Horses

[Jan E.M. Houben]

On Sat, 9 May 1998 "Paul K. Manansala" <kabalen at MAIL.JPS.NET>
wrote:

>What I'm saying there is no evidence that horses were
ever central to IE material culture.

Recent contributions to this thread (most recently the one by N.Ganesan)
contain sufficient references to show that horses were of considerable
importance in IE.

>These were also found in Semitic, Chinese, Japanese and
other cultures.

The question of relative chronology comes up here. In the Ukraine evidence for
domesticated horses is found going back to more than 4000 B.C.  When was the
domesticated horse introduced in Japan? Wasn't horse-culture in China strongly
associated with "western people"? Semitic cultures may have made important
contributions of their own to horse-breeding, charioteering, etc., but when?
Here we have to cross the boundaries of Indology, I cannot give anything like a
definitive answer, only pose the questions . . .

>The whole argument here seems
to revolve around the presences of horses in India suggesting
migration of IE peoples.

It is not simple matter of presence, but a matter of former well-documented
absence and subsequent well-documented presence. The idea of mass-migrations
has already been largely given up, as far as I know. This is replaced by micro-
migrations and language and culture shifts, transitory phases of bilingualism
etc.

> From an earlier posting by "Paul K. Manansala" <kabalen at MAIL.JPS.NET>:
>Some scientists believe the
domesticated chicken originated in Southeast Asia, but that it spread
at least partly, in an indirect fashion to other parts of the world.

Domesticating a chicken is not so much dependent on technique and long-term
planning as domesticating, breeding, employing and taking care of horses . . .
A main-frame computer system (say) is quickly sold, but needs follow up care by
the producing company for years . . .

JH