Cultural Attitudes and Horse Technologies: A View on Chariots and Stirrups from the Eastern End of the Eurasian Continent.

From the Occidental perspective, the domestic horse and wheeled transport are prehistoric developments. The chariot, though an epoch-marker of great and violent transformations of ancient civilizations, did not acquire the traumatic qualities of the advent of mounted warriors roughly a millennium later, an event that gave rise to the classic dichotomy of civilization and barbarity. Again about one-and-a-half millenniums later, the introduction of the stirrup appears intimately linked with the rise of the heavily armoured mounted warriors, a new aristocratic class, which in Europe transformed society and gave rise to ideals of chivalry which still hold attraction today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]