The Two Tales of Horse Domestication

A new study in “Nature” suggests that horses were domesticated twice. The first attempt failed, and only the second attempt, 1000 years later (around 2200 BCE), succeeded. More precisely, there were two lineages of domesticated horses, but only the later lineage, the one that exists today, dominated the world. The “original” lineage, called Botai horses (named after the Botai culture that tried to domesticate them), failed to become fully domesticated and reverted to being wild. Over the years, they evolved into the Przewalski’s horse, a breed of wild horse. The first domestication was for the purpose of using horses for milk and meat, while the second was for using horses as a working force and means of transportation. The implication: the Yamnaya culture, ancestors of the Indo-Europeans, who migrated westward, did not do so using horses and wagons as previously thought.

Indo European Horse Worship

By the first millennium AD, Christianity had spread throughout most of Europe, leaving paganism primarily in the far north, where Christians had yet to reach. At the turn of the millennium, they had managed to penetrate Scandinavia and Russia, leaving the Baltic coast as the only remaining pagan stronghold. The Teutonic Order’s Crusades between the 12th and 14th centuries converted them as well, but by the 11th century, they were still pagans, while the Scandinavians had already converted.

A new study by researchers at Cardiff University found, based on biomolecular analysis of horse remains and strontium isotope analysis of tooth enamel, that despite their conversion, the Scandinavians continued to trade with the Baltic pagans and provided them with horses for their burial rites, which were prevalent in the pagan world since the Iron Age. Among the reported uses of horses were: halving or quartering, beheading, skinning, burying alive with all riding equipment, burning, and more.

The horse cult originated in Indo-European cultures, and many cultures of this origin revered horses. Horses were considered emblems of various fertility gods, and as part of this association, also of rebirth and therefore of the afterlife (death during life, known as a altering of consciousness). Pagans were buried with horses, and in some cases where bodies were burned, they were burned with their horses. Sometimes, when the deceased was truly important, he was buried with his chariot. Horses were believed to lead the dead to the underworld, and the passage to the afterlife also involved altering of consciousness, hence the need for intoxicating drinks. These drinks were made from fermented mare’s milk.

An example of an Indo-European fertility god was Poseidon, who was therefore associated with horses. The horses’ volatile nature and tendency to run amok also made them a symbol of fits of rage and mood swings. Poseidon was like that too. It is said that when he had fits of rage he would strike the ground with his trident and cause storms at sea, hence he also became the god of the sea. Freyr and Freya were also such fertility gods. Their father was Njord (Njörðr), the god of the sea. These gods were all part of the Vanir group of gods. The word Vanir is derived from the Proto-Indo-European word for “love”, “desire”, “connection” or “friendship”, wenh. Some believe that this is also the origin of the word wóyh, meaning “to wrap” or “to embrace”, a word that has evolved to describe the climbing plant, the grapevine. Or perhaps this nickname for wine is because it was used as an aphrodisiac, or as a mediating tool in social gatherings. To this day, it is customary to drink wine at gatherings.

Horses were also used for warfare, and their rage is one of the sources of the berserker. Warriors who got drunk to get battle frenzy tried to imitate horses. Berserker warriors often participated in sea raids. Horses were used for divination, analyzing both their internal organs, of course, and their behavior in general. One of the main uses of divination was to answer the question of when the right time to go to war was.

In Celtic mythology, horses symbolized the connection to the land and represented its fertility. Therefore, they were used as a totem, and were incarnated in the figure of Rhiannon riding on a white horse. Rhiannon is actually a personification of the Celtic fertility goddess Epona, whose name is derived from the Celtic word for horse, Epos. Rhiannon is etymologically related to the Celtic words for both maiden (rhiain in Welsh) and queen (rígan in Old Irish), and this hints at the practice of hierosgamos, the sacred marriage of Celtic kings, who, as Gerald of Wales tells us, had sex with a white mare during their coronation, and immediately afterwards they slaughtered and ate her.