Food & agriculture · c. 480 CE

Horse collar

A padded collar let horses pull hard without choking, raising draft power several times.

The collar harness developed in China by the 5th century and reached Europe by around 900. Horses work roughly 50 percent faster than oxen, so it sped ploughing and hauling once Europe adopted it.

See it in the living tree Wikipedia

Arcs above join it to what it stood on, arcs below to what it led to. The bar places this stretch on the tree's whole timeline.

What it built on 1

Ard plough 4000 BCE

What it led to 1

Three-field rotation 800

Related measurements

The dashed line marks when it first worked.

Cereal yields in England/UK since 1275 Latest: Wheat: 7.28 t/ha (2024) Source: Our World in Data

World population over a million years Latest: 6.27k million people (2000) Source: DeLong 1998, table 'Total World Population' (Kremer series); Kremer 1993, Population Growth and Technological Change: One Million B.C. to 1990, QJE 108(3)