Horses Domesticated 9,000 Years Ago.

Abha is in the southwest of Arabia where the mountains begin....

Horses Domesticated 9,000 Years Ago in Saudi Arabia
Previous estimates had dated horse domestication back only 5,000 years.

Thu Aug 25, 2011 01:43 PM ET | content provided by AFP

Saudi Arabia has found traces of a civilization that was domesticating horses about 9,000 years ago, 4,000 years earlier than previously thought, the kingdom said.

"This discovery shows that horses were domesticated in the Arabian Peninsula for the first time more than 9,000 years ago, whereas previous studies estimated the domestication of horses in Central Asia dating back 5,000 years, Ali al-Ghabban, vice-chairman of the Department of Museums and Antiquities, said at a news conference late Wednesday.

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The remains of the civilization were found close to Abha, in southwestern Asir province, an area known to antiquity as Arabia Felix.

The civilization, given the name al-Maqari, used "methods of embalming that are totally different to known processes," Ghabban said.
global warming

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Among the remains found at the site are statues of animals such as goats, dogs, hawks, and a three foot-tall bust of a horse, Ghabban said.

"A statue of an animal of this dimension, dating back to that time, has never been found anywhere in the world," Ghabban said.

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He added that archaeologists also found arrowheads, stone tools, weaving tools and mortars for pounding grain, reflecting the development of that civilization.

The remains were found in a valley that was once a riverbed, at a time when the now-arid Arabian Peninsula was more humid and fertile, the official said.

An international team of archaeologists published an article in January that suggested human beings could have been present on the Arabian Peninsula about 125,000 years ago.

 

This is supported in the theory that the Neolithic Revolution started some 10,000 years ago. That is the earliest beginnings of a more agrarian, non-hunter/gatherer society.

It goes to reason that domestication of farm animals and beasts of burden like horses, camels and oxen soon followed.

Do you have a link or is this the entire article?

 

Thanks.. I didn't mean to leave out the link.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/25/uk-saudi-archaeology-idUSLNE77O01R20110825

This is a bit more sophisticated than hunter gatherers.. They also had mummies, indicating some religious belief or belief in an afterlife.

 

http://news.discovery.com/animals/horse-domestication-saudi-arabia-110825.html


And evidently they had art also.

Abha is cooler and smells like roses.. I have been climbing there.

 

http://www.horsetalk.co.nz/features/arabianorigins-191.shtml

Discovery points to roots of arabian breed

August 28, 2011

Discoveries from the remains of a 9000-year-old civilisation in Saudi Arabia may point to the very roots of the Arabian horse breed.

(snip)

mong more than 80 artifacts found at Al-Magar is a one-metre long statue of a horse, comprising head, neck and chest.

Officials say the statue, which could well be the largest known sculpture of a horse during that period, has features similar to that of the original Arabian horses, characterised by a long neck and unique head shape.

The head of the statue carries what officials say are clear signs of a bridle.

Several statues of animals were found on the site, indicating the animals were part of the inhabitants' daily lives. They included horses, sheep, goats, Saluki dogs, ostriches, falcons and fish.

All statues were made of the same local rocks available at the site and it seems they had been fixed on a central building at the southern bank of the river before the mouth point of the river at the waterfall.

This central building might have had a major role in the social life of the site inhabitants.

There are also rock drawings at the area next to the Al-Magar site.

These were created by deep pecking and engraving the rock surface.


A statue in which the horse's neck and head's lower details are clearly seen.
Ibexes, ostriches and other animals, as well as human figures including a knight riding a horse are carefully depicted, officials said.

Another drawing shows hunting ibexes followed by hound dogs where five dogs surrounding an ibex.

The artworks have over time turned black, which indicates they were made when the site was inhabited.

Other rock drawing were found among the remains of the central building at Al-Magar, including drawings of horses and human beings.

Finds at the site also include arrowheads, scrapers and spearheads. Other objects included stone grain-grinders, a stone pestle for pounding grain, gravitation stones used in weaving looms, a stone reel for spinning and weaving, a soapstone pot decorated by geometrical motifs, and stone tools for leather processing which reflected advanced knowledge in handcraft activities.

Al-Magar is located in the province of Tathleet, between the towns of Tathleeth and Wadi Al Dawasir, about 120km from Wadi Al Dawasir.

In March, 2010, the Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities started site survey and exploration work after the site was reported by a Saudi citizen.

Man either settled this area before it turned to desert, or during a period of tremendous climate change which ended with the spread of desert through the region.

It is believed humans lived in the area initially because of its ability to support agriculture and animal husbandry.

 

the more we learn, the more realize how much we have yet to learn.

 

I know.... did you see the list of artifacts? This wasn't a primitive civilization.

 

I think we will find that our notions about so called "primitive" societies are way off base.

 

Oh yes.. I agree with that.

Meanwhile the carbon dating was done in the US.

I think this is a very exciting development.

Archeology has only come to Saudi Arabia since the 1970s... and because of the climate, things are often well preserved.

 

I am convinced that we have been fed a very healthy dose of BS regarding human evolution. There's far too much evidence to suggest that mainstream archaeology is just dead wrong about many things.

 

I don't understand your remarks?

 

What do you mean exactly?

 

The theory of horse domestication ranges from around 9000bc to 3500bc. This has been tossed around for some time. This is not new news at all.

 

This site has been excavated near Abha and is 11,000 years old.

From descriptions of the artifacts, it certainly doesn't sound primitive.

There is also evidence for saddles.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/03/090305-first-horse-domestication.html

Horse Taming, Milking Started in Kazakhstan
Mason Inman
for National Geographic News
March 5, 2009

People on the steppes of what is now Kazakhstan were the first to achieve both riding and milking horses—new evidence suggests.

This culture had domesticated horses at least 5,500 years ago.


"They were not only eating horses, but were also exploiting them for milk," said archaeologist and lead study author Alan Outram of the University of Exeter in the U.K.

 

<<<Mod edit: Off topic Removed>>>

This find is a real push back for horse domestication which was previously believed to have been around 5500 years ago.

 

Yep, horses served pretty much as cattle on the steppes. I wouldn't be surprised if domestication of the horse happened allot sooner than 9000BC. Very interesting stuff.

 

Evidently so... Have you read about Gobeki Tepe?

I just never knew there were ever an Ostrich on the Arabian Peninsula.

 

I'm pretty sure it's one of the oldest religious structures discovered yet.
There's so much we need to learn about People who lived around the Black Sea.

 

Yes... its old and there NO flood sediment layer from Noah's Flood.

 

Noah's flood or better know as the Black Sea deluge theory is pretty interesting. The debate isn't about if it happened, but about suddenness and the magnitude. More interesting is how a great flood is an recurring theme from the bible to Mesopotamian script.

 

To me this is more likely ... in 2900 BC.

http://www.noahs-ark-flood.com/

The result of this synthesis is a reconstruction of a lost legend about a Sumerian king named Ziusudra who was chief executive of the city-state Shuruppak at the end of the Jemdet Nasr period about 2900 BC. A six-day thunderstorm caused the Euphrates River to rise 15 cubits, overflow the levees, and flood Shuruppak and a few other cities in Sumer. A few feet of yellow sediment deposited by this river flood is archaeologically attested and artifacts at about this sediment level have been radiocarbon dated.

When the levees overflowed, Ziusudra (Noah) boarded a commercial river barge that had been hauling grain, beer, and other cargo on the Euphrates River.


The barge floated down the river into the Persian (Arabian) Gulf where it grounded in an estuary at the mouth of the river. Ziusudra (Noah) then offered a sacrifice on an altar at the top of a nearby hill which storytellers mistranslated as mountain. This led them to falsely assume that the nearby barge had grounded on top of a mountain. Actually it never came close to a mountain.

Skeptics are correct when they say Noah's flood (as it is commonly understood) could not have happened, because many of the story elements, such as grounding of the ark in the mountains of Ararat, would have been physically impossible. This book uncovers how the mountains of Ararat got involved in the story (Noah did not go there) and locates the precise spot (within a few meters) of where Noah offered his sacrifice. This is a historical site (not on a mountain) that has already been excavated by archaeologists.

continued...


Curiously this also shows up in tablets found in Bahrain among the business and trade records.

 

I think that it's in reference to the well known fact that God created the world on Sunday, 23 October, 4004 BC.
Your information is obviously wrong.

 

That is pretty interesting. Do think the flood from the black sea had any historic and cultural impact people from that region?

 

I reread the lates studies on the Black Sea.. Here's one link.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea_deluge_theory

I think it was a much slower event that probably drove migration, but not a catastrophic even like the Euphrates river flood.

 

Well, you learn something new everyday. Thanks.

I know we clash when it comes to politics, but I can say this has been a nice exchange.