Prehistoric India to 1000 B.C. c14.58

c14.58

The horse appears to have been domesticated in South Russia by Middle Kuban times (between 2000 and 1500 B.C.), and representations of Przewalski's horse appear on a silver bowl from the rather earlier Maikop tomb. But the evidence from Anau and Sialk shows that an apparently domesticated horse was known in Persia and Turkestan in very early times, and it again appears in Baluchistan in Rana-ghuṇḍai I and, though rarely, in the Harappā Culture. One cannot, therefore, hold that the Aryans were the first people to domesticate the horse in India or on its western border-lands, but they were certainly among the first to introduce the idea of rapid transport made possible by its use. For their farm work, ox-drawn four-wheeled carts seem to have been used, and horses bred solely for use with the light two-wheeled chariot for sport or warfare.