Editing Domestication of the horse (section)

===Horses interred with chariots===
The least ancient, but most persuasive, evidence of domestication comes from sites where horse leg bones and skulls, probably originally attached to hides, were interred with the remains of chariots in at least 16 graves of the [[Sintashta]] and [[Petrovka settlement|Petrovka]] cultures. These were located in the steppes southeast of the [[Ural Mountains]], between the upper [[Ural River|Ural]] and upper [[Tobol River]]s, a region today divided between southern [[Russia]] and northern [[Kazakhstan]]. Petrovka was a little later than and probably grew out of Sintashta, and the two complexes together spanned about 2100–1700 BCE.<ref name="Anthony2007" /><ref name="Kuznetsov2006">{{cite journal | last = Kuznetsov | first = P. F. | year = 2006 | title = The emergence of Bronze Age chariots in eastern Europe | journal = [[Antiquity (journal)|Antiquity]] | volume = 80 | issue =  309| pages = 638–645 | doi = 10.1017/s0003598x00094096 | s2cid = 162580424}}</ref> A few of these graves contained the remains of as many as eight sacrificed horses placed in, above, and beside the grave.

In all of the dated chariot graves, the heads and hooves of a pair of horses were placed in a grave that once contained a chariot. Evidence of chariots in these graves was inferred from the impressions of two spoked wheels set in grave floors 1.2–1.6m apart; in most cases the rest of the vehicle left no trace. In addition, a pair of disk-shaped antler "cheekpieces," an ancient predecessor to a modern [[bit shank]] or [[bit ring]], were placed in pairs beside each horse head-and-hoof sacrifice. The inner faces of the disks had protruding prongs or studs that would have pressed against the horse's lips when the [[rein]]s were pulled on the opposite side. Studded cheekpieces were a new and fairly severe kind of control device that appeared simultaneously with chariots.

All of the dated chariot graves contained wheel impressions, horse bones, weapons (arrow and javelin points, axes, daggers, or stone mace-heads), human skeletal remains, and cheekpieces. Because they were buried in teams of two with chariots and studded cheekpieces, the evidence is extremely persuasive that these steppe horses of 2100–1700 BCE were domesticated. Shortly after the period of these burials, the expansion of the domestic horse throughout Europe was little short of explosive. In the space of possibly 500 years, there is evidence of horse-drawn chariots in Greece, Egypt, and Mesopotamia. By another 500 years, the horse-drawn chariot had spread to China.