Электронная библиотека

The problem of horse domestication allows us to suppose different scenarios that could be realized in the 4th–3rd millennia BC in various regions where the wild horse lived (Europe, Eurasian steppes and the Near East). However, the main advantage of a horse is its ability to quickly pull a light cart. Therefore, reliable and abundant evidence on the domestic horse appears only with the development of wheeled transport and with the invention of chariots. This was a very complex process of gradual evolution of wheeled transport, the use of different types of equids and the evolution of corresponding types of harness. This process can be traced back to the Near East during the 3rd millennium BC, where domestication of the horse started from the use of wild horses for crossing with donkeys. We also see there the development of wheeled transport and harnesses. In the Eurasian steppes, we do not see the evolution of any component of this complex. The chariot complex appeared there together with the Sintashta Culture in a fully developed form. The widespread ideas about the earlier dates of the Eurasian chariots in relation to the Near Eastern ones are erroneous since they are based on the use of radiocarbon dates for the first and ‘Middle’ chronology for the second. In fact, the dates of the Near Eastern chariots are earlier.

 Domestication, horse, chariot, harness, chronology, Indo-Europeans