Talk:History of the horse in the Indian subcontinent

17 ribs

In RV 1.162.18, the horse is described as having 34 (2x17) ribs:

The axe penetrates the thirty-four ribs of the swift horse; the beloved of the gods, (the immolators), cut up (the horse) with skill, so that the limbs may be unperforated, and recapitulating joint by joint. (transl. Wilson)

It has been speculated that the Rig vedic horse could therefore be the extinct Equus Sivalensis (or horse of the Siwaliks), which had only 17 pairs of ribs, while west asian and other horse species have more ribs. It lived in the Himalayan foothills. Modern horses with 17 ribs still live in South East Asia and South Asia (Timor and Sulu horse). [1]

References

There is no data available for number of ribs in Equus Sivalensis. That is concoction out of thin air by the OIT gang to identify Vedic horse with a long extinct squid species ChandlerMinh (talk) 09:24, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

34 ribs and Arabia

If it is mentioned that only the Arabian horse also have 2x17 ribs will there be any problem? Nirjhara (talk) 03:54, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, for two reasons: 1) Not all Arabians have fewer ribs and vertebrae, and 2) Sometimes breeds other than the Arabian have only 17 ribs and/or 5 lumbar vertebrae. No one has done an exhaustive study, so there are few statistics in either direction, but what studies have been done indicate that the trait is far from true-breeding in all cases. Montanabw^(talk) 21:31, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Buddy i think you are right! but if it passively mentioned " The physical characteristics of horses having 34 ribs can be found among the Arabian horse but not in the case of Eurasian or Central asian horses" How will that sound then? Gd tms.Nirjhara (talk) 03:04, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Um, not sure why relevant. And the issue of Arabians having 34 ribs or 5 lumbar vetebrae or fewer coccygeal vertebrae is not a consistent breed trait, just a more-or-less common thing--plus, in some cases, it IS also found in other breeds, so the statement isn't really true in either direction. Why would it matter in THIS article, anyway?? I'm curious as to relevance. Montanabw^(talk) 22:30, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm... Then tell me what is the case in the Rv? is it the main breed one? Or just like present? and another thing is that if central asian or eurasian horse dont have the character then its a blow to the traditional view of aryan migration from steppe led by horses p.s. Also there is another thing Rv dont mention people riding horses. Gd tms. Nirjhara (talk) 03:27, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

OK, now you lost me with all those abbreviations. Rv? Huh? (smile) Maybe what you want to do is backtrack and look at Domestication of the horse and then see where you want to go forward from there. My suspicion is what we need are references to peer-reviewed literature. The current theory is that ALL horses probably originated from a very few (possibly even one or two) stallions domesticated on the Eurasian steppes, whose descendants spread out and crossed with local wild mares. Thus, the various oriental horse breeds such as the Arab having different numbers of vertebrae was probably a local mutation, and doesn't really say anything at all about migration patterns. The book "The Horse, the Wheel, and Language" makes a pretty compelling argument summarizing the peer-reviewed studies that maintain the whole Indo-European language group originating from the horse-mounted peoples of the steppes. So if that is the point you are trying to emphasize, I don't think tracing horse vertebrae to the Arabian is needed to demonstrate that. But not sure if that's what you are looking forMontanabw^(talk) 02:42, 20 November 2011 (UTC) Thats ok then, i am agree with you mate ,gd tms.Nirjhara (talk) 03:25, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Title

Dab, I think the title of the page is not very good. It severly limits the scope of this article, on which I'd like also to see a discussion of the horse in postvedic times and in (post)vedic texts. (which needs expansion) With this title, it could as well be merged into Indo-aryan migration (and the title should anyway rather be "History of Equus caballus Linn in South Asia"). I'm proposing to move the article to Asva or to "The horse in Ancient India" or to "History of the horse in South Asia". And I don't know if you're just having a bad day, but please be a bit more verbose in the edit summary or talk page when deleting something, even if it's just a few words explaining what you do. [2] [3] [4] --Rayfield 17:53, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

I think the page should be merged with Ashva and moved to Asva. There's no need to have these two articles divided. The current title has also other problems. There were horses in India that probably were native to India (e.g. Equus sivalensis, E. namadicus), and there are horse finds in India (that are unconnected to the AMT) well before 2000 BCE. A better title would be "History of the horse in South Asia". --Rayfield 20:27, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

I am fine with the merge, but the resulting article will still have rather separate "archaeology" and "mythology" sections, which will again evolve into sub-articles over time, so that I don't see why they cannot stay separate, of course clearly referring to one another. "Ashva" is a good title for the literary topic, but not very good for a discussion of archaeology. I am fine with Horses in Ancient India, History of the horse in South Asia or similar. dab (ᛏ) 11:40, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

E. sivalensis

could we not spare ourselves the crackpottery of associating the IVC with Ice Age fauna? All this achieves is make look everybody arguing for IVC horses like a complete fool. I am intrigued by the possibility of E. caballus in 2000 BC India, but the tendency of the ideologists to cite anything at all to have their way makes it difficult to follow the actual debate. dab (ᛏ) 10:35, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Disappointing

Article ends quite abruptly. No information on the state of horses, or the horse trade, in the medieval era. At the very least an article on the "history of the horse in South Asia" should link to historical Indian horse breeds like the Marwari horse. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.248.66.12 (talk) 03:51, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Poor writing

Why does the article use words like "claims","alledged",etc for some and take others as literally true. Who is to decide all these. At least it can be written from a neutral view point and not with some intensions. Very poor article from any angle. Unless all the views are properly given due weight this article appears like a farce! 27.61.3.38 (talk) 04:04, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Anyone can edit wikipedia. Feel free to do some high quality, appropriate cleanup. We need more people to help us with these. Montanabw^(talk) 03:39, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Editing and proper citation

I have seen some specious elements reintroduced into this article. If you want to put blatantly POV material I suggest that you cite your sources. The reason I changed certain things is because they were not cited. Since they have been reintroduced I have tagged them and suggest that good verifiable, authentic, and most importantly, FACTUALLY ACCURATE SOURCES WITH DEMONSTRABLE PHYSICAL PROOF FOR THEIR VAlIDITY as opposed to humbug malarkey from celebrities who are unwilling to demonstrate the validity of their claims.Grathmy (talk) 21:46, 2 February 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Grathmy (talk • contribs) 21:41, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Stop Erecting Strawmen

When Colin Renfrew says that the horse has been much exaggerated not in a single way whatsoever does that refer to the Anatolian hypothesis. It refers to the flaws of the Kurgan Hypothesis. Please understand the difference and remove such blatantly cynical content.Grathmy (talk) 22:40, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

POV-pushing

@Zombie gunner: I've alteady warned you at your talkpage, but your obvious pushing of fringe-theories won't be tolerated. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 10:13, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

Im not pushing any fringe theories, the article title is history of the horse in the indian subcontinent and i have added scientific sources, your sources from unknown author tony joseph and michael witzel are unscienific and have issues with being academic. Secondly you are removing my academic sources which are reliable (Upinder singh, Jstor etc) which is unexplainable. The article itself cites various scolars such as Edwin Bryant which clearly tells that the matter is disputed, and thats what i have mentioned in the into which must reflect the content of the article. Your reversion seems vandalism and POV pushing itself. Zombie gunner (talk) 10:18, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

Don't accuse me of vandalism. And note that Witzel is an acclaimed academic. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 11:57, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

You have completely omitted my info and references without any explanation and not only that, any previous info dealing with archaeological findings. This amounts to vandalism, you are just trying to shape the article based on your personal opinions, kindly restore the info you have discarded or i will be forced to revert it back again. Zombie gunner (talk) 15:23, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

I have discarded nothing; I have added info from Bryant (2001), and I have added a large number of references. What I also did was moving the info on the Vedas to Ashva; and moving a large chunk of info into a note, namely the specific horse-finds from Harappan times. I did this because this info was presented in the context of the Indigenous Aryans "theory," giving WP:UNDUE weight to the arguments from fringe-theorists. See WP:NPOV. Regards, Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 16:49, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

Surkodata

This addition of the info on the Surkotada-finds violates WP:NPOV, and is a doublure of the info already present. Please pay attention to the contents of the article. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 11:30, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

Sintashta and chariots

Two interesting blogs by Razib Khan on Sintashta and the invention of the chariot:

• sept 17, 2021, The echoes of greater Scythia, referring to Kaliff and Oestigaard (2020), The Great Indo-European Horse Sacrifice: 4000 Years of Cosmological Continuity from Sintashta and the Steppe to Scandinavian Skeid, Uppsala universitet, full text available here
• sept 16, 2021, The heavenly horses of the Sintashta, referring to The origins and spread of domestic horses from the Western Eurasian steppes:

If you have an interest in the domestic horse (I have) you are aware it’s the product of massive demographic radiation from a small founder population. With ancient DNA we now know where it started: with the Sintashta people of the Volga to the Ural steppe 4,000 years ago.
This is not totally surprising, because we know that the Sintashta were highly warlike and they invented the light war-chariot.

Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 06:21, 23 September 2021 (UTC)