Dr. William Taylor: Understanding early horse domestication and transport through scientific archaeozoology

Abstract:

Tracing the earliest stages of the human-horse relationship poses unique challenges for archaeologists, as early sites in the Eurasian Steppes are often devoid of historical records or obvious material signatures of the domestication process. Recent innovations in archaeological science, from osteology to biomolecular techniques, now provide us with a rapidly-expanding toolkit to understand and decode the first stages of horse domestication. However, applications of these techniques have overturned core assumptions of earlier models for horse domestication, and now warrant a reassessment of the timing and trajectory of the human-horse relationship in ancient Eurasia.