MtDNA tests trace all modern horses back to single ancestor 140,000 years ago

PhysOrg ^ | January 31, 2012 | Bob Yirka

[SunkenCiv]

For many years archeologists and other scientists have debated the origins of the domesticated horse. Nailing down a time frame is important because many historians view the relationship between man and horse as one of the most important in the development of our species. Horses allowed early people to hunt for faster prey, to wander farther than before and to create much bigger farms due to pulling plows. Now, new evidence has come to light suggesting that all modern horses, which are believed to have been domesticated approximately 10,000 years ago, descended from one mare around 140,000 years ago. The new evidence comes from a team made up of international researchers who, as they describe in their paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, say that DNA evidence shows that the horse subsequently diverged into 18 different genetic lines, suggesting that domestication occurred independently in many places throughout the world.

Most other domestic animals such as cows, sheep and goats by contrast appear to have evolved from a relatively small pool, likely shortly before horses followed suit.

Interestingly, horses appear in cave art as early as 30,000 years ago, which suggests that early humans certainly knew about them and likely killed them for food for twenty thousand years before the idea of taming them came about which ultimately led to domestication...

Prior to this new research many scholars had attributed the first domestication of the horse to the Eurasian Steppes, due to fossilized evidence showing horse domestication dating to around 3500 BC. This new research will undoubtedly cause new discussions in the community as a whole which will likely lead to new theories being developed to describe how so many different groups of people came to domestic horses in so many places.

[SunkenCiv]

I'm gonna catch that horse if I can...

Two young Nokota mares. Image: Wikipedia.

[SunkenCiv]

from, uh, five keywords, sorted, duplicates out:

• Three-toed horses reveal the secret of the Tibetan Plateau uplift
• [From 1995] A Stone-Age Horse Still Roams a Tibetan Plateau
• 'Speed Gene' in Modern Racehorses Originated from British Mare 300 Years Ago, Scientists Claim
• Prehistoric Cave Paintings of Horses Were Spot-On, Say Scientists
• Ancient Royal Horse Unearthed in Iran
• Pompeii's Mystery Horse Is a Donkey
• A Zedonk? Zebra/Donkey Hybrid Born in Georgia Animal Preserve
• Ancient DNA identifies donkey ancestors, people who domesticated them
• DNA study sheds new light on horse evolution
• Zebra or horse? A 'zorse', of course!
• Earliest domesticated horses dated 5,500 years ago
• Horses tamed 1,000 years earlier than thought
• Scientists calculate the exact date of the Trojan horse using eclipse in Homer
• Domestication Of The Donkey May Have Taken A Long Time
• How Wild Asses Became Donkeys Of The Pharaohs
• China To Start Excavation Of Horse-And-Chariot Burial
• A Worldwide Push To Bring Back Chariot Racing
• Earliest Horse Figures Of Anatolia In Eskiºehir
• Science Traces Roots Of 'Traditional English' Apple Back To Central Asia
• Domestication Event: Why The Donkey And Not The Zebra?
• Horses First Domesticated In Kazakhstan
• Chinese Archaeologists Probe Origin Of Domestic Horses Through DNA
• Horse Antibodies Could Combat A Bird Flu Outbreak
• 'Extinct' Wild Horse Roams Again
• Archaeologists Suprised To Discover Ancient Horse Skeletons In Jaffa Dig
• Ancient Site Reveals Stories Of Sacrificed Horses
• Donkeys get Marines around in Afghanistan
• New Insight Into Horse Evolution
• Call It Zonkey or a Deebra?
• Scientists To Start DNA Analysis Of Ancient Horse Skeletons
• Donkey Domestication Began In Africa
• Scientists Say They've Cloned a Horse
• Origins of Domestic Horse Revealed

[FreeAtlanta]

I wish I could believe stuff that the popular science folks put out, but I have become very skeptical after all the BS they have tried to sell us for the last few years.

[BCR #226]

ping

[Aria]

Such magnificent creatures! Dogs also. etc..etc...

God gave us a world too wonderful to really comprehend so most of us take it for granted

[SunkenCiv]

GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach	join list or digest view topics view or post blog bookmark post a topic subscribe
The results of the latest gallop poll are in. [ rimshot! ] To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.

[ClearCase_guy]

Creationist view: Noah built an ark, helps animals survive The Flood. After the flood, the animals from the ark re-populate the Earth.

Scientist view: That is such poppycock! Such nonsense! Now, see, what happened was, there was this one horse, see, and it reproduced, and then the Earth eventually had lots and lots of horses. Now, THAT'S science! Totally different from that fairy tale stuff!

[JerseyanExile]

Technically, what the linked study says is that all modern horses are descendants of one horse, not that they are descended solely from that one horse. That is a pretty significant distinction.

[JerseyanExile]

Technically, what the linked study says is that all modern horses are descendants of one horse, not that they are descended solely from that one horse. That is a pretty significant distinction.

[preacher]

From:
http://www.answers.com/topic/the-real-eve-film#ixzz1tTzBHNz7

The made-for-cable documentary film The Real Eve is predicated on the theory that the human race can be traced to a common ancestor. The mitochondrial DNA of one prehistoric woman, who lived in Africa, has according to this theory been passed down from generation to generation over a span of 150,000 years, supplying the "chemical energy" to all humankind. The film was assembled by Oxford-based tropical pediatrician Stephen Oppenheimer, author of The Peopling of the World; he appears on camera along with Dr. Nina Jablonski of the California Academy of Science. A coproduction of Britain's Granada Television and America's Discovery Channel, The Real Eve made its first U.S. cable appearance on April 21, 2002. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

[Idaho_Cowboy]

Do any of the eggheads or science experts know how they date this discovery?

[muawiyah]

Since that thesis became popular scientists have found mtDNA leakage ~ from the male side. No one knows how often it happens, or how significant it is, but over a long period of time it might be quite sigificant ~ or maybe not ~ or just not discussed because it calls into question the “Out of Africa” thesis ~ see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternal_mtDNA_transmission

[RIghtwardHo]

VERY cool!

[Oztrich Boy]

MtDNA tests trace all modern horses back to single ancestor 140,000 years ago




No. It has to be a married one!



















Thank You, I'm here all week.

[Road Glide]

“I wish I could believe stuff that the popular science folks put out, but I have become very skeptical after all the BS they have tried to sell us for the last few years.”

Indeed.

Remember how, about a decade back, it was stated that all human ancestry could be traced back to a single woman in Africa?

This makes about as much sense as does global warming.

I simply don’t buy it.

[Sherman Logan]

Horses allowed early people to hunt for faster prey, to wander farther than before and to create much bigger farms due to pulling plows.

The notion that horses had something to do with the evolution of humans is idiotic.

Horse riding didn't start till at the earliest 4000 BC or so, long after modern humans were fully developed. Early horses were too small to carry a full grown man for long.

Early horses could not pull heavy loads such as a large wagon or a plow. The harnesses used choked the horse, so for such purposes oxen were used instead.

Efficient horse harness for draft purposes evolved in China from about 1 AD to 500 and didn't reach Europe till about 1000.

And horses for use in plowing didn't take off in Europe till early modern times, when the Chinese (again) invention of the moldboard plow finally got there. It allowed a single horse to pull (using the collar harness) a plow.

Previous plowing methods in the heavy soils of north Europe required teams of multiple oxen, which necessitated the manorial or communal organization of farming.

[mamelukesabre]

Horses?

meh

I prefer donkeys...gigantenormous shaggy donkeys

http://www.theequinest.com/images/poitu-donkey.jpg

[SunkenCiv]

That was definitely worthy of the award:

[SunkenCiv]

The mtDNA references back to the earliest female ancestor (more accurately, the earliest one with surviving offspring).

[SunkenCiv]

Yes, of course.