Horses first domesticated 5,000 years ago

[L. Coyote]

This places the economic and ecological impact of horse rearing back 1,000 years.

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Randolph E. Schmid, Ap Science Writer – Fri Mar 6 - http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090306/ap_on_sc/sci_first_horses

.... residents of Central Asia who domesticated horses more than 5,000 years ago.

New evidence corralled in Kazakhstan indicates the Botai culture used horses as beasts of burden — and as a source of meat and milk — about 1,000 years earlier than had been widely believed ....

.... Domestication of the horse was an immense breakthrough — bringing horsepower to communications, transportation, farming and warfare.

The research, reported in Friday's edition of the journal Science, also shows the development of animal domestication and a fully pastoral economy may well be independent of famous centers of domestication, such as the Near East and China ...

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