Pages: 322-345

It is difficult to overestimate the contribution made by the early Indoeuropeans to the history of European and Asian civilisations. However, the answer to the question about their ancient homeland implies many problems. With modern level of knowledge, it seems possible to suppose that the Indo-Iranians’ and Indo-Arians’ homeland was located in the Urals region. The sites discovered here over the last decades allowed a new approach to solution of various traditional problems. The early Indoeuropeans are closely associated with raising and domestication of horse and its use in gear. It is already a proven fact that domestication of horse took place in Eurasian steppes. The horse, however, at the earliest stage was not saddled, as it has been considered until recently. It seems that the idea that the horse was used as a saddled animal in the eneolithic epoch, built upon existence of “cheekpieces made of horn and metal”, must be abandoned. The domestic use of horse began with chariot, which is supported by written records and archaeological materials. One of the elements of horse bridle are cheekpieces. Many researchers of the latter paid their major attention to formal differences. The article proposes a new classification and typological scheme, which accounts not only for the form, but also for the material and technology of their production, as well as rigidity of the bridle and how it acts upon the animal. The cheekpieces also allow determining a relative chronological sequence of typological development of the horse bridle, from the draught one to the saddled one. In the light of new researches the matters of the horse bridle chronology require a special analysis.