<i>Humans tamed horses 5,500 years ago</i>
Researchers have unearthed evidence that humans domesticated horses and used them for milk, meat and transport at least 1,000 years earlier than previously believed, a study said Thursday.
A team of archaeologists has found conclusive evidence that the Botai culture of Kazakhstan kept domesticated horses 5,500 years ago.
"What's really key here is they weren't just domesticated," lead author Alan Outram of the University of Exeter, in southwestern England, said in a telephone interview.
"By this point they've really got the full pastoral package: they were eating them, they were riding them they were milking them, which suggests that the original domestication is even earlier still."
Shifting back the date of horse domestication has a significant impact on understanding how early societies developed, Outraim said.
"The domestication of horses is known to have had immense social and economic significance, advancing communications, transport, food production and warfare."
Outram's team made the discovery by studying the bones and teeth of horses found in sites east of the Ural Mountains in northern Kazakhstan.
By comparing the remains to those of wild horses of the same period, they were able to show that the domesticated horses had been selectively bred and also had "bit damage" as a result of harnessing.
Outram's team also used a novel technique to find residues of horse milk fat in pottery discovered at the site.
Mare's milk is still drunk in Kazakhastan and is usually fermented into a slightly alcoholic drink called koumiss.
The study was published in the peer-reviewed journal Science.
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