Kurgan Hypothesis
Source: By The Indian Express
Can horseback riding alter the shape of the human skeleton? The answer, according to a new study, is complicated. A team of researchers has found that although horseback riding leaves subtle marks on human skeletons, those changes cannot confirm whether people have ridden horses during their lives. Other activities, such as prolonged sitting or cart riding, can also result in similar alterations.
The findings cast doubt on a long-held theory in the field of archaeology. Known as the Kurgan hypothesis, it argues that humans began domesticating horses as early as the fourth millennium BCE. The new study, ‘Tracing horseback riding and transport in the human skeleton’, was published in the journal Science Advances. It was carried out by Lauren Hosek, Robin J James, and William T T Taylor, all from the University of Colorado Boulder in the United States.
What is the Kurgan hypothesis?
The question of when humans first started to use horses for transport has been a subject of debate for a long time.
The Kurgan hypothesis emerged in the early 20th Century, and proposed that domestication of horses began around 3500 BCE by ancient humans, known as the Yamnaya, who lived near the Black Sea. They used the horses to travel across Eurasia, and by doing so, spread primordial versions of the languages that would later evolve into English, French, etc.
William T T Taylor, one of the authors of the new study, told Phys.org, “A lot of our understanding of both the ancient and modern worlds hinges on when people started using horses for transportation… For decades, there’s been this idea that the distribution of Indo-European languages is, in some way, related to the domestication ofthe horse.”
In 2023, a team of scientists published a study analysing a handful of human skeletons belonging to the Yamnaya people, dating back to around 3000 BC. The researchers claimed to have found evidence of wear and tear in the skeletons from horse riding, which supported the Kurgan hypothesis. The new study, however, has introduced a layer of scepticism regarding the findings of that analysis.
What has the new study found?
Lauren Hosek, who is the lead author of the study, and her team examined numerous medical studies of modern equestrians and records of human remains across thousands of years. They found that the changes in the shape of the hip joint, which some researchers have cited as evidence for early horseback riding, can result from various activities.
For example, ancient humans — who are believed to have used donkeys, wild asses, and cattle to pull carts before domesticating horses — could have experienced similar changes due to riding carts or chariots.
“Over time, this repetitive, intense pressure from that kind of jostling in a flexed position could cause skeletal changes,” Hosek told Phys.org. This means that human skeletons alone cannot be enough evidence to confirm that the Yamnaya people domesticated horses.
“We need to couple…[human skeleton] data with evidence coming out of genetics and archaeology and by looking at horse remains, too,” Hosek said.
