MAN FROM, THE FARTHEST PAST 
however, when the slowly drying climate little by little 
thinned out the forests and dried up the swamps and lakes 
left behind at the close of the Age of Ice; and then, with 
improvements in transportation and organization, con- 
tacts between the two great cultural regions became 
easier and more frequent. 
Up to this time only the peoples of southwestern Asia 
and perhaps Asia Minor seem to have known wheeled 
vehicles. They do not appear in Egypt until much later, 
and they remained unknown in northern Asia, in Africa 
south of the Sahara, and throughout the Western Hemis- 
phere, until a few centuries ago. 
In the few regions where they were used carts and chariots 
long continued to be drawn by oxen—animals incapable of 
any great speed—so that the employment of these vehicles 
was restricted almost entirely to farm work and religious 
processions. Their only use in war was to carry to the 
field of battle images or symbols of the gods and the per- 
sons of the kings—themselves gods, priests, and medicine 
men combined. Unfortunately, the people who had in- 
vented the chariot did not as yet have the horse, the 
animal above all others fitted to draw it at high speed; 
and the people who had domesticated the horse remained 
ignorant of the chariot. 
But why did not the energetic and warlike people of the 
great grassy plains ride their horses in plundering raids on 
the more civilized peoples to the south, just as the Scyth- 
ians, Huns, Mongols, and Turks did far later? Strange 
as it may seem, though they had known the horse for tens 
of thousands of years, they had not yet learned to ride 
him. Hence, until they learned to yoke their horses in 
pairs to the chariots they acquired from their more civi- 
lized neighbors, they had no means of utilizing these 
animals for anything practical except their flesh, their 
hides, and perhaps their milk. The utilization of the 
horse for hauling and riding changed the whole course of 
history. Many of the problems connected with it have not 
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