First Horse Warriors

Horses.

Powerful,

graceful,

and thunderously fast.

No animal has made a greater impact on society

or given humans more freedom and mobility

than horses.

The thrill that people still get today

from riding a horse at top speed,

there's nothing like it.

Whereas if you get on the back of a cow...

it's not that great an experience.

Centuries before Egyptians built the pyramids,

Eurasian nomads unlocked the power of horses

and used them to reign supreme

over vast territories of the ancient world.

But how did they do it?

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Follow anthropologist Niobe Thompson

as he visits the last of today's horse-riding cultures

and explores archaeological sites

and genetics labs seeking to unlock the mysteries

of the world's first riders.

The horse transformed what it means being human.

It gave the possibility to explore the world

in a way that had never been possible before.

But horses could also bring terror

at the hands of brutal raiders,

and even pandemic disease.

Time-travel back

to when prehistoric people began capturing wild horses

and rode them like a tide

that would forever change the course of human history.

"First Horse Warriors," right now, on "NOVA."

Major funding for "NOVA" is provided by the following:

Horses are magnets for our attention.

They draw us in,

almost demanding we look at them.

For most people today, just seeing a horse is a rare sight.

Perhaps only a couple of times a year,

watching races like the Kentucky Derby.

But not so very long ago, horses were everywhere--

woven into the fabric of our daily existence,

in the countryside

and even in cities.

The city of New York had tens of thousands of horses

that were doing all the work that trucks do.

And they were also doing all of the work that taxis do today.

We don't depend on horses anymore,

but few animals have been as important

to the rise of civilization.

For thousands of years,

they were our long-distance vehicles--

the muscle and speed we needed to master the world.

But how did this unique partnership form?

Who were the first people to unlock the power of horses,

and what happened once they did?

Recent discoveries in archaeology and paleontology,

genetics, and even linguistics

are revealing the identity of the world's first riders,

as well as the extraordinary relationship

humans forged with horses

and how that bond would change the very course of history.

Horses appeared on the scene long before we did,

but surprisingly, looked nothing

like the majestic creatures we see today.

55 million years ago, they are small,

and move like agile dogs.

This Dawn Horse is well suited

to the tropical forests covering much of the Earth back then,

living and foraging among the dense foliage.

It stayed hot for millions of years.

And in all that time, Dawn Horse hardly changed at all.

And then, about 15 million years ago,

the Earth began to cool.

And when it does,

forested regions distant from the Equator

transform into open plains covered with grasses.

And here, the small, dog-like horse

evolves to avoid predators,

growing sleek, tall, muscled, and fast.

Although horses first appear in North America,

as their numbers grow, they migrate across Beringia,

the land bridge that once connected the continents.

More than 100,000 years ago,

herds of horses in Europe and Asia

prove a rich source of meat for Stone Age hunters.

People hunted horses.

They are meat on the hoof.

They don't have sharp teeth.

It's not like hunting cave lions, you know?

And early hunters know how to find migrating horses.

Horses are relatively predictable animals.

And they tend to follow a regular system

of water holes and grazing places.

At Solutré in Central France,

there's evidence ancient hunters regularly ambushed horses.

At Solutré,

for about 20,000 years, people were driving wild horses

into a kind of cul-de-sac

and then killing them with spears for food.

This chunk of earth excavated at Solutré

is dense with horse bones,

revealing just a tiny fraction

of the tens of thousands of horses

slaughtered here over the centuries.

At Chauvet Cave in Southern France,

the importance of the horse to our Stone Age ancestors

is on clear display.

When you look at this marvelous wall,

you see all the major animals the Stone Age world depicted.

You've got reindeer and mammoths, big cats.

But the horse seems to play the most prominent role.

From their art, many experts believe

ancient humans were making a spiritual connection

to these animals.

Despite such reverence,

prehistoric humans may have over-hunted horses,

and by about 10,000 BC,

when a changing climate may have also depleted their numbers,

horse herds became scarce in Europe

and disappeared entirely in the Americas...

where they would not return

until European explorers sailed them back in ships.

But on the grassy steppe lands of Central Eurasia,

the descendants of horses that migrated from America flourish.

And it's here that many experts believe

prehistoric humans eventually discover how to ride them.

The steppe refers to this long grasslands plain

stretching over 5,000 miles from the edge of today's Europe

all the way to Mongolia in Asia.

It's a harsh environment--

cold in the winter, hot in the summer,

and in many places, too dry for agriculture.

But you can pasture animals,

and these Kazakh herders are following in the footsteps

of their nomadic ancestors,

who may have been among the first people

to capture and ride horses.

And Niobe has come here to see what he can learn from them.

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Raising sheep, goats, and cattle

is a rugged, outdoor existence.

But horses make herding easier--

especially when moving grazing animals to new pasture.

And Niobe pitches in.

It was surely a big change

to turn wild and wary steppe animals

into the working horses we see today.

So who were the first people to tame wild horses,

and how did they actually do it?

5,500 years ago,

the people who lived at this site in Kazakhstan

may have been the first culture to master the horse.

The site was discovered 40 years ago

when Russian archaeologist Victor Zaibert

noticed circles in the earth

that turned out to be large houses

belonging to a steppe people anthropologists call the Botai.

Prior to creating this village,

the Botai are strictly nomadic,

living off the land, foraging and hunting,

and eating what they could find.

But then they settle down and change their lifestyle.

By the vast number of horse bones uncovered at the site,

they began eating horsemeat almost exclusively.

But is eating horses

the only use the Botai had for these animals?

Or could they be riding them, as well?

That question has roiled the academic community for decades.

Almost got a bevel on this side, too.

This is the same guy?

Anthropologists David Anthony

and his wife, Dorcas Brown...

There's the skull...

...have long maintained

the Botai were among the first people

to capture and ride horses.

And they've pieced together

what they believe is convincing evidence

by looking for wear marks a riding bit might make

on their teeth.

A bit is part of the bridle or reins.

They can be made of leather or metal,

and they go in the horse's mouth

just here.

So when I apply pressure through the reins,

the bit tells the horse what I want it to do.