Collaborative Research: Tracing the Rise of Equine Dairying

Animal husbandry has been a cornerstone of human subsistence and economic development for more than 10,000-years, and the domestication of horses nearly 5,000-years ago was a major advancement in the reliance of human societies on domesticated livestock. Today, there are an estimated 60 million horses under human management globally, and in the United States, the horse industry provides jobs for more than 4 million people.

Each year, an estimated 27 million Americans ride horses, and 2 million own horses. Although primarily valued for transportation, leisure, and sport today, the earliest domesticated horses played a critical role in the prehistoric development and spread of pastoralism. Horses increased food availability both by enabling the management of larger livestock herds and by directly contributing to human nutrition through milk production.

The origins of horse milking are poorly understood, but horse dairy products like koumiss have been a core food tradition in grasslands for thousands of years. The goal of this collaborative and multidisciplinary project is to answer fundamental questions about the origins of horse husbandry and the early economic role of horse dairying in ancient pastoralist societies.

Archaeological investigations of early horse management and milking clarify the development of Bronze and Iron Age horse husbandry, which laid the foundation for the rise of historic horse-focused empires and the growth of today’s global livestock economies. By bringing together an international team of archaeologists, chemists, cultural heritage managers, and commercial dairy producers, this project creates new collaborations and business opportunities between academic institutions and the food industry, builds stronger training networks for graduate students in food science and analytical chemistry, and contributes to greater public understanding of the history and science of dairying through cultural events, STEM-based outreach programs, and a museum exhibition.

The investigators apply cutting-edge analysis of proteins in ancient human dental calculus (tooth tartar) using mass spectrometry to understand the emergence of horse milk consumption and its rise as a vibrant food tradition. This project tests and refines hypotheses regarding the origins and spread of horse dairying connected to horse domestication and early riding, clarifies the role that social and ecological factors played in the success of horse dairying in grassland environments, and examines the relationship between horse dairying and the dairying of other livestock species.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.