Krasnyi Yar, Kazakhstan

Krasnyi Yar is an Eneolithic settlement of the Botai culture (3700-3100 BC) in north-central Kazakhstan, with 54 pit houses. The site provides key evidence for early horse management: corrals identified through geochemical markers for manure and urine, enormous quantities of horse bones with butchering marks, and pottery containing traces of fermented mare's milk. However, recent genetic studies revealed that Botai horses are ancestral to Przewalski's horses rather than modern domesticates, complicating the domestication narrative.