Please join us for a lunch time talk at the Jockey Club Rooms with Professor William T. Taylor, Assistant Professor and Curator of Archaeology at the University of Colorado-Boulder. Taylor is arguably the world’s leading equine archaeologist and author of a seminal new book called Hoof Beats that narrates the impact of the horse on human civilisation. 

“Taylor explores how momentous events in the story of humans and horses helped create the world we live in today. Tracing the horse's origins and spread from the western Eurasian steppes to the invention of horse-drawn transportation and the explosive shift to mounted riding, Taylor offers a revolutionary new account of how horses altered the course of human history. Hoof Beats transforms our understanding of both horses and humanity's ancient past and asks us to consider what our relationship with horses means for the future of humanity and the world around us.”

The book has attracted kudos from quarters both mainstream and specialist due to its breathtaking, yet readable, synthesis of archeology, paleontology, anthropology, genetics, and history. “Taylor …has written that too-rare work that is as authoritative as it is legible to the lay audience,” according to the New York Times. What’s more, the analysis, incorporating the latest scientific techniques and research, is partly based on Taylor’s firsthand excavation and examination of several of the equine tombs discussed in the book “help[ing] fill the gap between scholarly developments and popular equine histories” (Spectator).