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IamPurgamentum t1_jb73e6v wrote

Reply to comment by walruskingmike in Humans Started Riding Horses 5,000 Years Ago, New Evidence Suggests by geoxol

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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