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Horses in Agriculture Replacing Tractors and Early Domestication

Humans domesticated the horse about 5,500 years ago. Since then, humans have partnered with horses for food and transportation throughout history. However in the past, humans have used horses in nice numbers for cultivating the soil. Horse breeds have modified, too, specializing bound animals for specific jobs.

Updated on: 20 June, 2019 3:54 PM IST By: Dr. Sangeeta Soi

Humans domesticated the horse about 5,500 years ago. Since then, humans have partnered with horses for food and transportation throughout history. However, in the past, humans have used horses in nice numbers for cultivating the soil. Horse breeds have modified, too, specializing bound animals for specific jobs. 

Early Domestication and Agricultural/Husbandry Use 

The proof of horse domestication and farming seems with the Botai peoples who settled the northern steppes in what's the modern Republic of Kazakhstan. Archeological proof shows that the Botai used horses for riding, meat, and milk. The Botai were semi-sedentary, which might have created it tougher to follow the migration patterns of untamed horses. 

Their horses looked a lot of slender and their bone structure was nearer to Bronze Age horses than wild horses that lived within the space. Bone proof suggests the Botai selected traits in their horses and bred for them. The Botai used primitive thong bridles with bits, proven by bit wear injury on horses' teeth. It was revealed by the pottery found at Botai anthropology sites that they milked their mares, possibly for an alcoholic drink called "koumiss." The fatty acid analysis shows that the pottery held mares' milk and horse fat, indicative of raising horses for food. 

Older Domestication and Husbandry 

In the river region, horses could be domesticated as early as 5000 to 4500 BCE for meat, as proven by their use in sacrifices beside cows and sheep. These individuals buried elements of the horses beside alternative domesticated farm animal, suggesting that these animals were domesticated and not wild. These horses are domesticated not just for meat but for packing in addition. 

The early horses were pony-sized, about 13 or 14 hands or about 136 to 144 centimeters at the shoulders. 

Warfare 

Eventually, the horse became less of an agricultural animal and much of an animal for riding, chariots, packing, and warfare. As individuals bred the horse for size, the horse became a status-symbol and a weapon of war. By 1000 to 800 BCE, the cavalry had replaced the chariot. 

Replacing tractors with real horsepower can be the revolution that agriculture wants

Horses and alternative draft and pack animals revolutionized transportation, war, hunting, producing and agriculture. Till the primary decennia of the twentieth century, workhorses shaped the backbone of business society, mining coal, ploughing fields and transporting goods and people in fast growing cities. 

Reintroducing horses in town traffic would be a nasty plan - cars could be yelling, dangerous and polluting, but mounts are even worse. In agriculture, however, animal power would bring astonishingly massive environmental profits. 

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