ABSTRACT
The evidence presented to support the contention that horses were routinely ridden in the fifth and fourth millennium BC is the substantial beveling on seven of thirty-one equine pre-molars recovered from the house-pits at Botai and Khozai. The most influential version of the Kurgan theory, significantly revised from Gimbutas' original, has been formulated by David Anthony. In his The Horse the Wheel and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes shaped the Modern World, published in 2007, Anthony presented at length a demilitarized version of the Kurgan theory. In the Near East, the taming of horses provided sport, entertainment and danger. On the Eurasian steppe, where domesticated horses were everywhere, the taming of horses had greater consequences. Probably here too the first "free" riding done with at least some confidence may have depended on the rider's grasping a rope attached to a copper or bronze ring in the nose of a pack horse that was accustomed to carrying a person.
