How horses shaped Britain

The countryside would look very different were it not for equines. Tiffany Francis-Baker reveals some of the surprising ways horses have sculpted our landscapes

- Tiffany Francis-Baker

At close quarters, the Uffington White Horse could be any other path scratched into the Oxfordshire hillside. Those bright chalk lines, pressed into the earth by human hands, are designed to be seen from far away. Across the Vale, it is much easier to make out the strange beaked horse over 100 metres long, galloping over the hill.

This is one of a handful of chalk figures scattered across the British landscape, and it has been so well cared for in its 3,000-year lifespan that it had to be covered in turf during the Second World War so Luftwaffe pilots couldn't use it for navigation.

Why a community of Bronze Age Britons went to the trouble of making it is still unclear, but of all the animals to appear in prehistoric imagery, the horse is one of the most common. Our ancient ancestors obviously venerated horses. Later, the Anglo-Saxons used at least 16 Old English words for horses, each distinguishing between those used for carts, luggage, riding, breeding, royalty and war. So what is it about this animal, this half-tamed hybrid of pet, tool and vehicle, that has captivated the people of Britain for thousands of years?

AGE OF THE HORSE

The earliest known ancestors of the modern horse were small, dog-sized creatures that lived in North America around 55 million years ago. They first arrived in Europe by crossing the Beringia Land Bridge, a grassland steppe between Russia and Alaska that was exposed during the last Ice Age, enabling plants, animals and humans to migrate back and forth across the two continents. But it was not until the last 150,000 years that a relationship formed between humans and horses. 

In Europe, they were one of the most hunted species, alongside bison and reindeer, almost driven to extinction before they were domesticated around the Bronze Age, when evidence suggests they were farmed for milk, meat and transport.