The Horse and the Silk Road: Movement and Ideas

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http://charite.academia.edu/documents/0 ... d_Book.pdf

The Horse and the Silk Road: Movement and Ideas

By Paul Buell, David Ramey and Timothy May

Published Online

Introduction: During the last nearly four thousand years, down to the very recent present, no animal has been more ubiquitous or more important than the horse. This was above all due to its military role, at first to draw vehicles, then primarily as a mount, then again to draw vehicles and artillery pieces, in which role it performed regularly until 1945, as well as serving as a mount.

Because of the dominant position it quickly acquired in warfare as a consequence, once the horse was domesticated its use rapidly spread from one society to the other in the Old World, the process being repeated in the New from the sixteenth century to produce the classic plains Indians, among other horse using groups in North and South America. Along with the spread of the horse went lore of every sort, information required to put horses into military and other use, breed and maintain them, the latter area including veterinary traditions which were actively exchanged from one end of the Old World to the other and then beyond.

The present paper looks in particular at this last area of exchange viewed primarily from the perspective of the collection of land routes known as the Silk Road and the origins of the domesticated horse itself and the development of the ways in which it was put to use.

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