The Horse in the City

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Авторы: Clay Mcshane and Joel A. Tarr

Издательство: Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press

Год: 2003

Кол-во страниц: 275

Формат: pdf

Размер: 3 Мб

Язык: английский

Humans constructed their understanding and use of horses over millennia. The biologist Jared Diamond’s important work notes that horses were perfect domesticable animals with dominance hierarchies, a tolerance for other species, genetic malleability, and herding instincts. In prehistory, the availability of such animals led to the enormous growth and wealth of human populations in areas of the globe where horses existed or could be easily imported. Humans first tamed horses for meat, leather, and manure perhaps as early as 14,000 BCE, even before they were used to carry or pull things. Such beasts of burden allowed significant long-distance trade and economic specialization. By the start of the Christian era, horse-based societies held all the trump cards—more productive agriculture (horses pulled plows, provided fertilizer, and eventually found their way to the dinner table), more long-distance trade, and military supremacy.