Researchers from the University of Zurich have identified a remarkable artifact—a leather saddle dating back roughly 2,700 years—in a female burial at a site in the Yanghai cemetery, located in the Turfan Basin within China’s Xinjiang region. This find could stand as the oldest saddle known to science and, together with accompanying grave goods, provides compelling evidence that ancient nomadic populations were engaged in professional horseback riding. The discovery is documented in the Journal of Archaeology.
The saddle’s estimated age places it firmly in the late first millennium BCE, and it was unearthed in a grave belonging to a woman. The grave goods reveal a life closely tied to equestrian activity: the deceased wore a leather jacket, wool trousers, and short leather boots, and her body lay in a posture suggestive of someone seated in a saddle. This alignment hints at a social role that extended beyond her routine role in herding, indicating that horseback riding could have been a central occupation or pastime among certain members of this community, not merely a sporadic skill.
The Yanghai grave complex is associated with the Subeixi culture, a community that inhabited the Turfan basin around three millennia ago. Comparative analysis shows striking parallels in weapons, horse gear, and clothing with the Scythians, another equestrian people whose routes and exchanges spanned vast regions. The investigators propose that contact between the Subeyi and Scythians may have occurred along routes crossing the Altai Mountains, suggesting a web of cultural and technological exchange in this frontier zone. Yet the Subeyi horsemen are thought to have maintained a pastoral, shepherding lifestyle focused on tending herds in the Turfan landscape, rather than embracing full-time nomadic mobility alone.
The saddle itself comprises two cowhide cushions stuffed with a blend of straw, deer hair, and camel hair, reflecting thoughtful design aimed at comfort and stability. Radiocarbon dating places its manufacture between 724 and 396 BCE, a window that reveals a sophisticated belt of innovation in early horsemanship. The find supports a view that saddles may have originated in the Yanghai region, where riders appear to have prioritized the health and safety of their horses as well as personal comfort. The image that emerges is of a society where riding was a practiced craft, integrated into daily work, transportation, and potentially ritual life, rather than a peripheral skill.