Comment by stareatgoats
12 days ago
The rapid expansion of the Yamnaya across much of the Eurasian continent in the millennia leading up to the historic era is still not fully understood, or has at least not reached consensus. If horses were not the reason, what then? The reasons are probably several, but the evidence is mounting that the causes were primarily cultural: a warring people with conquest engrained in their cultural DNA, a glimpse of which we still have in the cultural practices and documented beliefs of the Vikings, among other Indo-European peoples. Incidentally, they were largely the "race" that the Nazis identified with as the "master race" which has probably complicated this type of research to some extent.
It's all of them - horse, war chariot, aggression, lactose tolerance.
Even the oldest books of Rigveda [1] mention "Two bay steeds of Indra". That would be 3500 years old - and they had crossed the Indus by then (if steppe theory is to be believed).
> conquest engrained in their cultural DNA
Perhaps nuance, but I believe the PIE people are presumed to have developed a cattle-raiding culture, which is just a raiding culture in general regardless of the wealth at hand (slaves, goods, food, etc). As an aside, I'm always fascinated by Ibn Fadlan's observation (877 AD) when going up the Volga that there was a "slaving season". That probably goes back millennia.
Anyway, in turn, some of those bands - much like the much later viking gangs - probably decided to "stay" at the places they raided, which looks a lot like conquest. Anyway, not taking away from your point, just some color. :)
> If horses were not the reason, what then?
They spread what, 5000 km in a couple centuries? You can walk that in a few months, no horses necessary.
You can walk that much if you are healthy, have roads, have enough food and water, good clothing and shoes, there are no dangers that must be avoided and if you know what your destination is. If you have to stop daily to get food (hunting or gathering fruit), avoid or fight dangerous people and animals, figure out best ways to get along while carying whaterver possesions they had, shelter from bad weather, prospect for places to settle permanently or temporarily then it's a completely different story. It's also not like they had a deadline or something.
Centuries is a lot of time, you can do 1km a day looking for food and in 5000 days (~14y) you're there. Or you can go forward 10km, go back 5km every once in a while and it will still take you less than 200 years to do that.
If then you add multiple generations, you can absolutely do it.
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