Horses are majestic, sentient, intelligent, and highly sensitive animals who are used in a wide variety of situations involving humans. The bond between horses and humans has spanned time and many different civilizations. I don't know much about the history of human-horse relationships but when I've been in the presence of these amazing beings I can feel that embedded in their genes there are remnants of a long association with Homo sapiens. Of course, for ancient and wild horses there is a fascinating story underlying the development of horse-human relationships. I was thrilled to learn of a new book, Hoof Beats: How Horses Shaped Human History by Dr. William Taylor, an archaeozoologist at the University of Colorado, that answered most of the questions I had about how horses have shaped human cultures globally in many different contexts. To learn more about the central role that horses played in altering the course of human history, Taylor uses discoveries that have placed the horse at the origins of globalization, trade, biological exchange, and important social changes.

I found Taylor's book to be a wonderful companion to Chad Hanson's In a Land of Awe: Finding Reverence in the Search for Wild Horses, in which he offers valuable insights about what it is like to be a wild horse, where and how they would choose to live in the best of all possible worlds, what they need to express their unique personalities and wildness, and the importance of wildness for human well-being.

Here's what Taylor had to say about his recently released and highly acclaimed book.

Marc Bekoff: Why did you write Hoof Beats?

William Taylor: I’ve been working for the last decade trying to understand horse domestication through archaeological research in different corners of the world, from the Mongolian steppes,........

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