Scientists say ancient Europeans rode horses 5,000 years ago

A group of international researchers on Friday said they believe to have compelling evidence that ancient Europeans were riding horses 5,000 years ago.

The team from the University of Helsinki and other European institutions made the claim after examining more than 200 human skeletons in museum collections in Bulgaria, Poland, Romania, Hungary and the Czech Republic. 

The team's findings, published in the journal Science Advances, claimed skeletal signs of what scientists call "horsemanship syndrome." These are recognized in six telltale markers indicating a person was likely regularly riding an animal — including characteristic wear marks on the hip sockets, thigh bones and pelvis, as well as stress-induced vertebral degeneration.

"If you sit on horseback, you need to balance with every step of your mount, you need to cling tightly with your legs," said Martin Trautmann, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki.

He said such morphology is pronounced as "saddles and stirrups dated much later," adding that early riders likely rode bareback and gripped the mane of the horse.

Horseback riding a decisive step in human development

"Our findings provide a strong argument that horseback riding was already a common activity for some Yamnaya individuals as early as 3000 B.C."

Archaeologist Volker Heyd of the University of Helsinki said the find "fits very nicely into the overall picture" of the Yamnaya, a Bronze Age culture known for its burial mounds, or "kurgans," and originating from the Pontic Caspian steppe in what is now Ukraine and western Russia.

Researchers long suspected the Yamnaya used horses as that would explain the culture's rapid geographical expansion over the course of just a few generations.

"It is difficult to envision how this expansion could have taken place without improved means of transport," researchers said. "Using horses for transport was a decisive step in human cultural development."

"The spread of Indo-European languages is linked to their movement, and they reshaped the genetic make-up of Europe," said archaeologist Heyd.

Researchers said it is unlikely that the Yamnaya were a warrior people.

"They were cowboys not warriors," said Martin Trautman.

The team is convinced that only a small number of individuals would have been riders who "were probably helping the Yamnaya people in guarding their animals, their cattle and sheep mostly." 

Though scientists had previously found evidence that horses may have been domesticated for their milk around 3500-3000 BC, Friday's publishings are the first to suggest evidence of the origins of horseback riding.

The researchers involved in the report say the earliest clues to horseback riding are depictions from the Mesopotamian Ur III period (shortly before 2000 BC). The activity was also written about and visually depicted in the Old Babylonian period from 1880-1595 BC.

js/sms (AFP, AP)