Prehistoric WI Eurasian steppe horses hunted to extinction instead of domesticated?

Dunno. These are species' best of the best. Average difference may be even less. Best humans can run over 35 km/h over short distances, too.

Long Story short: I'm surprised you imagine donkeys as faster-than-human animals. In my experience they are no sprinters.
 
Dunno. These are species' best of the best. Average difference may be even less. Best humans can run over 35 km/h over short distances, too.

Long Story short: I'm surprised you imagine donkeys as faster-than-human animals. In my experience they are no sprinters.
I imagine them as because they are consistently at all levels faster than humans by at least roughly 5 km/h
 
Is that fast enought to make being hit by a spear or arrow more difficult?
That's not the point of speed in combat. A horse can't dodge arrows either, and they are actually more vulnerable to archery than infantry, since a horse is hard to armour and a large target. The point of speed is that it allows you to choose where and when to fight. If in unfavourable circumstances, cavalry(and asinary) can outrun infantry, while infantry that tries to flee cavalry will be mown down. The same principle applies to skirmishers vs. formed infantry, though skirmishers lack the shock power of cavalry and are therefore less decisive . Asinary will still have that advantage over infantry, though they won't be able to replicate the speed and power of heavy cavalry, and trying to outrun skirmishers and the like might get a bit hairy.
 
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Maximum donkey speed is given by different online sources a between 30 and 45 km/h. Maximum human speed is for most people around 25 km/h over short distances, much less over longer distances, but still around 15 km/h over a few kilometers. I don't know how long donkeys can keep running at high speed.
I suppose the difference isn't huge.
that's OTL donkeys, never specially bred for speed. With 4000 years of specialized breeding and no horses, might not people selectively breed for speed and endurance? Even if a donkey could never match our best horse breeds, couldn't they be improved over such a long time?
 
that's OTL donkeys, never specially bred for speed. With 4000 years of specialized breeding and no horses, might not people selectively breed for speed and endurance? Even if a donkey could never match our best horse breeds, couldn't they be improved over such a long time?
Certainly. I was just arguing against the "discovery" of riding donkeys in combat situations into which one entered with donkey-pulled chariots, as these would be rather bred for strength and endurance than for maximum speed. If riding donkeys becomes a widespread norm somewhere, then breeding for speed would change things massively, I agree.

One (last?) twist to the discussion:
What about Sub-Saharan Africa in this alternate world? Most of it developed without horses and has always been horse-inimical territory (tse tse fly etc.) anyway; also, the Bantu developed ironworking on their own. So one hypothesis would be serious divergences only starting in the Common Era.
But one could also imagine a very different twist: Sea transport of goods has been faster than overland transport even IOTL for most of history. ITTL, even sea transport of humans might be faster in many cases than overland transport - and with most of the ancient civilizations bordering the Indian Ocean directly (Mesopotamia, Elam, Indus Valley) or indirectly (Egypt) and a no-horse-alt-China or, more likely, alt-Chinas / mainland Austronesian rivals / ... might conduct a lot more trade through *Indochina, the Indian Ocean looks pretty destined to become a heavily travelled lake. What kinds of butterflies might that wash upon Africa`s (primarily Eastern?) shores? And back again?
 
I have some support for onager. Maybe if onager spreads from Middle East to Eurasian steppe (since I assume their will be gone extinct as wild horses in Eurasian steppe), we can see onager used instead of horses.

Despite all respect to Donkey supporters, I think donkey can't play role of horse...
As I said before donkey inhabited in Eastern Africa, hence they can't be domesticated by Eurasian steppe nomads. If OTL history is any indication, the North African and Middle East nomads (bedouins/berbers) used camel over donkey. So instead of horse there will be more wide spread camel-use based culture.

Now for Eurasian steppe: If Eurasian hunters hunted down wild horses for extinction so is most species in steppe. So there won't be any steppe-culture. Instead there might be developed more wide spread Tundra/Siberian forest culture e.g reindeer herders aka Tungusic culture. So domesticated deer/reindeer could be used instead of horses.
 
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As previously brought up in the thread horses had existed in the Americas prior to extinction. Going on a twist from the OP, how about Horses survive in the Americas but go extinct in Eurasia?

Also, the Llama was mentioned, maybe donkeys/onagers would evolve in similar fashion to how the Llama and Alpaca were domesticated evolved from their respective wild populations fairly recently compared to the Horse and Donkey OTL (can't remember their wild species names but easily googled). Who knows, given another 500 or 1000 years the Llama may have been bred to of been fit for warfare, but was superseded by the introduction of the horse. Nevertheless, it's useful to look at the Inca and others in South America who had developed without horses but who had the Llama, which in many ways was used much like the Donkey, but was certainly in my eyes developing in the direction of the Horse in that communities were centered around it (and the Alpacas, note, a different but closely related species) use.

Sorry if a touch garbled, written on the move on my phone.
 
Thanks @Mr.Wigglemunch for sharing your expertise on llamas!
If I´ll be doing this TL, you`re very welcome to contribute a TL-in-the-TL, or rather, to cover the Americas. My TL is exclusively focused on the Eastern Hemisphere, if I should do it. If you`re game, that would be great fun! You`d only have to tell me when the Inverse-Columbian Exchange would be so I don`t write ahead of it.

Now for Eurasian steppe: If Eurasian hunters hunted down wild horses for extinction so is most species in steppe. So there won't be any steppe-culture. Instead there might be developed more wide spread Tundra/Siberian forest culture e.g reindeer herders aka Tungusic culture. So domesticated deer/reindeer could be used instead of horses.
Yeah, for the North, that sounds very sensible.
For the Southern part, where the actual steppe is - and deserts in between - I was thinking of a camel-based expansion of the BMAC aka Oxus Civilization. That would be sedentary and thus "insular", but it would cover much of the area.
 
Thanks @Mr.Wigglemunch for sharing your expertise on llamas!
If I´ll be doing this TL, you`re very welcome to contribute a TL-in-the-TL, or rather, to cover the Americas. My TL is exclusively focused on the Eastern Hemisphere, if I should do it. If you`re game, that would be great fun! You`d only have to tell me when the Inverse-Columbian Exchange would be so I don`t write ahead of it.

Thanks but I'll pass, but it'll be enjoyable if/when you turn your attention to the western hemisphere if the eastern hemisphere sailors are shocked by a bunch of horse cavalry storming their landing point.
 
Thanks but I'll pass, but it'll be enjoyable if/when you turn your attention to the western hemisphere if the eastern hemisphere sailors are shocked by a bunch of horse cavalry storming their landing point.
Hm. Or maybe the Western hemisphere civilizations will arrive in the East first. If I'll do it alone, that may be a good final point - the beginning of the Eurasian breakdown and its colonization by militarily and organizationally superior Amerindians...
 
Hm. Or maybe the Western hemisphere civilizations will arrive in the East first. If I'll do it alone, that may be a good final point - the beginning of the Eurasian breakdown and its colonization by militarily and organizationally superior Amerindians...

Bonus if it's the Eurasians who wiped out by disease.
 
I think it could be said that natural human curiosity would lead to someone trying to ride an animal they were in close contact with - children jumping onto domesticated oxen, for example. From there, it doesn't seem too great a leap to trying to ride a donkey, without the need for the horse as an example.

(is there any evidence of Incas ever riding llamas? Even as children?)

I'm curious though, if the original domesticators of donkeys didn't ride them, what were they used for?

Llamas are apparently only good for meat and wool. They can't be ridden and make lousy pack animals.
 
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