It has long been thought that the domestication of horses goes back about five thousand years to central Asia. New evidence could push that estimate back by another four thousand years and change the locale.

Among the remains of a recently discovered ancient civilization in the Arabian Peninsula was a three-foot tall bust of a horse.

“A statue of an animal of this dimension, dating back to that time, has never been found anywhere in the world,” said Ali al-Ghabban, vice-chairman of the Department of Museums and Antiquities in Saudi Arabia. “This discovery shows that horses were domesticated in the Arabian Peninsula for the first time more than nine thousand years ago.”

Click for more detail in Discovery News.

Posted August 26, 2011