OTHER CENTERS OF CIVILIZATION 
nobles to dismount and fight on foot. This they refused to 
do as beneath the dignity of their class. The commander 
then had one of them beheaded, whereupon the rest 
obeyed and gained the victory. 
As we have seen, men probably learned to fight on horse- 
back, sometime before 1000 B. c., in the open grasslands of 
southeastern Russia and western Asia. At first mounted 
Fic. 103. Ancient rock engraving of a mounted warrior, Siberian Iron Age. 
From Laufer 
warriors appear to have been armed with spear and sword, 
like the footmen; and in the west this type of fighter de- 
veloped into the heavy-armored knight of the Middle 
Ages. But in northern Asia fighting on horseback was 
taken up by peoples who used the deadly composite bow 
made of strips of wood, horn, and sinew, glued tightly to- 
gether and often neatly covered with birch bark (Plate 92). 
This weapon, while it had to be kept dry, shot far harder and 
farther than the simple bow made of a stave of elastic 
wood alone. The difference between the two types of bow 
[ 323 ] 
