The Intimate Bond by Brian Fagan

Author:Brian Fagan
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781620405741
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2015-05-26T16:00:00+00:00

Riding horses opened up the steppes and provided a degree of mobility to people living in undeveloped country that had been unimaginable even a thousand years earlier. It also transformed the partnership between animals and humans in fundamental ways. Now the connection was far more than a working relationship; it became a bond between two individuals: a horse and its rider. A successful rider enjoys a close relationship with his or her steed, reinforced by gentle words and familiar commands. With careful training, the two form a close-knit team whose effectiveness comes from cooperation, not cajoling. With so many horses in the villages and with the realities of long distances and cattle herding on the steppe, riding horses had so many obvious advantages to people with close familiarity with their beasts that it would be astonishing if riding didn’t take hold relatively soon after domestication during the fourth millennium. At first, it may have been somewhat of a rarity, but an explosion in the numbers of horse bones in archaeological sites after the fourth millennium may also have coincided with the beginnings of horse burial, where an owner journeyed to the next world with his steed, even with much of his herd, as individual wealth in horses and exotic treasures assumed ever greater importance in steppe society.

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