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Researchers have unearthed evidence that humans domesticated horses and used them for milk, meat and transport at least 1,000 years earlier than previously believed.

A team of archaeologists has found conclusive evidence that the Botai culture of Kazakhstan kept domesticated horses 5,500 years ago.

"What's really key here is they weren't just domesticated," said lead author Alan Outram of the University of Exeter, in southwestern England.

"By this point they've really got the full pastoral package: they were eating them, they were riding them they were milking them, which suggests that the original domestication is even earlier still," he said.

Shifting back the date of horse domestication has a significant impact on understanding how early societies developed

"Having a domesticated animal that could be eaten, milked, ridden, used as a pack animal and potentially for haulage would have had a tremendous impact on any society that initiated or adopted horse herds,"