Credited to Kazakhstan. A 2009 study argued Botai people bridled and milked horses. Later genetic work showed Botai horses were ancestors of Przewalski's horses, not modern domestic horses, and a 2021 study argued the tooth damage was natural and that Botai people mass-harvested wild horses. Other researchers place the first domestication on the steppes of present-day Russia.
How it began
The Botai culture occupied the steppe of what is now northern Kazakhstan from about 3700 to 3100 BCE. Its settlements, including the Botai site found in 1980 with at least 153 pit-houses, held enormous quantities of horse bones, corral-like enclosures and horse dung. In 2009 a team led by Alan Outram of the University of Exeter reported that Botai horses had slender leg bones like later domestic horses, teeth worn in a way linked to bits, and that Botai pots held residues of mare's milk. They dated this horse keeping to about 5,500 years ago.
Before it existed
Before this evidence, researchers had long suspected that the Botai people rode horses while hunting wild horses for meat, but did not keep other domestic animals or grow crops. They were hunter-gatherers living in large settlements. An earlier candidate for the first bitted horse, a tooth from Deriyevka in Ukraine once thought to date to about 4000 BCE, was later redated to roughly 700 to 200 BCE, which removed it from the debate.
How it works
The case for Botai rested on three lines of evidence. Lower leg bones were measured and compared with wild and later domestic horses. Cheek teeth were examined for parallel bands of wear of the kind left by a bit or similar mouthpiece. Fats absorbed into pottery fragments were analyzed chemically and identified as horse milk. Milking was treated as the strongest sign, since wild mares would not be milked.
Who pushed back
The claim has been challenged on several fronts. David Anthony and Dorcas Brown proposed that the Botai people borrowed horse keeping from neighbors on the Russian steppes. A 2018 genetic study found Botai horses were ancestors of Przewalski's horses and contributed only about 2.7 percent ancestry to modern domestic horses. In 2021 William Taylor and Christina Barron-Ortiz compared Botai teeth with wild Ice Age horses from North America and concluded the damage came from natural development and wear.
What lasted
The 2009 findings moved the accepted date for horse husbandry back by about 1,000 years and made Botai a reference point in every later study of how people first managed horses. The follow-up work also changed the understanding of Przewalski's horse, which the genetic results tied to the animals kept or hunted at Botai.
Where it stands today
The question remains open. Some researchers hold that Botai horses were managed and bridled even though they were not the ancestors of modern breeds. Others argue the site is best explained by regular mass harvesting of wild horses and that the origin of the domestic horse lies elsewhere. Mare's milk is still drunk in Kazakhstan, usually fermented into a mildly alcoholic drink.
