Horse

choi

Andrew R Graybill, Beast of Burden, Partner in Battle. Horses brought to those who tamed them the gifts of strength, speed and stamina. Their use in combat would transform the art of war. Wall Street Journal, July 25, 2024, at page A13
https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture ... -in-battle-4f5e0974
(book review on Timothy Winegard, The Horse; A galloping history of humanity. Dutton, 2024)

Note:
(a) The article is free but poorly written. Read only the middle part which is reproduced below.
(b) For Pontic-Caspian Steppe, see Eurasian Steppe
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_Steppe
(i) The top map shows from the west easterly: Pontic-Caspian Steppe (the wiki page for this steppe states about this steppe: "where it ends at the Ural-Caspian narrowing, which joins it with the Kazakh Steppe in Central Asia."
(ii) Now return to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_Steppe, whose top map demonstrated a narrowing (colored black) of Eurasian Steppe (colored turquoise) above the Caspian Sea. The black atop (or north to) the narrowing is Ural Mountains. See in this Wiki page, section 1 Geography, section 1.1 Divisions, section 1.1.3 Ural-Caspian Narrowing.
(A) Pontic
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontic
(may refer to "The Pontic colonies, on its [ancient Greece's colonies on] northern shores" of Black Sea)
(B) The Steppe. Encyclopaedia Britannica, undated
https://www.britannica.com/place/the-Steppe
shows you another map of Eurasian Steppe.


(c) "the invention of the stirrup, by the Chinese, in the fourth century"

钟少异, 马镫的发明与中国古代骑兵. 光明日报, Apr 2, 2022
https://news.gmw.cn/2022-04/02/content_35630721.htm
("20世纪50年代，在湖南长沙发现一座西晋永宁二年（公元302年）的墓葬，墓中出土了一组陶骑俑和陶鞍马俑，一些俑的马鞍左侧有一个三角形的小镫，镫带较短，镫的位置高于骑士之脚，骑士的脚并不踏在镫上。判断这种单侧小镫是为便于骑手上马时蹬踏而设，骑好后就不使用了。 * * * 1970年前后，在南京象山发现的年代约为公元322年的东晋早期墓中，又出土一件陶鞍马俑，它的马鞍两侧都有马镫，这是供骑乘时蹬踏的双镫，也就是真正的马镫")
(i) For the first part of the quotation (about the 302 AD), see stirrup
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirrup
where a photo on the right has the caption: "A funerary figurine with a mounting stirrup, dated AD 302, unearthed near Changsha."
(ii) HOWEVER, the importance of stirrup is not to mount the horse. See 镫
https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hans/镫
("是一个平底的环形物，用皮带固定，悬挂于骑乘动物（主要是马，也包括骡等马科动物）上鞍的两边，供骑者放置双脚，也可以辅助骑者上下。使用镫使骑者更容易在鞍上坐稳，也更容易控制马匹，从而能够解放双手，在马上做出各种动作，这使骑乘动物在交通、通信和军事上开始发挥更加重要的作用")
(iii) Regarding the second part of the quotation, see 史晓雷, 对青州市博物馆惊现汉代马镫证据的评论.
https://wap.sciencenet.cn/blog-451927-1033219.html
("（2）《中国古代重要科技发明创造》，[publisher: 中国科学院] 2016年版，该书第62条 '马镫' 由陈巍博士写：
P136：中国在东汉时期已经出现挂在马左侧，辅助上马的单镫。————南京象山王廙墓（卒于322年）中一件陶马俑所佩双镫，是目前发现年代最早的双镫实物资料。
这里的第一句话，陈说引自孙机的《中国古舆服论丛（增订本）》P97。但核实并非如此，该书引用的材料仍说中国最早的马镫是稍早于长沙金盆岭的武威南滩魏晋墓的单马镫，而不是东汉。据《甘肃武威南滩魏晋墓》（《文物》1987年第9期），一号墓出土一件马镫实物，但 '残甚。' 墓葬年代大致在魏晋早期。上述 '马镫实物' 严格说不能算，因为是在明器上的形象，还不能算是 '实物。' 我国出土较完整的单马镫实物最早的是安阳孝民屯154号墓的鎏金单马镫，年代为4世纪初至中叶；较早较完整的双马镫实物为北燕冯素弗墓出土的鎏金包木芯马镫，年代为5世纪初（《发明创造》引用了该马镫图）。后者现藏辽宁博物馆")
, together with a photo whose caption read: "南京象山王廙墓陶马俑所佩马镫"
```````````````WSJ
* * * The author, who teaches at Colorado Mesa University [as Associate Professor of History] * * * Mr Winegard notes that the animal developed a suite of evolutionary advantages, including * * * enormous eyes set far back on the head, allowing for excellent peripheral vision even while grazing * * *

Horses were domesticated approximately 5,500 years ago, on the Pontic-Caspian Steppe, a swath of grassland stretching from Eastern Europe to Central Asia. The earliest human adopters used the animal as a resource, consuming its meat and milk and fashioning tools from its bones, but they found equines helpful, too, in transporting people and goods. Yet it was on the battlefield that the animal's impact proved decisive. The horse was the ultimate force multiplier, such that, according to the author, it 'dominated the art of war for almost four thousand years.' Foot soldiers were no match for cavalry, especially after the invention of the stirrup, by the Chinese, in the fourth century, which enhanced the rider’s control and allowed for the wearing of heavier armor and the wielding of bigger weapons. (For a sense of the mounted warrior’s advantage, see the charge of the Rohirrim in the 2003 movie 'The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.')

In America, where horses originated but died out some time before 5000 B.C., the species was reintroduced by the Spanish in the late 15th century, leading to the ascendance of the nomadic indigenous cultures that flourished on the Great Plains, groups like the Arapaho, Cheyenne and Sioux. Equines were prized as well in the urban industrial society that emerged in the United States after the Civil War, so much that, as Mr. Winegard declares, the animal’s “final curtain call, between 1870 and 1920 . . . was also the Age of the Horse.” In the 1890s, New York City was home to more than 100,000 horses (which produced millions of pounds of manure daily). Today there remain an estimated 58 million horses worldwide * * *