History of domesticated horses

2001/01/19 Carton Virto, Eider - Elhuyar Zientzia

• Zoologia

Horses have been transported by man for thousands of years, but despite numerous archaeological studies, it remains unclear when and where they were domesticated. Some researchers believe that 5,000 years ago it occurred in the meadows of Eurasia and that it only happened once. However, genetic research has shown that domestication occurred more than once.

At Upsala University in Sweden, the DNA of current horses and fossils have been investigated. The English and Swedish spices, as well as the descendants of those brought to Iceland by the Vikings. On the other hand, samples of the Przewalski horse from Mongolia, supposedly belonging to the family of the old wild horses, have been analyzed. All of them have compared their DNA to the bone DNA of a horse that has been kept for 12,000 years in the ice of Alaska, as well as that of other fossils found in Sweden and Estonia.

Research similar to previous cattle, sheep and pigs has been carried out and it has been observed that the genetic diversity of these animals is very reduced. This means that they come from small groups of animals that were domesticated in few places. However, horses have shown great genetic diversity, almost a variety per sample. Therefore, researchers believe that local varieties of horses were domesticated independently in four parts of the world.