World without horses

[Christougher]

In the fantasy world I'm working on, I'm considering not having any kind of riding animals or beasts of burden. What effects or impacts would this have?

[Lezentauw]

Re: World without horses

 

Well obviously you will be removing calvalry from the game, and the need for long spears to be developed. Wagons will never be developed either, most likely only a two wheeled cart that can be handeled by hand. The removal of wagons would hinder how effective land trade would be. It would be far faster to always take trade to water ways. The removal of wagons would also put the burden of carrying supplies for a siege on the soldiers. Any siege weapons would have to be made at the location of the siege, which would give a beginining advantage to the defenders.

 

One of the biggest advantages of having beasts of burden during a war, is if you run out of food. Your pack animals just became, whats for dinner. While it may seem gruesome, it can keep an army alive.

[Escafarc]

Re: World without horses

 

Look at Pre-Columbian America(both North and South) for some ideas, they didn't have Horses until the Europeans showed up.

[Killer Shrike]

Re: World without horses

 

Assuming typical fantasy technology:

 

Slavery will likely be more common; litter bearers and porters for instance.

 

Land-based commerce will be stunted. Maritime trade will be paramount, and thus all things nautical will be more advanced than usual.

 

Nations will be smaller save where they hug a traverseable water way.

 

If more advanced tech is permissible, then wind-powered, mechanical, and perhaps even combustion (or equivalent) based technologies might be prevalent that make the lack of beasts of burden irrelevant, similar to the modern day usage.

[Bobby Walker]

Re: World without horses

 

Also consider the magic of the setting, if its powerful enough then its plausible that someone would have devised a method to create a magical beast of burden. Such things could be available, but expensive.

 

Most cities would grow up around waterways, and the outlying areas would tend to be wilder. Farms would likely produce commodities for themselves, only bothering to cart high value products to market. This would tend to make markets smaller, especially in areas where wars have/are being waged. As the labor force for moving goods would likely be fighting instead of transporting supplies (or the supply chain would be severely hampered).

 

A side effect is that women would be much more likely to play pivotal roles in the economy because they would be able to manage some aspects whilst the men are serving as the oxen.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: World without horses

 

Nations will be smaller save where they hug a traverseable water way.

 

A possible trend, but by no means automatic. The pre-Columbian Inca empire covered a very large area, a great deal of it mountainous, by benefit of an excellent road system; and with only small pack animals and no wheeled transports.

[Steve]

Re: World without horses

 

Farming would also be impacted, I think. Weren't horses and other beasts of burden used for farming for a long time before machinery came on to the scene?

[sinanju]

Re: World without horses

 

Farming would also be impacted' date=' I think. Weren't horses and other beasts of burden used for farming for a long time before machinery came on to the scene?[/quote']

 

Yes, this is where slavery will be a big part. Until the invention of the wooden horse collar, which allowed a horse to pull a heavy load with its full strength (pushing with its hindquarters instead of pulling with its shoulders, and also NOT pressing on its windpipe, as earlier collars did), you could get about as much work out of human slaves as you could from a horse. The horse collar made using draft animals more efficient than slave labor (for tasks requiring brute strength, that is). Without horses (collars optional), your only choice is human muscle.

[Markdoc]

Re: World without horses

 

Yes' date=' this is where slavery will be a big part. Until the invention of the wooden horse collar, which allowed a horse to pull a heavy load with its full strength (pushing with its hindquarters instead of pulling with its shoulders, and also NOT pressing on its windpipe, as earlier collars did), you could get about as much work out of human slaves as you could from a horse. The horse collar made using draft animals more efficient than slave labor (for tasks requiring brute strength, that is). Without horses (collars optional), your only choice is human muscle.[/quote']

 

Actually prior to the horse collar, oxen were the agricultural beasts of burden par excellance - a good 700 years went by between the disappearance of slavery as a viable institution and the adoption of the horse collar (technically speaking the collar harness) in most of Europe. Japan got by just fine without either slavery or horses in the fields, as did much of India.

 

Slavery could well be a major factor, but there's no reason to assume it would have to be. Slavery is dependant on a lot of social/economic factors: either farms big enough to constitute reproductive units, a constant source of new slaves or both. It also does best where there is an established society and established markets - for obvious reasons, you don't head off into new territory with a bunch of slaves to break in new territory by yourself and if there's lawless country nearby (or simply a law that doesn't cooperate with yours) you're going to have a lot of leakage of slaves. Last of all you need an effective military and/or police if you have a lot of slaves, for fear of slave revolts. Over most of Europe and Asia slavery wasn't outlawed until long after it had ceased to be relevant - it simply died out because it was too much trouble, and lingered on mostly as a punishment (salt mines, galleys, etc). It lasted longer where there were clear divides betwqeen slaves and slave owners (hence the popularity of Africans as slaves: but you might see something similar in a fantasy game with - say - Orcs in a human realm or vice versa)

 

cheers, Mark

[Querysphinx]

Re: World without horses

 

Without beasts of burden your agriculture will be somewhat different. Crops that traditionally rely on plowed fields will be scarcer. Other crops will have prevalence instead. If you really wat to get technical about food, though, you'll have to look into various soil types, weather patterns, growing season, etc etc.

[teh bunneh]

Re: World without horses

 

IIRC, they used dogs as beasts of burden in North America (before the Europeans brought horses). They could only carry small loads, but dogs are pretty strong for their size. I seem to recall the dogs actually dragged travois behind them, rather than carrying loads on their backs. And someone already mentioned llamas/alpacas, which they used in South America.

[EvilDrPuma]

Re: World without horses

 

Look at Pre-Columbian America(both North and South) for some ideas' date=' they didn't have Horses until the Europeans showed up.[/quote']

 

Although the folks in the Andes did have llamas as beasts of burden. Still, the Aztecs and Maya make great examples of "high" civilizations with no animal transportation.

[Midas]

Re: World without horses

 

I'd add to check out Empire of the Petal Throne for thirty years of discussion on the subject.

 

EPT is set on a planet without *riding* beasts, but they do have wagon pullers. The chlen (a kind of six legged dinosaur) can pull heavy loads, but is actually *slower* than a train of pack bearers. Porter slaves are a major commodity in EPT.

 

The main effect in warfare is that purely infantry armies cannot overrun an enemy nation a la the Mongols. The Sakbe roads (combination highways that the Incas would have envied and Great Walls) connect every city channel and hold invaders. And the general wouldn't be the guy on horseback, of course.

 

As for communications and scouting, that would depend on tech/magic. A no magic world would depend on something like the Inca runners and old fashioned scouts. A high magic world would have the crystal ball equivelent of our satellite recon and cell phones.

 

Midas

 

As for scouting

[Multiplex]

Re: World without horses

 

Unless you render the question meaningless by allowing alternate animals to take the place of beast of burden you will have a few sure changes.

 

1) Human labor becomes much more important. Beast of burden function to magnify human effort.

2) Governments cannot grow very large in size, as travel time becomes a major impediment.

3) Agriculture is slowed, as beasts of burden allow greater production. Food becomes much more scarce. (No farmers producing food for a large non farming population)

 

As a result:

a) Human existance would probably be centered along waterways.

Slavery: while it might seem that this would be the norm, the care and upkeep of slaves in terms of food needed would probably not balance out. Keep in mind, slavery in the US south was producing economic goods that could be sold far away for enough money for food for the slaves & owners and profit. #3) above would severely limit this..

c) I'm not sure what the circumstances were for development of the wheel, but I bet it involved them beasts of burden. (I can see this being developed for human powered movement.)

d) The lack of large scale agriculture would probably require that everybody work at generating food. (Assuming we have other than small populations. Hunting is not really that easy of a task.)

 

Note, all of the above assumes that there is no counter balancing options, such as strong magic.

[Markdoc]

Re: World without horses

 

Unless you render the question meaningless by allowing alternate animals to take the place of beast of burden you will have a few sure changes.

 

1) Human labor becomes much more important. Beast of burden function to magnify human effort.

 

I think we can agree that this is pretty true

 

2) Governments cannot grow very large in size' date=' as travel time becomes a major impediment.[/quote']

 

This, on the other hand, isn't, as the large central governments of South and central America demonstrate. The Incas in particular had a pretty damn fast governmental postal and communications system based on runners, that was only marginally slower than those in many states with horses.

 

3) Agriculture is slowed' date=' as beasts of burden allow greater production. Food becomes much more scarce. (No farmers producing food for a large non farming population)[/quote']

 

Again, we know this is not correct, as many historical societies had exactly this structure without access to beasts of burden. The aztecs are a primo example, but much of Asia functioned for a long time using only human labour in the fields and they produced impressive surpluses. Your first point - that beasts of burden are a multiplier is a good one, but in many places, you can make up with that, with more labour, better organization and better infrastructure.

 

I think what you could predict is not that civilization will be restricted to waterways but that rich land like river bottoms will be intensively farmed and that really marginal lands will be given over to herders. Land in between those two extremes, might be elevated into better use. That's not so different from what happened historically, it's just that the balance will likely be tipped slightly in favour of the herders. OTOH, in Asia, the herders were squeezed out by demand for land for crops - even marginal land - which was "upgraded" by massive public works

 

In medieval Italy, southern France and Spain, for example, many small farms relied on donkeys to fetch water during the dry season, when local wells or springs ran dry. In Indonesia and what's now Cambodia/Vietnam, the locals, who lacked easy access to such a handy low-cost beast of burden either used people for the same thing or built water retention and distribution systems. Back in the 15th century the Vietnamese armies destroyed these systems as part of their process to subjugate the Chams - leading to widespread famine and rendering the area affected ungovernable: there wasn't enough food for the locals, let alone an occupying army. It took the affected regions nearly two centuries to recover.

 

One thing we might predict - effective land use without beasts of burden is labour intensive and needs to be highly organised. In countries where beasts of burden are few in number the basic agricultural unit is not the household as it was in much of Western/Northern Europe but the extended kin group - say 60-200 people instead of 16-20. Villages tended to be larger, but more compact (so as not to use valuable land).

 

There's no reason the wheel would not be used - in Asia (and especially in japan) human-powered wheeled vehicles of all sorts (from rickshaws and palanquins to farm wagons) proliferated like crazy. It also is a muscle multiplier.

 

cheers, Mark

[alms66]

Re: World without horses

 

Generally speaking, a human and a horse over a long distance race...

The human will win every time.

 

Here's why:

1. Humans are natural long distance runners. We're capable of sweating and cooling our bodies better than any other animal on the planet. We also have an extremely efficient running gait.

2. Horses need long periods of rest, not only because of #1, but they also eat a lot more than humans do. This is because horses only eat grass/hay/grain, which is not as calorie-loaded as meat/cheese/bread that humans will eat on a long distance travel, plus we're simply less massive.

3. Humans can travel over any terrain, horses can't, they have to constantly go around obstacles, whereas humans simply go through them, assuming you're not on a road of course.

 

So, therefore, the most effective long distance travel is not by horse, but by foot. Horses are great because they are faster than humans in short sprints, thus making them great for hit-and-run tactics of ancient cavalry or charging into a line of men, simply due to the horses mass, it will break the line. Also, horses are certainly more comfortable than traveling by foot in that you're not going through the brush, climbing over rocks, walking through streams and just generally getting filthy and sweaty.

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: World without horses

 

This comes up again and again. Thanks, Dave Brin. And every time it does, it's wrong. Humans are no more "natural long distance runners" than are horses. Horses sweat just fine. Horses have far more efficient running gaits than humans --it's why their feet and legs are so fragile. Horses cross many kinds of difficult ground just fine. Sure, there is terrain that favours humans, but also terrain that favours horses. For example, horses can swim currents that would drown every human. Horses eat more than humans, but are perfectly capable of eating and digesting fatty foods, notably oilseeds. Grass, by the way, yields more calories to horses than typical high carbohydrate foods do to humans.

 

But don't take my word for it.

There's an annual man versus horse race over a marathon distance in Wales. The route has been adjusted to cross more difficult ground, the horses' start is delayed by 15 minutes, and mandatory vet checks are deducted from their time. In spite of that, humans (on foot) have won only twice. And the horses, of course, have riders. Who are, unlike the human runners, local girls riding their own saddle horses.

 

The Man versus Horse race distance will be doubled next year to test the theory that humans will win if the race is even longer. Previous such races (again, always with horse and rider) have produced rather debatable results, because of vet checks and mandatory rest stops. For some reason, you're not allowed to ride a horse to death, not even for the sake of sport! What is the world coming to?

[Markdoc]

Re: World without horses

 

You're right - the "humans faster than horse" meme does seem to trace back to Dave Brin . Historically, horse-based transport - even over very long distances - has always been much, much faster than human based: compare the pony express for an eye-opening idea of how fast that can actually be, and the ancient persian version was not very much slower. There's no evidence to support the idea that humans are faster over distance and of course they are nowhere near as fast over short distances.

 

The big leveller is not speed, but food and water: horses need a lot of both, so if (for example) you are moving armies around, the speeds are not so different simply because the army moves at commissariat speed.

 

Still, that shouldn't matter to our hypothetical horseless society when it comes to shifting messages around. Reporters at the early Olympic games in ancient Greece carried messenger pigeons so that reports of the games could be transmitted home to their city the same day the events occurred. Pigeon post (with multiple pigeons) typically moves at about 300 miles a day, or about 50% faster than horse post and about 120% faster than foot post. The Romans (and others) used signalling towers (heliographs) which put horses to shame and the semaphore increased the precision of signaling even more - a simple message could be semaphored from Deal to London in under three minutes - a distance of about 110 kilometers. In the 1880s, British troops in Afghanistan sent daily reports to headquarters in Delhi via a heliograph system - over 1000 km a day, over very rough and hostile terrain.

 

And that's before magic enters he picture ...

 

cheers, Mark

[Palmate]

Re: World without horses

 

To be fair the Pony Express was not over long distances on a single mount, they had regular stations where both the rider and the horse were changed out. Not to mention the simple fact that it is easier to carry a satchel on horseback then it is to run with one over your shoulder. I don't think there is any dispute over the short distance; but in the long distance is where the both become very close. Several factors also go into the calculation including temperature, humidity, and terrain... things like these will greatly affect the race.

P

[Narf the Mouse]

Re: World without horses

 

I would like to note that, every time I hear "Man can beat a horse", it's followed by or near "after three days". That race, being only 2+ *hours*, does not challenge that theory in any way.

[Markdoc]

Re: World without horses

 

To be fair the Pony Express was not over long distances on a single mount' date=' they had regular stations where both the rider and the horse were changed out. Not to mention the simple fact that it is easier to carry a satchel on horseback then it is to run with one over your shoulder. I don't think there is any dispute over the short distance; but in the long distance is where the both become very close. Several factors also go into the calculation including temperature, humidity, and terrain... things like these will greatly affect the race. [/font']

P

 

Short distance? We begin to see the disparity - Pony express stations were 10-25 miles apart - so your "short distance" for a horse is a marathon for a human. No question about who's faster over marathon distances then. But what about ultramarathons? People always bring up "long distance" but where's the data?

 

Actualy, we have the data and it doesn't look good for the human runner - a highly experienced very strong, seasoned runner can do a 100 km ultramarathon in about 22-23 hours if the terrain is not too strenuous. A horse and rider will cover the same distance in less than half that time - and be in good enough condition to do it again the next day.

In the US, horses routinely manage 100 mile endurance races in under 10 hours. Far faster than the time it takes humans to make the same distance - and that's across the Sierra mountains: so much for "rough terrain advantage". And the horses are not allowed to be pushed too hard - any sign of distress and you are out of the race!

 

Still, I am willing to learn new stuff: are there any actual examples of humans outpacing horses in races? There's lots of arguments on the net about "how we're the ultimate long distance runners" and lots of cites of the discovery article about how we could, we might be able to ... but no actual data. As lawnmower boy pointed out the only horse vs human race I know of gives the humans a head start and pits professional runners against local girls on their own horses ... and the professional runners still lose 90% of the time. Over longer races, the average speed advantage of the horse actually increases, and in 2 day races horses turn in speeds no human has ever come close to matching.

 

Maybe I'm missing something but it sure looks like puffery from here.

 

cheers, Mark

[Markdoc]

Re: World without horses

 

I would like to note that' date=' every time I hear "Man can beat a horse", it's followed by or near "after three days". That race, being only 2+ *hours*, does not challenge that theory in any way.[/quote']

 

Again, where's the beef? There's things like the Shahzada 4 day race for horses - 100 km a day, for 4 days in a row. Amateurs riding their own horses routinely get that done in around 8 hours a day. And again, they do it under strict supervision to ensure the horses are not stressed. I can't think of any humans that can match that speed - over one of the longest footraces in the world, even the best runners in the world don't come terribly close. And that's over a shorter distance. If the Spartahalon was extended another 150 km, the gap would widen, because the winners are pretty damn distressed by the time they collapse over the finish line - they couldn't maintain that speed for another day and a half.

 

cheers, Mark

[JmOz]

Re: World without horses

 

Back to the original topic. I think that written communication would be more common/advanced. This would also help with compensating for larger goverments...

[Narf the Mouse]

Re: World without horses

 

I was unaware of that. The evidence posted was insufficient at that point; this is sufficient.

Again' date=' where's the beef? There's things like the Shahzada 4 day race for horses - 100 km a day, for 4 days in a row. Amateurs riding their own horses routinely get that done in around 8 hours a day. And again, they do it under strict supervision to ensure the horses are not stressed. I can't think of any humans that can match that speed - over one of the longest footraces in the world, even the best runners in the world don't come terribly close. And that's over a shorter distance. If the Spartahalon was extended another 150 km, the gap would widen, because the winners are pretty damn distressed by the time they collapse over the finish line - they couldn't maintain that speed for another day and a half.

 

cheers, Mark

[pinecone]

Re: World without horses

 

In the fantasy world I'm working on' date=' I'm considering not having any kind of riding animals or beasts of burden. What effects or impacts would this have?[/quote']

 

One major impact would be on agriculture...no plows. I'd look at the Incas for ideas...but they had beasts of burden as well....