Citation:
Abstract:
The osteological study of eight well-dated horse skeletons from Xinjiang (350 BCE) is reported as an important discovery: the earliest direct evidence for horseback riding in China. However, the sites are located roughly 2,000 km from the centers of Chinese civilization, where evidence for domesticated horses predates these skeletons by some 1,000 years, and artistic depictions of horseback riding appear some 400 years earlier than these skeletons. Horses in China were extensively used for charioteering: The duke of Qi’s tomb complex in Shandong (490 BCE) included several hundred sacrificial horses. Why, then, is this discovery so important?
Its importance, we argue, lies elsewhere: the beginning of cavalry warfare, a phenomenon that changed the geopolitical makeup of this region for the next two millennia. The occurrence rate of vertebral abnormalities suggests extensive exploitation, which is commonly attributed to excessive horseback riding, and their dating correlates with the onset of cavalry warfare on China’s northern frontiers.