Guard dogs and horse riders

From Philadelphia, at the annual meetings of the Society for American Archaeology and the Paleoanthropology Society

From around 5,700 to 5,100 years ago, a group known as the Botai populated the harsh Asian terrain of what is now northern Kazakhstan. Researchers know little about daily life or spiritual beliefs among the Botai.

Ongoing excavations at a Botai settlement indicate that these hardy people embraced certain mythological themes and ritual practices that became widespread in later Eurasian cultures as far away as India.