What is the origin of horse domestication? An extensive collection of archaeological horse remains across Eurasia confirms this. 4,200 years ago a new era in human history began. Horses greatly accelerated communication and trade networks in Eurasia. U catalyzed unprecedented exchanges and interactions between diverse cultures.
This work was coordinated by Ludovic Orlando, from the Université Paul Sabatier. It involved 133 researchers from around the world. They used radiocarbon dating and ancient DNA sequencing. The genetic transformations that coincided with the emergence of horse riding were thus traced.
Large scale breeding
“Horse riding fueled mass migrations from the steppes about 5,000 years ago,” Pablo Librado said in a statement. He is the first author of the study and a scientist at the Pompeu Fabra University. They began by tracking when horses began to spread outside their homeland of domestication.
They then reconstructed the demography of horses throughout the third millennium BC. C. They precisely dated the first signs of large-scale breeding and production of horses. Thus they discovered evidence of significant changes in the reproductive life of horses. It indicates a deliberate manipulation of animal reproduction by the first breeders. The remarkable alignment of the three lines of evidence occurs about 4,200 ago.
Mass domestication
Domestic horses were produced in very large numbers. A growing demand across the continent had to be met only at that time, and not before. Horse-based mobility persisted as the fastest mode of land transportation until the advent of mechanical motors in the 20th century.
The origin of horse domestication was an explosive process. “How could such a substantial number of horses be bred so suddenly? And it was made from a relatively small area of domestication, to meet increasingly global demand at the beginning of the second millennium BC. C. Now we have an answer. The breeders controlled the reproduction of the animal so well that they almost halved the time interval between two generations. Simply put, they were able to speed up the breeding process. They effectively doubled their production rate,” Ludovic Orlando added.
