Chariots pulled by wolves?

Question

Many archeologists think (it's a hypothesis, like mine here) that the domestication of horses goes far back to the 4th millenium BC. That's mainly because they have found wheels of broken chariots dated from that time.

Now, I know that may sound a bit strange, but it's totally serious. These archeologists are paid with big time money.

Anyways, Inuits still use or to drive their sleighs, right? So why would the "first" chariots have been dragged by horses 4 millenium BC, if much less docile were still used to drag peasant chariots during the roman empire's apogea?

And horses, to my knowledge, were never common in Eastern Asia (read: PIEs came from the Southeast, not Southwest).
Boars and wolves were common in Asia though.

Could the pigs and the wolves have pulled these chariots instead of horses?


Horse domestication: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurgan_Culture

Answer 1

From 3,000 B.C. to 637 A.D. there is a historical continuity for the small, refined pre-Achamaenian horse Not quite the beautiful brute we know today, but a very small horse that can be found on the seal of King Darius I, which is pulling a chariot. The Indo-Europeans, still living around the Caspian Sea, may be the ones who first tamed horses for their own use. Certainly the first appearance of the horse in Greece comes with the arrival of the Indo-Europeans around 2100 BC. The first horses were too small to carry people, and it wasn't until they had been bred bigger that people could ride them. However, given that the stature of a man, and his weight, was less than it is today, those small horses were able to pull a chariot. (the three sites below give an very thorough history of the anceint horses of eastern asia)
The Inuit may use huskies to pull their sleds, but that was historically, an area in which equines were not found. The dogs that survived in the rigorous climate of Siberia were large, furry and wolf-like, the ancestors of today's "northern" breeds, for instance, and it would have been these dogs that came over the ancient land bridge into what is now Alaska, accompanying their masters. Additionally, it is in an age long past that dogs and wolves were one species. Traditionally, the dogs didn't pull sleds, but carried packs...one on each side. Even in the US we have history of dogs carrying "parfletches" during summer/winter migrations.
While I won't say its impossible that some other animal was used to pull cahriots, I will say its improbable.

Answer 2

The reason to use dogs to pull sleds is climate. Horses were not an animal that need true domestication just be broken to do our bidding. Horses were not ridden for a very long time. When western man first saw a man riding a horse it started many myths about half man have horse beasts.

Answer 3

incredibly. it is astonishing how, in an area conventional for chariot war and the transport of chariots to aspects the place this war is going on, that somebody thinks that _this_ chariot wheel can in elementary terms be from one particular account in a e book that has little or no interior the way of exact data for any portion of the narrative at which they're looking. And to apply Ron Wyatt, who's reported as a fraud on various creationist web pages, is somewhat achieving.

Answer 4

We do know that the ancient Greeks used horses to draw chariots before they used them as mounts.

In the Mediterranean we actually have records which go back nearly as far as the period you are referencing. The classical history of Egypt, for example, goes back for over 5,000 years. We have actual chariots from Egyptian burial chambers which would have been drawn by horses, and in fact we even have ornate bridles and horse trappings from ancient Egypt. We also have wall-paintings of chariots drawn by horses from about 4,000 years ago.

I know this is not exactly the time-frame and location you were referring to, but perhaps it sheds some light...

Answer 5

There's actually a lot of visual imagery of dogs pulling carts (from about 50+ yrs ago, but likely people have been doing this for ever). I guess it depends on when they think horses were domesticated, if it was before or after dogs! I would also think the archaeologists were also basing their "educated guesses" on any physical evidence they may have found.