World without horses? - Page 3 - Historum

**PADDYBOY** · October 19th, 2007, 04:45 AM

Before men domesticated horses, they tamed, trained and rode reindeer. Archaeological evidence from northern Russia indicates that the reindeer were pulling sledges around 5000 BC. When the climate warmed after the last ice age and the herds began to migrate north, a substantial pocket remained in southern latitudes. The Sayan mountains of Mongolia rise to over 6ooo ft. and over wide areas sustain the sort of grazing of which reindeer are fond. This remote place was also the cradle of the first horse cultures and it looks as though the Mongols learned many of their equestrian skills on the backs of reindeer. Easily domesticated, able to survive in extreme weather and also substantial, strong animals, reindeer were attractive to stock-rearers. The motivation to ride them came from a need to control the herd. A man on foot would soon become useless, whereas a man on a leading reindeer could make the others follow him and his mount. But when they began to migrate north, and the remaining deer proved too few, the Mongols transferred their technology and skills to horses and began to manage them in herds. When the Russians excavated the prehistoric tombs at Pazyryk high in the Altai Mountains of western Siberia, they came across horse burials. One of the first wore a chamfron, an equestrian face mask, and it was formed like a reindeer head, horns and all. It proved to be a persistent tradition. Horned horses are depicted on the Gundestrup cauldron of 1st-millenium BC. Denmark and on a set of fire-dogs from the same period found in Wales, on a chamfron from Torrs in Kirkcudbrightshire two horns were added which would have made the pony look just like a reindeer.

NomadBard · October 19th, 2007, 06:24 AM

Well, a world without horses would be a world without fillet de cheval, banned in America, but when I went to Belgium and ate it, delicious.

**Lucius** · October 19th, 2007, 02:59 PM

Quote:

Before men domesticated horses, they tamed, trained and rode reindeer.

Didn't the reindeer herders have to release the reindeer in the spring to mate, then go out and round them up again later? I think I remember hearing that this is the difference between "tame" and "domesticated." For instance, you can tame a cheetah, but they won't reproduce in captivity.

Maybe modern-day reindeer herders use artificial insemination like everybody else.

**PADDYBOY** · October 20th, 2007, 02:30 PM

So any animal which will reproduce in captivity is domesticated ? That probably includes all of the rodent family and most of everything else

I don't know whether cheetahs breed in captivity or not ? but I believe they were used as sporting animals used to hunt gazelle ?
Until sighthounds/longdogs came along ? Dogs being more trainable than cats ?
I also know that cheetahs, like most cats, are solitary creatures who don't like to mix with each other except to mate or raise young.
Perhaps I'm wrong though. I'm not 100% sure here ???

**Lucius** · October 20th, 2007, 05:39 PM

I'm not 100% sure here, either, but this is what I was given to understand. All tamed cheetahs were "separated" from their mothers before they had their eyes open and were hand fed by their owner so they would "imprint" on him, and were taught to hunt. This was in India, if I recall correctly. Perhaps in other places as well.

I don't know if there is an absolute, uh, refusal, to mate in captivity in the case of the cheetah, but apparently the mating ritual of the species requires several square miles.

**PADDYBOY** · October 20th, 2007, 10:50 PM

That cetainly sounds cedible Lucius.
I remember reading something, somewhere ? about cicus animals being taken away from their mothers at a very early age, so that they could be trained to a higher standard ?

Perhaps some stock animals where allowed to roam freely so that they could feed themselves ? I believe reindeer are very good at this.