It's been a minute so I thought I'd come back with a quick and interesting post. A few years ago I caught something presented in the findings of Sada Mire that left me somewhat bemused. In her findings at Dhambalin she says:
One of the hunting scenes depicts two hunters together, one standing and another hunter sitting on an animal, perhaps a horse, and holding a bow and arrow in position to hit antelopes surrounding him. Horses are still found/kept in Somaliland. [1]
Yet this makes little sense because the Dhambalin site is pre-historic by Horn African standards, dating to around 5,000 to 3,000 years ago according to her own paper[1]. This is important because domesticated horses originally come from the Eurasian Steppe where they were first domesticated by the people of the Botai Culture about 5,500 years ago [2]:
They only begin to appear in the Middle East after this by about 4,200 years ago from the Eurasian Steppe. [2] This is important because the Middle-East would have been where domesticated horses would have to spread to the Horn from and, unsurprisingly, the earliest known examples of horse domestication in the Horn so far date later than this to the Aksumites from about 2,000 years ago. [3] [4]
In the Somali Peninsula in particular, horses may have been introduced even later. The linguistic evidence implies as much at least, as the Somali word for "horse" (faras) is a loanword from Arabic [5], indicating that horses were possibly introduced during the Islamic period, approximately 1,400 years ago or after.
The gist is that these depictions could not have been of horses if the site indeed dates to around 5,000 to 3,000 years ago. At that time, domesticated horses, much like domesticated camels [6], were not present in the Horn of Africa.
Instead, the animals kept by Horn Africans' ancestors at this time would have consisted of cattle, goats, sheep, and donkeys [7], as well as shepherd or hunting dogs often depicted in the cave-paintings across Somalia. These were the animals they brought with them as they seemingly migrated into the Horn from what is now Sudan and Southern Egypt[7]:
So, how could these Cushitic pastoralists have been depicting the mounting of horses? Well, if the depictions are not the people who made them simply being fanciful, I suggest that the answer is the following:
The man and his child you see above who are riding an ox belong to the Baggara Arab people of Chad and Sudan. Baggara = Baqara/بقرة in Arabic which means "cow", hence the group's name. They are aptly named after cattle because of their peculiar tradition of riding them.
This is relevant because the Baggara people appear to be quite influenced by Cushitic pastoralists who once expanded into what is now Chad and Western Sudan around 4,000 to 3,000 years ago before being absorbed by waves of Chadic and Nilo-Saharan speakers whom modern Arabic speakers such as the Baggara descend from. [8] This even appears to show itself in the ancestral make up of the Baggara:
(see notes section for details on chart)
I myself, as a layman, have also noticed Cushitic roots in their material culture and would not be shocked if trained anthropologists with more time and resources noticed far more. Like many nomadic macro-cultures, Cushitic nomads have their own characteristic tents the way the nomads of the MENA region use
poled goat-hair tents("Bayt al-sha'ar" in Arabic which means "House of Hair")
and the nomads of the Eurasian steppe use
Yurts/Gers. Cushites' mobile dwelling of choice was and is the domed mat-tent
("Aqal Soomaali" in the Somali language):
Something the Baggara share in with Coastal Cushitic Pastoralists such as Bejas, Sahos, Afars and Somalis:
The mat-tent is a core part of Cushitic nomads' culture and was probably left behind by the ancient Cushitic speaking inhabitants of Chad after they were absorbed by the ancestors of now Arabic speakers like the Baggara as well as Nilo-Saharan speaking camel pastoralists like the Tobou:
From a linguistic point of view [8], Cushitic pastoralists also appear to have most likely been the earliest known source of pastoralism among these groups given that many of the words they left behind in the surrounding Chadic and Nilo-Saharan languages have to do with livestock such as cattle and the general pastoral way of life.
So, the earliest known people the Baggara may trace their herding of cattle to would have been Cushitic speakers like those of the Somali Peninsula and here they are, to this day, living in the same sorts of tents those Cushitic speakers would have and seemingly tracing significant ancestry to them whilst probably displaying many other cultural influences I lack the time, resources and skills to notice. Who is to say their cattle riding is not one of them?
You probably understandably think I'm getting ahead of myself. But, there is another group of Cushitic influenced people whom we know got their pastoralist way of life entirely from Cushites and they too were known for the same peculiar practice:
Long before horses became the premier riding animals, oxen had filled this need. At least 150 years previously there were Khoikhoi riders on cattle on the south coast, and on the lower Orange River by 1661. From them, the Xhosa had acquired riding skills by 1686. [10]
As shown in the depiction above and supported by the quote, the Khoekhoe of South Africa displayed cattle riding long before the introduction of horses. This is important because we know that they got got their pastoral way of life from South-Cushitic pastoralists. These South-Cushitic pastoralists are known to have appeared in Kenya and Tanzania around 4,000 to 3,000 years ago where they are believed to have made contact with the Khoekhoe's ancestors and influenced them [11], after prior arriving in the Horn possibly as early 5,500 years ago[12][13].
Due to all of this evidence, they are outright accepted by academics to have gotten their pastoralist way of life from Cushitic speaking pastoralists who expanded out of the Horn. And much like the Baggara seem to have, the Khoekhoe have also preserved the original cattle focused pastoralism of early Cushitic nomads; unlike Bejas, Sahos, Afars and Somalis whose ancestors shifted to camel focused pastoralism within the last 2,000 to 3,000 years seemingly due to influences from Arabia. [6]
It might be a stretch but I think the pre-historic rock-art in Somalia is in fact depicting people riding cattle, particularly oxen as in the case of the Baggara and Khoekhoe, and that these two groups preserved this ancient practice the same way they preserved other elements of early Cushites' culture.
It weaves together quite nicely. We have pre-historic Cushites who appear in the Horn about 5,500 years ago depicting what is possibly cattle riding sometime between then and 3,000 years ago then we have two geographically distant groups—whose ancestors were influenced by them sometime between 3,000 and 4,000 years ago—showing the practice. While not completely open and shut, it seems plausible that pre-historic Cushites practiced cattle riding and possibly even mounted archery as shown in the cave paintings in Somalia:
One of the hunting scenes depicts two hunters together, one standing and another hunter sitting on an animal, perhaps a horse, and holding a bow and arrow in position to hit antelopes surrounding him Horses are still found/kept in Somaliland.[1]
If true, this is remarkable—as it means early Cushites practiced mounted archery before it emerged on the Eurasian Steppe during the Iron Age [15], making them the earliest known humans to do so. They may also have been the first to ride animals, as the evidence suggests they likely practiced cattle riding before 4,000 years ago, approaching 5,000 years ago, during their time in the Horn. This assumption being based on their migrations into Chad, Kenya, and Tanzania after the Horn* by 3,000 to 4,000 years ago, where they appear to have already carried this practice given the Baggara and Khoekhoe.
If cattle riding originated earlier in Neolithic Sudan, before 5,500 years ago where the upper limit lies for their appearance in the Horn, they would predate the Botai culture as the first known humans to ride animals, and are at minimum their contemporaries if the range of cattle-riding's development falls within 4,000 to 5,500 years.
14.Blench R. Was there an interchange between Cushitic pastoralists and Khoisan speakers in the prehistory of Southern Africa and how can this be detected? Presented at Königswinter, March 28-30, 2007. Cambridge: Kay Williamson Educational Foundation; 2008. Available from: http://www.rogerblench.info/Archaeology/Africa/Konigswinter%202007/Konigswinter%20paper.pdf
* They appear in the Horn before they seem to have been in Chad, Kenya and Tanzania but it's important to point out that Blench, probably correctly, assumes the migration into Chad was from Sudan rather than from the Horn.
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