Site of the world's oldest horse farm found in Kazakhstan

[dogwood]

Not specifically bushcrafty, but since many of us have an interest in ancient life, this should be of great interest to some.

This is an interesting article about the discovery of the oldest (as yet) horse farm with clear signs of domesticated usage from 3,500 BC (pushing back the date of domestication by 1,000)

http://www.newscientist.com/article/...ef=online-news

What I find fascinating is the location of the find is Kazakhstan, where extraordinary horse riders continue to exist today.

[Toddy]

Brilliant
I love it when these pieces of the puzzle start to come together.

cheers,
Toddy

[wicca]

Even less bushcrafty this, but I once saw a demo where a Kazakhstani soldier on horseback, fired a shot from an SKS carbine, climbed under the horse,up the other side and back into the saddle to fire a second shot....at full gallop!! Unbelievable! We were told the kids learn to ride as soon as they can stand up. The area as an historic horse breeding ground certainly seems quite plausible with their traditions.

[dogwood]

Even less bushcrafty this, but I once saw a demo where a Kazakhstani soldier on horseback, fired a shot from an SKS carbine, climbed under the horse,up the other side and back into the saddle to fire a second shot....at full gallop!! Unbelievable! We were told the kids learn to ride as soon as they can stand up. The area as an historic horse breeding ground certainly seems quite plausible with their traditions.

Wicca, here's the bushcrafty bit: they can do the same thing with bows and arrows! I saw it in a video.

The horses they ride are quite small too -- unbelievable riders, those Kazaks.... And based on this news, they've been doing it longer than anyone else we know of!

[HillBill]

Its not surprising. It was part of the mongol empire, who were renowned horsemen/archers.

[Matt.S]

Heheh I know Alan Outram fairly well... he has a certain photo he somehow manages to get into every lecture which involves him covered in blood, trying to lift the meat-roll from a horse's leg... He also seems to be able to sneak into most lectures some mention of his work with the Botai culture. He's done a lot of work isolating fat residues and analysing them. They basically take cooking-pot sherds and extract the millenia-old fat residues, then work out which animals they come from, and if they're from flesh or milk!

[dogwood]

Its not surprising. It was part of the mongol empire, who were renowned horsemen/archers.

Yes the Mongols where great horsemen, but based on this find, the Kazaks where riding horses for 4,700 years before the Mongols arrived!

[HillBill]

True, i expect it wasn't local to kazhakstan though. The whole area probably had similarities. How far back do the mongols go? It is possible they were inter linked back then. Their borders are shared in places.

[dogwood]

True, i expect it wasn't local to kazhakstan though. The whole area probably had similarities. How far back do the mongols go? It is possible they were inter linked back then. Their borders are shared in places.

Why in the world would you expect it wasn't local to Kazakstan? Do you have something against the Kazaks?

While there appear to have been very, very small nomadic bands in the region, the Mongols proper don't appear in the historical record until about 800 AD (for what it's worth, when I was in college, I used to translate ancient Chinese history texts from about 1,000 AD, so I know a little about this period of time.)

It's not certain where the Mongols came from, however there is a general view that they migrated *from* Central Asia into what is now Mongolia and then began mingling with Northern Chinese nomads.

So rather than the Kazaks being good riders because the Mongols taught them, the odds are better that the Mongols where good riders because they came from Kazak (or related) stock.

For what it's worth, Kazakstan is an ancient seat of human civilization -- back to the stone age -- and they were in the middle of vital trade routes.

I kind of feel sorry for Central Asians -- for some reason people like to think that Europeans or East Asians were the dominate forces when, for many thousands of years Central Asian people were in the thick of things, culturally speaking.

[harryhaller]

There's a hell of a contradiction in that report - they are mixing the issue of the Botai settling down with the riding of horses.

Now that they farmed horses they no longer had to go out and hunt them for food. That is quite a separate matter from that of riding horses.

Surely the riding of horses is only of significance to people who are nomadic or traders - and not settled peoples.

The fact is that people are nomadic in order to follow the pastures - they cannot remain in one place since the pasture will be eaten away and the area becomes a desert. The nomads and shepherds would always move the herds and flocks on before they totally destroyed the pasture, so that the pasture could recover for the next year or even later on in the year.

So what were these horses fed on - if, as they say, there was no evidence of any agricultural activity.

Maybe it wasn't a farm, but a market centre where the nomads bought horses to be traded and be slaughtered.

[Toddy]

For what it's worth, Kazakstan is an ancient seat of human civilization -- back to the stone age -- and they were in the middle of vital trade routes.

I kind of feel sorry for Central Asians -- for some reason people like to think that Europeans or East Asians were the dominate forces when, for many thousands of years Central Asian people were in the thick of things, culturally speaking.

I agree, it's as vital a centre as the Fertile Crescent that we hear so much about.
Textiles, domestication of animals, trading, craftsmanship.......it's all there. There are even claims for early writing that predates the middle east too.

cheers,
Toddy

[HillBill]

Why in the world would you expect it wasn't local to Kazakstan? Do you have something against the Kazaks?

While there appear to have been very, very small nomadic bands in the region, the Mongols proper don't appear in the historical record until about 800 AD (for what it's worth, when I was in college, I used to translate ancient Chinese history texts from about 1,000 AD, so I know a little about this period of time.)

It's not certain where the Mongols came from, however there is a general view that they migrated *from* Central Asia into what is now Mongolia and then began mingling with Northern Chinese nomads.

So rather than the Kazaks being good riders because the Mongols taught them, the odds are better that the Mongols where good riders because they came from Kazak (or related) stock.

For what it's worth, Kazakstan is an ancient seat of human civilization -- back to the stone age -- and they were in the middle of vital trade routes.

I kind of feel sorry for Central Asians -- for some reason people like to think that Europeans or East Asians were the dominate forces when, for many thousands of years Central Asian people were in the thick of things, culturally speaking.

I never said the kazaks learned from the mongols or the other way around. I meant that they will have had contact probably long before they became known over this end. I said their cultures will have intertwined somewhere down the line.

No i have nothing against the kazaks. In fact i have nothing against any nation or people. I have friends worldwide and was in the foreign legion for 5 years so i am extremely tolerant of other peoples cultures.

Do you think cattle farming was only limited to britain when we first started? Horse farming will have been no different in that area. I mean, do you think the kazaks bred horse, the mongols goats another neighbouring nation cattle? No it will not have been that way imo.

[dogwood]

There's a hell of a contradiction in that report - they are mixing the issue of the Botai settling down with the riding of horses.

Now that they farmed horses they no longer had to go out and hunt them for food. That is quite a separate matter from that of riding horses.

Surely the riding of horses is only of significance to people who are nomadic or traders - and not settled peoples.

The fact is that people are nomadic in order to follow the pastures - they cannot remain in one place since the pasture will be eaten away and the area becomes a desert. The nomads and shepherds would always move the herds and flocks on before they totally destroyed the pasture, so that the pasture could recover for the next year or even later on in the year.

So what were these horses fed on - if, as they say, there was no evidence of any agricultural activity.

Maybe it wasn't a farm, but a market centre where the nomads bought horses to be traded and be slaughtered.

The people in the area were actually fairly nomadic, with a few durable trading centers, based on my reading of the history.

With respect to the food for the horses, the whole area is filled with grassy valleys for pasture land.

[Simon]

I wonder whether they found Stevie?

[WhichDoctor]

I seem to remember hearing somewhere that the riding of horses was actually quite a late invention 3000bc or something, that's why the Egyptians, Celts and the like use chariots. But maybe it was just that it took a while for horse riding to spread into the west?

Or it mite have just been a totally spurious statement.

[philaw]

If you live out on open plains as big as those of central asia, you have a strong incentive to find easier transport than walking as quickly as possible! Have you ever noticed kazakstan on a map? It's ginormous, but we never hear a thing about it.

[Mungo]

Have a listen to a great science show interview about the domesticated horses:

http://www.cbc.ca/quirks/archives/08...009-03-07.html


Traditional Kazakh villager One of humanity's more important leaps forward was on the back of another animal - the horse. But just when the horse was domesticated has been something of a mystery. Now Dr. Alan Outram and his colleagues have good evidence to show that it had already happened by 5,500 years ago in the Eurasian steppes of what is now Kazakhstan. Villagers of the day were using horses for mounts, milk and meat, and left the tell-tale traces in large bone piles. Dr. Outram is a Senior Lecturer in Archaeology at the University of Exeter in England.

Cheers,

Mungo

[Simon]

If you live out on open plains as big as those of central asia, you have a strong incentive to find easier transport than walking as quickly as possible! Have you ever noticed kazakstan on a map? It's ginormous, but we never hear a thing about it.

Man, where ya been? Stevie put Kazakhstan on the map!!

[harryhaller]

The people in the area were actually fairly nomadic, with a few durable trading centers, based on my reading of the history.

Yes - but the point I was making was that the article contradicts that:

Anthropologists have long wondered what made the Botai settle down. Learning to domesticate horses, possibly from distant groups that had domesticated cows, may have meant they no longer had to chase after their food all the year round.

Yet the Khazak culture is essentially a nomadic one.

[philaw]

Man, where ya been? Stevie put Kazakhstan on the map!!

Sorry, Simon. Who's Stevie? I bet it's a reference to a race horse so famous that only I haven't heard of it!