Conclusions

Abstract The final chapter concludes by claiming that viewing the Indo-European horse as ‘the unruly, spirited animal’ supports the notion that the earliest Indo-Europeans were key players in the domestication of the horse on the Eurasian steppe and probably also important innovators of wheeled technology. However, nineteenth-century views that these horses and wheeled vehicles were created as instruments of warfare are probably false. Riding on horseback would have permitted Chalcolithic farmers and herders to greatly increase the size of their herds and their access to wealth. Undoubtedly there was competition among the elite or those seeking to join the elite, but the idea that the horse fueled a male-dominated, misogynistic society focused on plunder and ‘chariot’ warfare is an anachronism. The Indo-European horse was domesticated by farmers and herders seeking better ways to control flocks and new sources of subsistence, not by military strategists.