walruskingmike t1_jb6lsos wrote
Reply to comment by IamPurgamentum in Humans Started Riding Horses 5,000 Years Ago, New Evidence Suggests by geoxol
You used the word exponential and then failed to understand that it is basically exponential and that's the exact reason technological advances didn't happen nearly as often back then. Something like a J-curve can be basically flat for a very long time before going near-vertical in a relatively short amount of time.
It took a long time to breed horses large enough to be ridden. The last remaining wild horse species is Przewalski's horse, and it's only 122-142cm at the shoulder. Light riding horses today are 142-163cm, while larger riding horses are 157-173cm; and then you have heavy draft horses, who are 163-183cm. It wasn't just a matter of some dude hopping onto a horse and going "aha!". People probably tried riding horses the moment they were domesticated, but they weren't large enough to do it reliably yet; it'd be like riding into battle on a pony or a donkey.
IamPurgamentum t1_jb6nxcy wrote
OK. Then what about someone who isn't an adult?
You're missing my point entirely. My argument isn't so much about technology. It's about the length of time.
I'm not arguing that they should have advanced as much but merely that they should have advanced. People would have made discoveries, practices and methods would have changed. To my knowledge the human brain hasn't changed that much. People would still be inquisitive.
The presentation we are given with articles such as this only feeds the impression that people were basic and that they did not think in the way we do. In basic terms they weren't that advanced. That doesn't really follow through.
walruskingmike t1_jb6y53q wrote
So you're suggesting that children rode horses before adults? What for? Baby soldiers? Why would that practice spread in the way you think it would?
No one is suggesting that they didn't make technological advancements. They did. Where did you hear that people "didn't advance"? Also, you're starting to sound an awful lot like social darwinism.
If you have even a cursory knowledge of archaeology, then you know that there have been a lot of technological developments over thousands of years, but technology is iterative; it gets faster and easier the more that has already been done. Rate of technological advances also increase alongside literacy, so before writing was developed, it all had to be passed down verbally, i.e., there's no library to hold all of the designs. I don't know why you're drawing this bizarre conclusion because of when ridable horses were first developed. Horse riding isn't indicative of much except riding horses.
IamPurgamentum t1_jb6ynas wrote
If technology and advances are exponential then does it not stand to reason that horse riding would have developed far earlier?
That's all I was getting at. Stereotype me all you want if it helps you.
walruskingmike t1_jb714hz wrote
No, it doesn't stand to reason. You have to domesticate them first; and remember that a horse can easily kill a man, even a small one. This means you need to have a good reason to devote resources to doing that, you need to already have the other technologies that go alongside animal husbandry, and you need to be in the right place at the right time to even be around horses.
Technological advancements don't happen just because, and cultural change isn't some linear path that everyone on earth is going down the same way; if it were, people in sub Saharan Africa would've domesticated Zebras a long time ago and done the same thing as people in Eurasia did with horses, but they didn't; it clearly wasn't worth doing for them.
IamPurgamentum t1_jb73e6v wrote
We're talking about a civilisation that made gigantic structures in an unknown way, that as best as we can sumise used pulleys to move extremely heavy items. You don't think animals would be involved in that in some way, you don't don't think that someone at something in those thousands of years would wonder about about riding them? People ride elephants that can crush them in seconds, they keep monkeys that could rip their faces off as pets. Enki is oftern depicted with a tame lion. In a traditional hunter gatherer sense you would want to understand animal behaviour. As we've discussed, this carries on to other things. It's difficult to imagine going that far with an animal such as a horse but ignoring something like riding it when it has been drawn on so many times throughout history. Everything is always improved on, but it always starts with the basics. It's very rare to overlook the fundamentals of these advancements because they have even around so long. Horses were and are used for many things.
The zebra part is interesting but again it plays into the view that these people knew what they were doing. Zebras are perceived as more equal to donkeys. As such, it's likely that in times past people realised this and so prioritised horses.
walruskingmike t1_jb76hav wrote
You're simply ignoring that horses leave skeletons when they die and we can measure those skeletons. We know when they could be ridden and when they couldn't. They needed to be bred for riding; engineering an animal to grow by 40% isn't simple and takes a long time. You're just making false equivalencies to other technologies based on nothing but conjecture.
And by your own logic that people should've decided to develop horse riding much earlier, then people in sub Saharan Africa should've been riding around on Zebras. They weren't "prioritizing horses" because horses are not a native species. They were brought into sub Saharan Africa relatively recently, so why didn't people ride Zebras when there were no horses present, a period that lasted tens of thousands of years? By your logic, it should've happened. And if zebras are perceived more like donkies, then that also applies to early horses, which mentioned earlier. A zebra and early horses are about the same size, so the conditions are about equal.
IamPurgamentum t1_jb788tf wrote
No, that's not my argument and you keep mentioning zebras when we have just established the difference between a zebra, a horse and a donkey. There is a difference of intelligence. To advocate that this is what was used and regarded enough to breed when other similar creatures were around is to acknowledge that they knew the difference. To know the difference means they are more than capable of considering and attempting to put someone on top of a horse, baring anything else. If you imported those creatures then the people before realised this and so on.
The size of the horse (unless it's massively smaller) is irrelevant, children were sent to work not so long ago.
You're are caught on your argument rather than considering the argument against it. People are people.
walruskingmike t1_jb87cr3 wrote
You keep shifting your goalpost and ignoring like half of what I say in each comment. Now suddenly early horses were chosen because they're so much smarter than zebras and donkeys. Did you ever think that maybe horses have been bred for their intelligence? They're also nearly half a meter taller now too, because we bred them for it. Did you personally compare the intelligence of early horses to zebras? Hell, even to Przewalski's horse, if you want to get comparative about it. Because if not, you have no point here, just more guesses.
We're back to child cavalry now, are we? What exactly can you get done more with a child on the back of a horse that you couldn't get done by just having the horse pull something? Bear in mind, that in order to tame a horse for riding so that it won't buck you off, you need someone to break it in while on its back, a back that won't hold an adult; even modern horses don't like this process when feral and they've been bred for this for thousands of years. So now you need tweens breaking them in. So you're arguing that a culture decided to have their children try to be the first horsemen, something that's incredibly dangerous and at that point hadn't been tried; and for what reason, you still haven't said. Not to mention, there is exactly zero evidence for child-only horsemanship in either history or archaeology; but hey, it makes you think you're clever.
I guess all of history, anthropology, and archeology are wrong, though, and some dude on the internet is right. You got me. Go ahead and respond in whatever way makes you feel smartest if you really feel like you need the last word. I won't be reading it.
[deleted] t1_jb7qxml wrote
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vashoom t1_jb7o1yk wrote
> exponential
You keep using that word but are not understanding what it means. The further back you go on an exponential curve, the shallower it gets. Technological advancements are exponential. That's why they're faster now and slower way back when.
But that's also a simplification, because "humanity" is not a single entity with a single development curve. Civilizations grow and advance and then develop new technology and societal complexity faster and faster, and then they stagnate/fall, new ones evolve and branch off of them, etc.
Also there are major differences in society and technology between 5000 years ago and 1000 years ago, so I don't even understand your premise.
Lastly, why would riding animals need to be something a culture developed early? Animals are far more useful as food, wool, beasts of burden, etc. It also requires pretty sophisticated techniques and technology to effectively ride animals, especially on battle (stirrups for one thing). Hitching a cart, which were human powered before, to an animal is actually less complicated than developing horseback riding.
[deleted] t1_jb7rdb8 wrote
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