Horses Domesticated 9,000 Years Ago.

I doubt there is any verifiable artifacts that link it to any date...pre eygptian or sumarian I have a problem with, stones this size would have required substantial society and infrastructure to go with it, they would have left more evidence behind than 3 stones, I'd suspect the assyrians or hitties are more likely candidates but it isn't their style...Phoenicians and greeks built foundations with very large blocks, so contenders...and some sources still claim romans, but this isn't there style either....

 

Saddle, harnesses, stirrups, you name it. Provide proof for horse domestication before the 3rd millenium BC. Where and when?

The Przewalski's horse stands 52 inches at the shoulder, close enough. Yet the early man preferred oxen over a horse. You have any theories why?

 

Just because something is possible, doesn't mean it's plausible.

 

Well, the saddle did not come about until around 800 BCE. The Stirrup in around 300 CE. But this does not matter much, because the earliest use of domesticated horses was more then likely the same as it was for goats and cattle. As food.

DNA research is now starting to point to the divergence of Domestic and Feral horses occuring at around 4000 BCE. And a great many ancient tombs in Central Asia have butchered horse bones with the human remains.

And there is a definite genetic marker for the two types of horses. Domesticated horses have 64 chromosone's wild horses that never underwent domestication (like Przewalski's horse) have 66 chromosones.

The reason why you never saw harneses and the like, is because they were not domesticated for labor, but for food. Like the chicken.

As for why the oxen was prefered, that is pretty obvious. An oxen could carry a heck of a lot larger payload then a horse can. Oxen were used even until the modern era in some places for beasts of burden, much more then horses have been (which are primarily used for sport).

 

I thought I would throw this in. In the mountainous environment such as Andies, before good roads were built, llamas were more suitable as pack animals than for instance, horses, because of their foot structure which is flexible and allows them to sense with a great precision rocks and such and maintain balance over any uneven ground, even along the narrowest and most treacherous passes.

 

Go back and read the finds.. there is evidence that these horses were smallish, unlike the Roman warhorse.. and there is evidence they wore bridles.

 

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I think that it is pretty common that before any animal was used as a beast of burden, it had long previously been domesticated as a food source.

This is just common sense, following the way humans traditionally domesticated all plants and animals.

 

Please read post #132

 

These 7th millenium BC Syrian/northern Mesopotamian sites have been known for a long time, nothing new here. I know absolutely nothing about how they have revealed the use of concrete at such an early stage. They are known however for their very hot furnaces (1100 degrees celsius) which must have reached these temperatures as the kiln pottery was found in the area and such pottery requires these high temperatures for their manufacture. These furnaces at the end of the same milennium were also adopted to smelt copper and lead, then poured into casts.

 

Well, one archaeologically established fact is that the earliest monumental building in stone was practiced in Malta, as evidenced by the Tarxien temples (3600-3000 BC).

 

Oh, and out of interest and regarding another thread. I've recently watched a documentary I taped a while back, and according to it, the Amorites may have been Semitic afterall.

 

Of course they were Semites.... They spoke a north western Semitic language.

 

I think concrete is earlier at Dilmun and in Egypt..

 

So was this concrete, cement or stucco?

 

It seems to me that there were a variety of combinations of materials that could create a hard, slick floor or cover an interior wall...

Dilmun has/had concrete walkways and steps.

 

I have to go for now, but I definitely want to get back to you on this one. First of all, I am not quite clear about the geographical location of Dilmun. Is it in Bahrain?

 

Gobekli Tepe in Turkey would appear to beat that mark quite easily by about 5K...

 

Yes... Its Bahrain.

 

Dilmun/ancient Bahrain has been known for its numerous burial mounds, mostly dated to the late 5th and 4th milennium BC, but other assessments have pushed back these dates as far back as 8,000 BC. Then of course Bahrain became a major maritime trading center sporting merchant navies facilitating trade between Harappa and Mesopotamia. It was briefly made a vassal of by the Akkadian empire. I further read this link below,

http://books.google.ca/books?id=Q65...C8Q6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=dilmun concrete&f=false

but haven't come across much that would describe the ancient Bahrein's architectural projects and accomplishments. Do you have a better source than this?

 

I am still looking.... as I recall concrete or cement was used in building the pyramids, in ancient Greece, in ancient Rome and in building floors in ancient Dilmun ... Try Nabateans concrete.

 

still there is large difference between cement and concrete....every source I've read credits the Romans for concrete...cement used to bind stone/brick together or used as coatings for floors, walls doesn't have the structural strength of concrete ...

 

Does it make a difference what sort of aggregate you are bonding?

 

yes that would important, being a contractor I've used a number of products and requirements /uses vary greatly...stucco's, slurry's, mortar, thinsets, grouts, concrete all different products with very specific technical requirements..use the wrong product and the results can be disastrous/expensive even deadly... but I'm no expert on the subject ...

 

Well, what ever. If these questions will ever get resolved perhaps we'll know it if they pop up on jeopardy one day.