History, Language & Culture Kazakhstan

Human activity in the region began with the extinct Pithecanthropus and Sinanthropus one million – 800,000 years ago in the Karatau Mountains and the Caspian and Balkhash areas. Neanderthals were present from 140,000 to 40,000 years ago in the Karatau Mountains and central Kazakhstan. Modern Homo sapiens appeared from 40,000 to 12,000 years ago in southern, central, and eastern Kazakhstan. After the end of the last glacial period (12,500 to 5,000 years ago), human settlement spread across the country and led to the extinction of the mammoth and the woolly rhinoceros. Hunter-gatherer communes invented bows and boats, and used domesticated wolves and traps for hunting.

The Neolithic Revolution was marked by the appearance of animal husbandry and agriculture, giving rise to the Atbasar, Kelteminar, Botai, and Ust-Narym cultures. The Botai culture (3600--3100 BCE) is credited with the first domestication of horses, and ceramics and polished-stone tools also appeared during this period. The fourth and third millennia witnessed the beginning of metal production, the manufacture of copper tools, and the use of casting molds. In the second millennium BCE, ore mining developed in central Kazakhstan.

Several independent states flourished in Kazakhstan during the Early Middle Ages; the best-known were the Kangar Union, Western Turkic Khaganate, the Oghuz Yabgu State, and the Kara-Khanid Kaganate.

In the 13th century Kazakhstan was under the dominion of the Mongol Empire, and remained in the sphere of Mongol successor states for 300 years. Portions of the country began to be annexed by the Russian Empire in the 16th century, the remainder gradually absorbed into Russian Turkestan beginning in 1867.The modern Republic of Kazakhstan became a political entity during the 1930s Soviet subdivision of Russian Turkestan.

Kazakh language is one of the official languages of Kazakhstan. And there are also people speaking this language in Afghanistan, China, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. In Germany there have been Kazakh speakers since the second half of the 20th century onwards. Around the world approximately 6.5 million Kazakh speakers are spoken in the Latin alphabet (in Turkey). ) And a modified Arabic script (in China, Iran and Afghanistan).

While the people of the Great Steppe had tamed horses thousands of years ago, the horse, its symbolism and history are woven into the fabric of Kazakh culture and modern-day Kazakhstan.

The world cultural community recognizes the unique and special role equines have in Kazakh culture. UNESCO has included the traditional Spring Festive Rites of Kazakh horse breeders on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) of Humanity.