which could be from
needing to grip the horse with the legs. “There’s additional bone growth
to make the area where ligament meets bone bigger, so it disperses the
force better,” says Trautmann.

The team assessed all the skeletons for six such hallmarks. Five
individuals showed the strongest evidence for horse riding, having five or
more of the signs. Another four skeletons showed four of the signs. All
nine were male, dating from 4500 to 5000 years ago.

But William Taylor at the University of Colorado Boulder says other kinds
of evidence of riding, such as remains of bridles, don’t show up in the
archaeological record from this region until about 1000 years later. “It
does zoom in on this region of the steppes as a homeland, but we are off
by almost a millennium.”

The patterns of wear on the bones aren’t conclusive proof of horse riding,
as they could have been caused by other activities, such as riding in a cart
pulled by cattle, he says. “We don’t have the kind of data I would like to
see to let human skeletons track horse riding versus other activities.”

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2362765-earliest-signs-of-horse-riding-found-in-5000-year-old-human-remains/