Hello and welcome to another episode of the Ancient Warfare Magazine podcast. In this episode,

we're once more looking at the magazine with Volume 11, Issue 5, riding into battle,

Ancient Mounted Warfare. If you've not already picked up your copy of the magazine, you can do so at

ancient-warfare.com. So joining me are Jasperotage, Murray Dam, Mark DeSantis, Mark McCaffrey and Lindsay Powell.

So should we start at the beginning?

I mean, if we start, you know, who are the first people to domesticate and use animals in warfare?

Is that a good starting point?

I mean, I was quite surprised how early animals were domesticated

and how long it took someone to think of using them for warfare.

Have I got that wrong?

Jasper.

I don't know.

I don't think we discussed specifically animal domestication in the issue.

But as they say, that dogs have been with people since about 30,000 years ago, then yes, organized warfare coming around just a little bit later.

It did take a long time. I don't know how specific and confident we can be about any

conclusions because our sources are so lacking. But if you assume that as soon as we get

organized warfare, you get shield walls and things like that first.

And the, what do we call them, the donkey carts come, well, they come pretty, those Sumerian chariots, Murray wrote an article about that a long time ago in ancient warfare.

They come fairly early, if you think about it.

They do, but I think of the other thing, of course, about them is that they're their mule,

they're mule carts, so they're not built on speed.

They're basically a mobile missile platform.

...