Early Riders: The Beginnings of Mounted Warfare in Asia and Europe.

• Author: McKay, Heather A.
• Position: Book review

Early Riders: The Beginnings of Mounted Warfare in Asia and Europe. By ROBERT DREWS. New York: ROUTLEDGE, 2004. Pp. xi + 218, illus. $90.

In this significant book Robert Drews sets out to review all the evidence for the use of the horse in warfare in Europe and Asia, from the earliest times till the Roman era, with some reference to later comparative materials from China and the North American plains. He sets the scene by describing the earliest of humankind's dealings with horses, namely, as food, and then discusses the following key aspects: speed, control of the horse, plunder, and conquest. Throughout, he is at pains to distinguish clearly between the use of "driven" horses pulling wagons or chariots and "ridden" horses carrying archers or armed warriors of various types, having found in his research that many sources do not maintain that distinction clearly.

In any book addressing these issues a range of input, insights, and expertise from various disciplines, including equestrian, military, and academic areas, is necessary in order to piece together the full picture of the role of the horse, whether social or military, across the Eurasian landmass over several millennia. Drews rightly notes that earlier, very valuable, studies have been flawed in places by lacking input from one or more of the necessary disciplines, and he works to reposition their evidence and discussions within this wider and fuller context of understanding. A further layer of obfuscation, or, at least, of delay in the spread and conjunction of scholarly findings has been the publication of key evidence and discussions in journals of different disciplines, or in different political realms during the time of the Cold War, whose separate readerships had little overlap, permitting divergent views to exist more or less isolated from each other.

Drew's basic findings are that: originally horses were used as a source of food and as pack animals; later (ca. 2000-1000 B.C.E.) they drew wagons and were used for awkward, tentative, athletic riding (generally using the backward donkey seat); after that (ca. 1700-1200 B.C.E.) they drew war chariots and, later, with the invention of the bronze bit (ca. 1000 B.C.E. onwards) they functioned as warriors' mounts with their riders using the forward seat. Thereafter, mounted archers, or mounted archer-swordsmen, were particularly successful for a time as was the concerted cavalry charge (ca. 600 B.C.E.), but each fell from favor as...