a big question about the environment at that time

[血荐轩辕]

I wonder about horse.is the best horse only produced in cold grass land like mongolia and armenia.why horse from arabia and north america are also praise,arent they desert?why andalusia also have horse.are they forest ?One more question,the hispania have the best horse as numidia did.Is andalusia cavalry the best in the europe at that time.

[血荐轩辕]

cant anyone help me,Today I watch horrible history,It said the England dont have horse in the countryside in the country.England have the best grassland in Europe ,how come that they dont have horse

[Ibrahim]

Arabian horses are bred for hardiness, because they live in a harsh semi-arid to arid environment. This isn't all that different to the Mongols. Other areas had good horses because the owners took good care of them (Armenia, Spain, etc).

And what North American horses? America wasn't discovered in EB II's timeperiod by people of the old world.

The rest of what you wrote is too incoherent to make sense of.

[aaronp]

For some reason, ancient North American horses went extinct 12,000 years ago. So there were no modern horses in North America before 1492 CE.

Horses had to have existed in ancient Britain because their armies used chariots. A real historian may correct me, but I think they were smaller than the horses coming from Asia.

[Arjos]

Hardiness and selective breeding made better horses. It could be said at most that people living in the steppe and arid territories had more incentives to breed animals that wouldn't require additional forage and intensive care during winter for example...

The best, at least deemed so during ancient times, horses weren't bred in cold grasslands at all, but near the oases of Central Asia, where breeds like the Ferghana and Nisean mounts came to be...

Afaik horses in the British Isles descendent from horses that roamed there, when there wasn't any sea separating the land. Still those descendants were smaller and later during the Iron Age trade and settlement by new tribes (or in the case of the Romani the settlement of soldiers) brought new species...

It is unclear exactly when the Andalusian breed developed, but together with the good care of horses by the cultures there, I believe that the large genetic pool of various species (at least 2-3 native to the Iberian Peninsula, plus imports from Africa and other parts of Europe) contributed to breed a particularly strong and large horse breed, like the Andalusian is...

And yes, prior to the arrival of European colonists in North America there weren't any horses in the last thousands of years as aaronp pointed out ;)

[血荐轩辕]

Ok, thank you for your help,but I think horse need good grass to be strong I think.Can good grass grow in hot and semi arid region in mediteranean.I thought the best grass in england will more suit them.what is the major environment in baetica?is it super fertile in ancient time?I find it more urbanise than anywhere else in hispania.It is among the most urbanised place in ancient rome what make it so outstanding?

[QuintusSertorius]

No, good horses need proper grain, not merely grass. One of the advantages steppe ponies have is that they can subsist on grass alone, where most horses need some kind of grain to supplement their diet, or their health deteriorates.

You're also failing to account for climate change over long periods of time, we've had warm and cool periods over the two and a half millenia since the Hellenistic era, and that's also a long enough span for rivers to change course/appear/disappear.

[血荐轩辕]

ok,I wonder what kind of horse that have the advantage ?The horse that only eat grass and the horse eat grain and grass.Is the mongolian horse that only eat grass play any part in there conquest?

[QuintusSertorius]

ok,I wonder what kind of horse that have the advantage ?The horse that only eat grass and the horse eat grain and grass.Is the mongolian horse that only eat grass play any part in there conquest?

Yes, if your mounts can subsist on just grass for long periods of time, it significantly reduces your fodder requirements. If means you only need to carry grain to feed your men, not your horses, which means you can travel lighter and faster. For a steppe army, where each mounted man will have a string of 4 or more ponies, the fodder requirements would be prohibitive if they all had to be fed oats, barley, or whatever as well as grass. Multiply that up to thousands of men and its a major logistical boon.

[Brennus]

Regarding horses in Britain, the wild species (Equus ferus ferus) appears to have been hunted to extinction in during, or shortly after the last ice age. Horses (Equus ferus caballus) were reintroduced to Britain during the Bronze Age. The lack of juvenile horses on some British Iron Age sites has led to the suggestion that feral herds, similar to the modern Dartmoor pony, were used a source of horses. Selective breeding of horses did not occur until the arrival of the Romans.