The Role of the Botai Culture and Specialised Horse Pastoralism in Two-Stage Process of Horse Domestication

For over a decade there has been general, but not universal, consensus that the earliest known evidence for horse husbandry was at EneolithicBotai, Kazakhstan, circa 5,500 BP.Recent ancient genomic analyses, however, indicate that Botai is not the source of modern domestic horse stock (DOM2 lineage), but is instead related to the Przewalski clade of horses.DOM2 appears to instead to have emerged in early Bronze Age (mid 5 th Mill.BP) in the Pontic-Caspian steppe, and spread quickly replacing other horse lineages after approximately 4,000 BP.Whilst the specific evidence for earlier husbandry at Botai is not diminished by this evidence, it has broken the consensus regarding the early stages of horse domestication, with some now viewing it as a later event.This paper argues that domestication is rarely an event, but instead a process that is ongoing.The case is made for a 'prey pathway' initial phase of domestication in the Eneolithic, which was based around local subsistence pastoralist niche construction.Whilst 'push' factors likely played a part in the development of horse specialist pastoralism at Botai, it is suggested that 'pull' factors accelerated the spread of DOM2 lineages, replacing others, in the later Bronze Age.The DOM2 spread was principally driven, not by local subsistence needs, but by wider social, economic and military desirability of equestrianism.