Horse history: New study pinpoints the origins of domesticated horses
Horses have been beloved – and useful – creatures throughout human history, and a new study is pinpointing where and when modern horses were first domesticated.
A peer-reviewed study published in the journal Nature found that the modern domestic horse’s homeland is located in the lower Volga-Don region, which is now part of Russia. They may have originated in the area more than 4,200 years ago.
Ludovic Orlando, the director of the Centre for Anthropobiology & Genomics of Toulouse, explained to USA TODAY that researchers used archeological remains, like bones and teeth, from 273 ancient horses in their research. The remains were discovered by archaeologists over thousands of miles, from Spain to Siberia.
The researchers analyzed DNA from the remains and identified a “domestication center” in modern-day Russia. The DNA also revealed gene variations that may have given these horses important characteristics for being domesticated and used by humans, including having a stronger back and demonstrating more docile behavior.
Orlando said these horses spread rapidly in Europe and Asia, and within a span of approximately 500 years they were "anywhere from Spain to Mongolia."
“So clearly this horse, which was originally very local, very confined to a single region on the planet became really global,” Orlando said. “That probably is related to the importance that this animal had for human migration and human mobility in general.”
Orlando explained that the genetics that made these horse ancestors stronger and more docile could represent “a sort of turning point for human societies” thousands of years ago.
“If selection is for something that is easier to interact with and to use for mobility, then you could expect that this gave an advantage to the people who own that horse,” he said. "It could actually change the dynamics of us traveling, us trading with each other, to do things at a much larger geographical scale and much more rapidly than we could before.”
Millennia ago: Company seeks to resurrect the woolly mammoth, return extinct animal to the Arctic
'Horned crocodile-faced hell heron?': New species of dinosaur unearthed by fossil hunters
He noted that some may argue that there were domestication processes that began earlier than the research pinpoints. But the research “only answers the question of which of the lineages that were around was the successful one. “
“It doesn’t rule out the possibility... that elsewhere in different time periods other people started a different domestication experience,” Orlando said.
He added that researchers still have questions on the similarities and differences in horse ancestries.
“This is the beauty of research,” Orlando said. “You find one thing, and you have 10 more to uncover.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Horses were first domesticated in Russia, new research suggests
