New research has pushed back the timeline of horse domestication by over a thousand years, suggesting humans were riding horses as early as 3500 to 3000 BCE. The study, led by researchers at the University of Helsinki and published in Science Advances, used DNA, archaeological and bone records to reassess when horses were first tamed.
Previously, it was thought that wild horses were domesticated around 2200 to 2100 BCE. However, the team found evidence of taming efforts occurring independently across regions from western Siberia to Central Europe centuries earlier. “Horses were being ridden, worked, and traded long before anyone thought it possible,” they said.
The research suggests that the migration of the Yamnaya people from modern-day Russia and Ukraine into Europe and Asia around 3100 BCE was likely facilitated by early horse riding. This rapid expansion, covering roughly 5,000 km across Eurasia, helped spread people, technologies such as the wheel, and possibly the first Indo-European languages.
“The horse carried people. And with them, words,” the team noted, highlighting that languages spoken across much of Europe and Asia today can be traced back to those early riders. Professor Volker Heyd, co-lead author, said: “The role of horses in major historical developments is almost too vast to measure.” He added that understanding the earliest stages of human-horse relationships is important for appreciating how this unique partnership first emerged.
