The Botai Culture: Ancient Hunter-Gatherer Horsemen

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YT actually told me about this one. Clicked immediately! I've been turning wrenches for close to 20 years now. But when my customers ask me what else I would be doing, i always say archeology & anthropology. They're always genuinely confused. Anyways, I always enjoy your content and story telling. Thank you.

Dan Davis, Pete Kelly, and Paul Cooper are doing what The History Channel constantly fails to do.

The possibility that the Przewalski horses are just the long-free ferals of the Botai culture blew my mind when I first heard of it. Shows how few certainties there are even in the ancient past, or at least how we understand that past.

I love Dan Davis’ videos because they don’t have a sense of academic pretension or fear of retribution in case of an error. They instill a sense of wonder and a deep yearning for knowledge in the viewer, and they bring what can easily feel like distant peoples and cultures to life in a way that is truly wonderful. Dan, if you see this comment, thank you for sharing all the amazing information and stories that you do with us; we truly appreciate it

Well-researched, well-composed, and aesthetically pleasing, I like your videos even better than your books. Finding this much resources on such an obscure topic must have required a great deal of effort. Hats off to you!

you have no idea how much this vid made my day. im a farrier, i do this to live closer to my ancestors. i have been saying it for years theres missing info on the domestication of horses and we will find it in the step hunters/herders before the yamnaya and look at that there it is!!! i will ask people who float horse teeth on their opinions on the teeth wear patterns. i am so excited to hear more about this discovery in the future. finally proof that pushes the date back! As horses changed due to domestication so did tack and horsemanship one group the numidians, had an older style of horsemanship that they imported from anatolia. i believe it is a good historical account to use as reference to how early horsemanship would have looked like, likely not to dissimilar to the botai despite the thousands of years.

Really impressed that you were able to draw on a June 2024 paper to use it in a video on these people. Looks like a fascinating culture. I would have to think that they had a whole religion centered around the horse. And the domestication would be incredible if that is what happened. Riding bareback seems like an accomplishment in itself. I can't believe they would do it without any kind of stirrups.

Excellent, as always, Dan! It's interesting that only two days ago I watched a video on the Crecganford YouTube channel about a common myth across many ancient cultures that involved horses, dogs, and humans. The myth basically says that the Creator was making the first man from clay. He was busy on something else as well, so he left a dog to guard the clay figure. The dog had no fur. In those days horses had wings. One flew down, worried that if humans were created, they would hunt and kill horses. The dog was supposed to guard the clay figure, but the horse tricked him by offering him a fur coat. The horse tried to trample the clay figure, but as he tried, the Creator returned. The horse only managed to make a hoof print in the belly of the clay figure. This is why humans have a navel. After this, the Creator removed the wings of all the horses, and allowed the dog to keep his fur coat, so that he could always guard humans. This is why the dog is "Man's best friend". Also, many later stories, influenced by the ancient myth of the horse as the antagonist against humans, treated the horse as evil. It makes me think that wild horses must have seemed like they could fly, because they were so fast and intelligent. It seems that the Botai people had managed to "remove the wings" of the horses, and were helped by dogs. Sometimes myth and archaeology match.

I've studied history, pre-history, archeology, and anthropology about all my life, and I've never seen anything close to the quality that Dan Davis puts out. There's something tremendously satisfying in learning about very early European life, honestly. Usually, when we think about European archeology, it's focused around far more modern stuff, especially in the British Isles. There's never mention of these Tribes like the Botai or what they contributed to the grand story! To think that they might have been the first horsemen is pretty amazing.

I’m already hyped to watch this after my shift is over! Great Work as always, the ambience turned out great.

Another intriguing piece of content. As we’ve come to expect from this channel. Your commitment to bringing us the latest research, in a form digestible to the interested layperson, is much appreciated. Thank you!

What a Glorious Day

Your humility as you reach the edges of your own knowledge of archaeogenetics is an absolute credit to you as a creator. We dont hear people point that out often enough - it should be more normalised, in exactly the way you did it

I appreciate that Dan resisted the urge to tell a more definite version of the story about the Botai people riding horses (which would be popular with the website) and instead gave us the truth: that it's not really known yet. Lots of respect for that

0:41 "For centuries, generation after generation lived on almost nothing but horsemeat" - IKEA would be proud of them! - Sorry, I know it's a silly joke, but I really wanted to make it, and I didn't have the opportunity until this...

I have concluded that if someone is doing something excellent there is a common ingredient. Love. Mister D loves ancient history and telling stories and loves science and learng new things and inspiring people.

So much better than anything on TV channels . All they seem to want to do is make a film about the presenter or presenters as often there are several covering the same topic and taking it in turn to speak one sentence each and presumably getting paid handsomely for their efforts

I can't remember if I heard this somewhere, made this connection on my own, or if someone I personally know made the connection, but right the image/idea I have in mind about how the Botai culture got on with horses is basically like the modern Sami people with reindeer. Or rather, a more primitive (for lack of a better term) version thereof. Reindeer are still semi domesticated today (unless I'm mistaken) but they do exist in managed herds, and are sometimes ridden or harnessed to pull sleds/carts. So I think that at least later on, the Botai culture probably managed herds of semi domesticated horses (perhaps somewhere between tame and "in the process of domestication") and maybe rode the more docile members of their managed herds, perhaps even to aid in the hunting of the truly wild population. I'm not sure there's a reliable way to prove something like this tho. But I am glad that new techniques and technologies are actively being developed to try to answer questions like this! Thanks for covering this interesting topic

After a quick perusal of the comments, I'm looking forward to watching this even more. Love your work. Thanks Mr. Davis.