Technology · c. 2200–1800 BCE
Horses and war chariots
Sintashta culture, southern Urals (Russia)
Ancient DNA shows that the ancestors of nearly all modern domestic horses were domesticated around 2200 BCE in the Volga–Don region of the western Eurasian steppe. Soon after, people of the Sintashta culture east of the Urals, who built fortified settlements such as Arkaim, buried light chariots with spoked wheels, the oldest known, in graves dated to around 2000 BCE, often together with these horses.
Why it mattered
Fast horses and chariots transformed warfare, travel and communication: within about 500 years chariots appeared in Greece, Egypt and Mesopotamia, and they reached Shang China around 1200 BCE.
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