How would humanity develop without horses?

How would humanity develop without horses?

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Well, OP's sex life would be a lot less interesting.

Plenty of actual human civilizations didn't have access to horses, so like those?

The real problem is lacking draft animals entirely. As long as you still have cattle that's taken care of, oxen are entirely suitable as a replacement for draft horses. Donkeys are a fairly close replacement as well, some breeds get quite large. It's possible that with sufficient breeding for it you could do the same with goats, although they'd look weird to us.

As long as you have something along those lines, they'll probably be pressed into as many roles horses fill as possible, whether that's riding, pulling chariots/carts, whatever. And they might not be quite as good, but they'll still likely be 'good enough'.

The cultures who lacked any domestic animals larger than dogs generally didn't progress as far, because the use of draft animals just so dramatically magnifies what a population of a given size can do.

On the other hand, assuming they figured out ways to create advanced civilization without draft animals (see Aztecs), they'd be back close to what we think of as standard human progression once steam engines, or anything similar, are created. We used massive amounts of horses/mules for centuries, especially during the industrial revolution, but the numbers fell sharply after the steam engine was introduced and nearly disappeared with the gasoline engine.

Cow drawn carts become more common, meaning slower travel.

Cavalry likely never becomes a thing unless we can domesticate another fast riding animal.

Violins and mandolins are never invented.

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>Aggressive horse warlords worshipping patriarchal , warrior gods wouldn't have been been able to destroy the mother goddess cults at the dawn of human civilisation.
>Mother goddess cults would have flourished throughout the world spreading peace, fertility and natural rights.
>We all now would live in a matriarchal utopia free from war, poverty , crime and disease.

@54248850
this is terrible bait, no (You) for You

If you really believe that, awww, that's so fucking precious it's funny.

>We all now would live in a matriarchal utopia free from war, poverty, crime and disease.

All those things would still be here, we'd just be stuck in mud huts, bashing each other with sticks.
Nice bait tho.

>Slaves of the patriarchy literally believe this.

I really want to give you this but I just can't. At least not yet. On the one hand I'm pretty sure it's bait but also because the autismatron who likes to shit up alternate history thread and seems to believes that he and only he has heard of the butterfly effect will probably be here soon and he will deserve it more.

>Donkeys are a fairly close replacement as well, some breeds get quite large. It's possible that with sufficient breeding for it you could do the same with goats, although they'd look weird to us.

And over thousands of years, horses were gradually bred for size until they were rideable by armored men. The wild horses that horses were originally bred from were pretty small, too, though not nearly as small as a goat.

You could do a whole setting where a different animal was domesticated and eventually made into a draft animal and finally ridden. Some settings do that with stags, boars, rhinos, etc. But a goat would be a fascinating choice.

People would have to become more neeeeeighborly.

Are you retarded or something? A lot of cultures developed without the use of horses

One of the horses's greatest asset is that they're in a perfect mix of smart enough to be trained reasonably quickly but dumb enough to be trained to do things rather counterproductive to their nature like charge into people.

A lot of animals that might be more comparable physically may not necessarily be as good for the kind of things humanity got horses to do over the years. Stuff like boars and rhinos could easily be far too dangerous by comparison. Pigs are far too independent and bastardly compared to horse's natural herd mentality for one.

How'd they make the elephants fit?

How do you fit four elephants in a car?
>Two in the front, two in the back
How do you fit four hippos in a car?
>You can't! The elephants are already in there!

There is still people than belives the matriarchy crap? I think I seen you a few times sperging in Veeky Forums about it too.

I'm sure ancient cattle breeders could select for train-ability and obedience along with size and stamina

I'm pretty sure that was an obvious joke, but hey you people are taking it seriously so he might as well troll you a little.

I know telling false stupidity from genuine one is often not easy around here, but this was is rather obvious.
There are plenty of people who still kinda believe this matriarchy crap (it has an amazingly deep roots for some reason, for a non-scietific theory coming from same era and same people who also believed in frenology), but they are never nearly as overt about it, and DEFINITELY not claiming that patriarchy is responsible for diseases.

Found a larger version.

Ah yes, the americas, known for their peaceful natives

Go away Marija Gimbutas, you're an old crazy hag

>One of the horses's greatest asset is that they're in a perfect mix of smart enough to be trained
Actually, they are just dumb. Horses are dumb. Donkeys, on the other hand, are pretty fucking smart.
The real advantage of horses over other similar animals is that they are DUMB AS A BUCKET, but accustomed to strongly hierarchal herds. Horses are, simply put, "pre-programed" to listen to a superior and obey the (often realtively complicated) rules of the herd. And they are pre-programed to observe those hieararchies from birth, and pass them on to further generations. At the same time, they are dumb enough not to try being particularly creative about it.

Breeding does not solve everything. If the animal has no or little useful sense of social dominancy ladders, no amount of breeding is going to fix that. There is a reason why you can't use elk or moose for mounts (there is literally this one farm in Sweden that managed to train their moose to let you climb on his back. Good luck making him take you where you want, or even entering his pen in the wrong season though.
You will also never train a antelope or a wildebeest for the same reason. Antelope or wildebeest do live in herds like horses, but they don't have an actual dominancy among themselves. They just flock together because that gives them better odds of survival, but none individual animal has "authority" over another. It's impossible to domesticate them. You can tame them, but not domesticate them. If there is no pre-disposition, then there is nothing for the breeders to cultivate.

Well, I mean

you can just look at civilizations in Africa and the America's...

There was a time on Veeky Forums, long ago, before the /pol/tards came, when obvious jokes were understood by all to be obvious jokes, not bait.

>They just flock together because that gives them better odds of survival, but none individual animal has "authority" over another.
Isn't that also the case with the sheep?

>If there is no pre-disposition, then there is nothing for the breeders to cultivate.

You are wrong.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Domesticated_Red_Fox

What about just donkeys? They are already domesticated and mounted, I'm sure we could've bred them to be way, way bigger like we did with horses and dogs.

Those ended up being just jittery dogs
Possibly because canids are in general ridiculously genetically plastic

Wouldn't that be more like donkeys and horses, with horses being dogs/wolves and donkeys being the fox? But they just never tried to tame the fox before?

Doesn't sound like comparing horses and antelopes.

>Marija Gimbutas
And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why you don't let women into science.
Though in all seriousness, Gimbutas was actually an excellent archeologist. Just a terrible analytic and influenced by some truly awful authors: she was not an anthropologist to begin with, and her work was based on Bachofen and Morgan's theories, which were really BIG when she was young, impressionable girl.
Plus, that era was just full of bullshit like that, it was the big zeitgeist of those time. There was that Apollonian and Dionysian societies by Benedict, the stupid sexually liberated societies theory by Meadow, then there were loons like Blavatsky and Cayce. You can't really be mad at her for falling victim of the same bullshit. People were confused after the wars.

Yeah, as far as I know. And good luck getting sheep working as draft animals and mounts.
Though you are right that the use of the word "domesticated" might have been inappropriate when you bring up this example. It's a bit more complicated, I admit: there are other factors that made moose and wildebeest impossible to domesticate, including specific requirements for terrain/environment and other factors. And you can force them into a pen and with some luck keep them alive, even breeding. They won't ever be obedient though. They literally do not have the capacity to understand what that concept means. Sheep don't, either.

Goats and donkeys do. But they are, as stated, actually a little too clever. They will constantly try new strategies, constantly test your authority etc... nightmare to train.

>Possibly because canids are in general ridiculously genetically plastic
This, why are they so prone to mutations, Veeky Forums ?

We have domesticated deers and raindeers,how are wildebeest and gazelles that different?

I used giant-elands in my not! Africa.

Doesn't look strong enough to hold a person bigger than a child. Should have gone with the Elephants.

Or chariots, run by cheetahs.

Goddamnit Sumeria stop ancient era rushing everyone!

He did say they were giant

We didn't. Not really. Well, it does depend on how we specifically define "domestication". We can raise them in containment. We can force raindeer - the only kinda-sorta-semi-domesticated member of the deer family - to draw a pulk for a couple of hours before they get sick of it. And you can really do that only in some parts of the year. Even the so-called domesticated raindeer actually spend most of their lives living completely freely. And they are fucking docile and mild-tempred for their kin.

Horses also didn't until we bred them for size.

Besides, elephants are too hard to tame and no one domesticated them yet. Their pregnancy is also too long.

There's a difference between taming an, individual and domesticating a species. A wolf can be tamed, a dog is domesticated

itty bitty mammal
itty bitty mutants

Oh right, I'm retarded then. Carry on my man.

Really, the only animals we have well and truly "Domesticated" and be counted on a hand. Dog, Cat, Chicken, Bovine, Horse

And i'm not so sure about cats, shifty little fucks

>not counting apes, pigs, mice, and talking parrots, golden fishes, orcas
Its like you hate animals

Sounds domesticated to me(of animals or plants brought under human control in order to provide food, power, or company if you use the cambridge dictionary), it only means it's adapted to live with humans. And you are downplaying they level of domestication, like you only know the Chutckhi ones than used to let them roam free and mix with wild ones, but other tribes even breeds for specific utilities or even colors, they aren't dogs but not that much different from camels or llamas, who are both very difficult because they are dicks but still are domesticated. You can even ride them, but they aren't really breed for that.

>orcas

those occasionally go nuts and nom their trainers because they aren't MEANT to be kept in cages like that.

PIGS i'll give you, thats a good addition. Also goats, camels, various other ungulats, etc.

So TWO hands.

>those occasionally go nuts
With good reasoning though.
>does trick well but human gives no food
>can smell the food bucket nearly empty, but human keeps forcing me to do tricks
>human took away my child
>human grouped me with orcas I don't know, and they bully me
>human punishes me if I do something wrong
They are highly intelligent animals, they don't attack for no reason like wolves or half-wolves do.

>implying pigs are domesticated
You put a yellow fatty pig in the wild and a week later he grew fur and became a boar. He will also attack you and kick you out. Pigs are assholes. I smile every time I eat pig related food.

Alpacas are domesticated too, or is this a llama?

I think you forgot the perhaps most important ones, actually:
PIGS. Literally the most important domesticated animal in the long run.
And you are also forgetting sheep, goat, lama, rabbit, turkey, goose, camel, yak, from the top of my head.

>how many moosepower you got?
And that's about it.

I thought camels and llamas were relatively gentle compared to donkeys, tintin memes aside?

Alpaca are domesticated, yes. Not sure if people ride them, but they are herded much like sheep. Unless you meant to say "alpacca". In that case no, that would be an alloy of nickel and silver, and being a type of metal, it's hard to claim it "domesticated".

Vicuñas/Alpacas are domesticated, they are used only for meat and wool.

>I mean
What do you mean? What was your previous statement that needed this correction? I do not understand this snoo lingo.

All three will bite, step on you or be in general difficult fi they feel like it. Llams and Camels will also spite on you. Tough the donkeys are be far the more wily and if they don't like you will go out of his way to fuck with you and make your live miserable.

Llamas will spit at you for no reason.

This man speaks the truth, your average pig is just a generation in the wild away from being a goddamn boar and they just bigger and meaner as time goes on.

Pigs are pink user, not yellow

That picture is fake, though.

Our civilization would be thousands of years more advanced than it is, without the period "stamping down" of advanced cultures by nomadic barbarians empowered by horse archery. Of course it's likely the camel would be adapted for more temperate climates and eventually fill the same role, but if the settled civilizations had used the few thousand years grace this bought them to develop gunpowder weapons then it wouldn't matter.

I'm sure donkeys would spit on you if they were able to, after listening to the stories of my gramps who was in the artillery when doing the service. Donkeys would spit acid to your face and melt it if they wanted.

They can be lovely if they want, but they never want

The common house cat will go completely feral within 24 hours of lacking human exposure, those things are still in the middle of domestication and people just don't seem to realize that.

You gotta breed it out of dogs, though. Cats are domestic by upbringing, but dogs are domesticated right down to the DNA.

Nah, this is the fake one. There was a scandal about it being a hoax a few years back.

Donkeys sound like a lot of fun.

>Tough the donkeys are be far the more wily and if they don't like you will go out of his way to fuck with you and make your live miserable.
Where can I find stories about this?

We make new ones.

The clever ass being a pain in the, well, ass of their owner has been a common source of comedy since the Greeks. It's one of those classic animal qualities like the haughtiness of the cat and loyalty of the dog.

8/10

>The common house cat will go completely feral within 24 hours of lacking human exposure
The fuck is this retard trying to say?

I let my cat run around outside in the country and he often takes off for more than two days, but whenever he comes back all he wants is pickups and snuggles while he licks my nose.

your cat =/= everyone's cat

Don't be autistic, not even him

I think we can all agree that a housecat will murder a level 1 wizard in D&D because it's a stupid game.

But ass (animal) literally means stupid in my language.

the guy he's quoting is saying that his hypothetical example cat = everyone's cat

So? It can kill legendary warrior in dwarf fortress and that is most realsitic game out there

I think he was talking about a very specific cat breed or environment. It would be great if he came back and explain it to us what the fuck he was memeing about.

But I guess we will never know, you did say your cat lived in the country, maybe the other user was talking about city cats. You know people in the city are retarded, maybe so are cats.