Some 50 million years ago, in the forests of North America, a timid herbivore less than two feet tall browsed for leaves and fruit. This tiny creature is now called eohippus, or “dawn horse,” and by 1.5 million years ago, its ancestors had evolved into what we today recognize as the horse. About 900,000 years ago, horses spread from the grasslands of North America to the Old World, where they would eventually have their first encounters with people. And so began the incomparable relationship between horses and humans, evidence of which is found in the archaeological record throughout the world.
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The Story of the Horse July/August 2015
Taming the Horse
(Courtesy Jean Clottes) -
The Story of the Horse July/August 2015
Horses and the Heavens
(HIP/Art Resource, New York) -
The Story of the Horse July/August 2015
Riding into the Afterlife
(Araldo de Luca) -
The Story of the Horse July/August 2015
Warhorses
(Bridgeman-Giraudon/Art Resource, New York) -
The Story of the Horse July/August 2015
Sport and Spectacle
(DEA/G. Nimatallah) -
The Story of the Horse July/August 2015
Return to the New World
(Courtesy the Museum of the South Dakota State Historical Society, Pierre, SD)
