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cgn-38 t1_jb5s1gh wrote

Reply to comment by PetsArentChildren in Humans Started Riding Horses 5,000 Years Ago, New Evidence Suggests by geoxol

Yep. A lot of the old roman "dude on horse" statues are hilarious.

Looks like they are riding on a donkey. Because that was just as big as horses got then.

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SparkyDogPants t1_jb6674f wrote

Wdym about donkeys? Most are the same size as horses today

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A_Harmless_Fly t1_jb6attn wrote

Sure you aren't thinking of mules?

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Nolsoth t1_jb8msph wrote

I've seen some big bloody donkeys ( bigger than a pony) but that's probably more due to genetic trait selection over the last couple thousand years

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Jamma-Lam t1_jb6amn4 wrote

All these domestic animals were much smaller before we genetically selected for larger and larger animals which took hundreds of not thousands of years to get giant horses like Clydesdales.

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tossawaybb t1_jb6lqzf wrote

Just a couple hundred really. Selective breeding is typically quite quick, as evidenced by the English bulldog. Wasn't that long ago they were just a little shorter and stouter than regular dogs

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