TechnologyCentral Asia

The horse tamed on the steppe

3,701 BCE

Distance becomes a wholly different thing

In depth

Bit wear on teeth and milk fats in pottery show the horse was both ridden and milked. Together with the wheel it turned the steppe from a barrier into a highway. Every later steppe empire — Scythians, Huns, Mongols — rests on this one domestication, and with them the spread of the Indo-European languages now spoken from Ireland to India.

For children

On the grasslands of Kazakhstan people began to ride horses. Suddenly one person could travel in a day what had taken a week. The horse transformed war, trade and who met whom — for four thousand years to come.

Connects to

The steppe people move out3,301 BCE – 2,601 BCE
The wheel3,501 BCE
The Mongol EmpireJan 1206
The Silk Road opens131 BCE

Part of Terra Saga — the story of Earth on a timeline. terrasaga.org