Patrick Stuart’s Reviews > The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World > Status Update

"Above his grave were forty horse skulls arranged in two neat rows. .. The amount of meat forty horses would have yielded - assuming they were slightly bigger than Prewalkis, or about 400kg live weight - would be roughly 8,000 k, enough for four thousand portions of 2 k each. This suggests a funeral feast of amazing size. Horses were suitable animals for extraordinary ritual sacrifices."

"Domesticated animals can only be raised by people who are committed morally and ethically to watching their families go hungry rather than letting them eat the breeding stock. Seed grain and breeding stock must be saved, not eaten, or there will be no crop and no claves next year."

"But a person on foot in the Eurasian steppes feels very small. Every footfall raises the cent of crushed sage, and a puff of tiny white grasshoppers skips ahead of your boot."