Evidence of World's Oldest Horse Domestication?

This is absolutely fascinating.  Just like no life without wife (Bride and Prejudice), no chess without horse...

25 February 2013 Last updated at 20:59 ET

Desert finds challenge horse taming ideas

By Sylvia Smith
BBC News

Recent archaeological discoveries on the Arabian Peninsula have uncovered evidence of a previously unknown civilisation based in the now arid areas in the middle of the desert.

The artefacts unearthed are providing proof of a civilisation that flourished thousands of years ago and have renewed scientific interest in man and the evolution of his relationship with animals.

The 300-odd stone objects so far found in the remote Al Magar area of Saudi Arabia include traces of stone tools, arrow heads, small scrapers and various animal statues including sheep, goats and ostriches.

But the object that has engendered the most intense interest from within the country and around the world is a large, stone carving of an "equid" - an animal belonging to the horse family.

According to Ali bin Ibrahim Al Ghabban, vice-president of the Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities, DNA and carbon-14 (radiocarbon) tests are continuing. But initial evidence suggests that the artefacts date back 9,000 years.

"These discoveries reflect the importance of the site as a centre of civilisation," he told BBC News.

"It could possibly be the birthplace of an advanced prehistoric civilisation that witnessed the domestication of animals, particularly the horse, for the first time during the Neolithic period."

The crucial find is that of a large sculptural fragment that appears to show the head, muzzle, shoulder and withers of an animal that bears a distinct resemblance to a horse.

The piece is unique in terms of its size, weighing more than 135kg.

Moreover, further discoveries on the same site of smaller, horse-like sculptures, also with bands across their shoulders, have opened the possibility that an advanced civilisation here may already have been using the accessories of domestication - tack - in order to control horses.

Question time
While archaeologists and other experts have held that horses were first tamed and exploited by man some 6,000 years ago in west Kazakhstan, experts are now starting to consider whether both location and date should be revised in light of these remarkable finds.

Whether yoking man and animal together in this way is supported by evidence is one of the many questions that face an international scientific team brought together to examine the finds.

Selected from a wide background of specialisations, their unique expertise is expected to paint a picture of life in the area during pre-historic times.

Michael Petraglia, professor of human evolution and prehistory at the University of Oxford has been working on the radiocarbon dating at Al Magar.

He says that the site dates back even further than first thought and can reveal much about the fluctuations between wet and dry periods in the Arabian Peninsula. He adds that the horse fragment dating links with the peninsula going through a wet phase.

"This is a crucial piece of information about an area that is now hyper arid but in the past must have been a lush river valley," he explains. "It confirms that there were savannahs and grassland in the vicinity," he explains.

Traces of other stone tools such as scrapers have been estimated as dating back more than 50,000 years. They were found at the site and suggest that Al Magar was a hospitable place for humans to settle in over thousands of years. In part this is due to its topography, or terrain.

Michael Petraglia says that in the past, the spot must have been a lush river valley: "There is a major valley across the area which once was a river running westward forming waterfalls and taking water to the low fertile lands west of Al-Magar," he explains.

"Al Magar was situated on both banks of the river. Man lived in this area before the last desertification or before the drastic climatic changes ended with the hot dry conditions and development of deserts."

Huge impact
The name Al Magar means gathering or meeting place. Juris Zarins, who worked in the early days of archaeology in Saudi Arabia and found tethering stones dating back to the Neolithic period, claims that the site is within an archaeological hot bed.

"There has not been enough exploration carried out," he says. "Discoveries like this could change things."

And indeed the finds have had a huge impact, sparking intense interest in Arabia's prehistory. Other finds made beyond the large and well-preserved Al Magar dovetail with current Arabian passions. Of particular interest are canine remains that resemble one of the oldest known domesticated dog breeds, the desert saluki, as well as traces of a dagger.

Abdullah Al Sharekh, an archaeologist at King Sa'ud University in Riyadh, and a pioneer of the Al Magar site, found statues within the precinct of a building. This, he says, may reveal vital clues about trade, migration and ritual. "The variety of the finds can tell us about social life and culture," he explains.

"This will take time but all the evidence is here."

The discovery of the large horse sculpture fragment has naturally awakened regional interest. This in turn has compounded curiosity about other important Arabian finds.

"It is an amazing discovery that raises all sorts of questions about when man stopped tracking down wild horses and began taming and exploiting them for transport," Mr Al Ghabban says.

"On this site there are very important symbols of authentic Arabian culture - equestrianism, falconry, the saluki hunting dog and wearing of the dagger."

More excavations are planned of yet other sites which have never been surveyed, and further studies are expected to unveil more important information on the Al Magar civilisation along with its impact on the history of Saudi Arabia.

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I found two other images of possible horses (eqquids) in my stash of images -- don't have dates associated with them and they were stored under horse - Al Maqar (not Al Magar), but since I saved the images there is a post or posts associated with them, of that I'm sure, just too tired to go hunting for those posts tonight. Here are the horseys:

Horse head (?) - Al Maquar

Al Maquar head figurine - horse?

 

It certainly would be interesting if the hypothesis of horse domestication out of Eurasia is challenged by these Saudi Arabia finds!

Domestication of the Horse Solved! Mares Were "Loose"...

From Sciencedaily.com
Mystery of the Domestication of the Horse Solved: Competing Theories Reconciled

ScienceDaily (May 7, 2012) — New research indicates that domestic horses originated in the steppes of modern-day Ukraine, southwest Russia and west Kazakhstan, mixing with local wild stocks as they spread throughout Europe and Asia.

The research was published 07 May, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

For several decades scientists puzzled over the origin of domesticated horses. Based on archaeological evidence, it had long been thought that horse domestication originated in the western part of the Eurasian Steppe (Ukraine, southwest Russia and west Kazakhstan); however, a single origin in a geographically restricted area appeared at odds with the large number of female lineages in the domestic horse gene pool, commonly thought to reflect multiple domestication "events" across a wide geographic area.

In order to solve the perplexing history of the domestic horse, scientists from the University of Cambridge used a genetic database of more than 300 horses sampled from across the Eurasian Steppe to run a number of different modelling scenarios.

Their research shows that the extinct wild ancestor of domestic horses, Equus ferus, expanded out of East Asia approximately 160,000 years ago. They were also able to demonstrate that Equus ferus was domesticated in the western Eurasian Steppe, and that herds were repeatedly restocked with wild horses as they spread across Eurasia.

Dr Vera Warmuth, from the University of Cambridge's Department of Zoology, said: "Our research clearly shows that the original founder population of domestic horses was established in the western Eurasian Steppe, an area where the earliest archaeological evidence for domesticated horses has been found. The spread of horse domestication differed from that of many other domestic animal species, in that spreading herds were augmented with local wild horses on an unprecedented scale. If these restocking events involved mainly wild mares, we can explain the large number of female lineages in the domestic horse gene pool without having to invoke multiple domestication origins."

The researchers provide the first genetic evidence for a geographically restricted domestication origin in the Eurasian Steppe, as suggested by archaeology, and show that the tremendous female diversity is the result of later introductions of local wild mares into domestic herds, thus reconciling evidence which had previously given rise to conflicting scenarios.

The research was funded by the BBSRC, German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), and the Leverhulme Trust.

Evidence of Horse Domestication in Saudi Arabia

From the BBC Online:

24 August 2011 Last updated at 18:19 ET
Saudis 'find evidence of early horse domestication'
Saudi officials say archaeologists have begun excavating a site that suggests horses were domesticated 9,000 years ago in the Arabian Peninsula.

The vice-president of the Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities said the discovery at al-Maqar challenged the theory it first took place 5,500 years ago in Central Asia. Ali al-Ghabban said it also changed what was known about the evolution of culture in the late Neolithic period.

A number of artefacts were also found.  They included arrowheads, scrapers, grain grinders, tools for spinning and weaving, and other tools that showed the inhabitants were skilled at handicrafts. Mr. Ghabban said carbon-14 tests on the artefacts, as well as DNA tests on human remains also found there, dated them to about 7,000 BC.

"This discovery will change our knowledge concerning the domestication of horses and the evolution of culture in the late Neolithic period," he told a news conference in Jeddah, according to the Reuters news agency. "The al-Maqar civilisation is a very advanced civilization of the Neolithic period. This site shows us clearly, the roots of the domestication of horses 9,000 years ago," he added.

Although humans came into contact with horses about 50,000 years ago, they were originally herded for meat, skins, and possibly for milk.  The first undisputed evidence for their domestication dates back to 2,000 BC, when horses were buried with chariots. By 1,000 BC, domestication had spread through Europe, Asia and North Africa.

However, researchers have found evidence suggesting that the animals were used by the Botai culture in northern Kazakhstan 5,500 years ago.

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The BBC did not contain photographs of some of the spectacular horse-related artifacts recovered at the site!  The following are from an article on the discovery at Past Horizons:

From Far Horizons, one of the horse figurines recovered at the Al Maqar site projected over an image of the site.

Another horse figurine, Al Maqar site, Saudi Arabia.

Neighhhhhh! Do these remind you of any chess pieces with which you may be familiar???

According to this article at The Daily Star (Lebanon):


“This discovery will change our knowledge concerning the domestication of horses and the evolution of culture in the late Neolithic period,” said Ali al-Ghabban, vice president of Antiquities and Museums at the Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities in Jeddah. “The Maqar Civilization is a very advanced civilization of the Neolithic period. This site shows us clearly, the roots of the domestication of horses 9,000 years ago.”

The remains of the civilization were found close to Abha, in southwestern Asir province, an area known to antiquity as Arabia Felix.

The civilization, Ghabban added, used “methods of embalming that are totally different to known processes.”

Among the remains found at the site are statues of animals such as goats, dogs, hawks, and a meter-tall bust of a horse, the official said: “A statue of an animal of this dimension, dating back to that time, has never been found anywhere in the world.”

Study of Horse Domestication Focuses on Y Chromosome

Interesting press release - but please, give it to me in "layman's English" next time, heh?

Public release date: 23-Aug-2011
Contact: David Garner
University of York

Ancient wild horses help unlock past

An international team of researchers has used ancient DNA to produce compelling evidence that the lack of genetic diversity in modern stallions is the result of the domestication process.

The team, which was led by Professor Michi Hofreiter from the University of York, UK, has carried out the first study on Y chromosomal DNA sequences from extinct ancient wild horses and found an abundance of diversity.

The results, which are published in Nature Communications, suggest the almost complete absence of genetic diversity in modern male horses is not based on properties intrinsic to wild horses, but on the domestication process itself.

Professor Hofreiter said: "Unlike modern female domestic horses where there is plenty of diversity, genetic diversity in male horses is practically zero.

"One hypothesis to explain this suggests modern horses have little Y chromosome diversity because the wild horses from which they were domesticated were also not diverse, due in part to the harem mating system in horses, implying skewed reproductive success of males. Our results reject this hypothesis as the Y chromosome diversity in ancient wild horses is high. Instead our results suggest that the lack of genetic diversity in modern horses is a direct consequence of the domestication process itself."

The Y chromosome is a valuable tool in population genetics, providing a means of directly assessing evolutionary processes that only affect the paternal lineage. So far mitochondrial DNA studies have failed to discover the origin of domestic horses. However, these new Y chromosomal markers now open the possibility of solving this issue in detail.

As part of the study, researchers sequenced Y chromosomal DNA from eight ancient wild horses dating back from around 15,000 to more than 47,000 years and a 2,800-year-old domesticated horse. The results were compared to DNA sequences from Przewalski horses - the only surviving wild horse population – and 52 domestic horses, representing 15 modern breeds, which had been sequenced previously.

Domestication of horses dates back approximately 5,500 years. DNA from the skeletal remains of a 2,800-year-old domesticated stallion from Siberia showed that in contrast to modern horses, Y chromosomal diversity still existed several thousand years after the initial domestication event for horses.

Professor Hofreiter said: "This suggests some level of Y chromosomal diversity still existed in domestic horses several thousand years after domestication, although the lineage identified was closely related to the modern domestic lineage."

The study was carried out in Germany by Sebastian Lippold, from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. The results were then independently replicated at the Centre for GeoGenetics at Copenhagen University, Denmark.

Sebastian Lippold said: "Working on ancient Y chromosomal DNA was especially challenging but the only opportunity to investigate Y chromosomal diversity in wild horses. For now we have a first idea of ancestral diversity and therefore a better impression of how much diversity has been lost. Basically this was an important first step and points to the potential the Y chromosomal marker could have in order to further investigate domestication history in horses."

Beth Shapiro, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biology at the Pennsylvania State University, USA, carried out the analysis and interpretation.

She said: "Most ancient DNA research until now has focused on a different part of the genome – the mitochondrion – which is much more abundant in cells and therefore much easier to work with when the DNA is degraded. This has been a serious limitation in ancient DNA research, because we generally only have a good idea what happened along the maternal line. Here, we've been able to look at what happened along the paternal lineage, and, probably unsurprisingly, we see something different going on in males than in females.

"This is exciting stuff, and means we can start getting a much better picture of how events like domestication and climate change have shaped the diversity of organisms alive today."

Researchers had found that Przewalski's horse displays DNA haplotypes not present in modern domestic horses, suggesting they are not ancestral to modern domestic horses. However, while the Y chromosome data supported historic isolation, it also suggests a close evolutionary relationship between the domestic horse and the Przewalski's horse, since the Przewalski Y chromosomal haplotype is more similar to the two domestic ones than any of the ancient wild horse haplotypes.

So, does the last sentence indicate that there is or are one or more at present unknown ancestors between the domestic horse and Przewalski's horse? And if that is indeed the case, why didn't they just say so? Perhaps this all make sense to people schooled in the field, but to the average person interested in ancient and not-so-ancient history and other related subjects, it's like trying to read the Cyrillic alphebet (in other words, nearly impossible without a road map and much labor translating from "techno-speak" into plain understandable English words.)

Vital Evidence of Horse Domestication

Domestication of the horse is one of the ten pivotal events in human history, which had an enormous impact on how people lived, worked and ate. This article is a good summary of the development of research closing in on the time period and at least one possible location for horse domestication. From Yahoo News Researchers Find the First Horse Whisperers Sandra Olsen Carnegie Museum of Natural HistoryLiveScience.com Sandra Olsen carnegie Museum Of Natural Historylivescience.com – Sat Nov 28, 9:31 am ET This Behind the Scenes article was provided to LiveScience in partnership with the National Science Foundation. Paleolithic hunters in Europe and Asia began exploiting horses for meat thousands of years ago when the last continental glaciers disappeared, yet the origin of horse domestication long has eluded archaeologists - for some captivating reasons. One of the biggest reasons is that for many centuries, horse skeletons did not significantly differ in size or physical structure from those of their wild ancestors, making early taming and use of the animal more difficult to identify. But as part of an international team of archaeologists, my colleagues and I may be getting closer to the beginnings as we look for clues in Kazakhstan. Our team conducted extensive research at three sites belonging to the Botai culture in the northern part of the country, at locations dated to the Copper Age around 3,500 B.C. Rest of article.

Mystery of Horse Domestication Solved?

(Image: Herd of horses, Anatolia, circa 6,000 BCE) Hmmm, I don't think so, and I'll tell you why at the end of this article, from Science Daily: ScienceDaily (Apr. 24, 2009) — Wild horses were domesticated in the Ponto-Caspian steppe region (today Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Romania) in the 3rd millennium B.C. Despite the pivotal role horses have played in the history of human societies, the process of their domestication is not well understood. In a new study published in the scientific journal Science, an analysis by German researchers from the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, Berlin, the German Archaeological Institute, the Humboldt University Berlin, the Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, in cooperation with American and Spanish scientists, has unravelled the mystery about the domestication of the horse. Based on ancient DNA spanning the time between the Late Pleistocene and the Middle Ages, targeting nuclear genes responsible for coat colorations allows to shed light on the timing and place of horse domestication. Furthermore the study demonstrates how rapid the number of colorations increased as one result of the domestication. As well, it shows very clearly that the huge variability of coloration in domestic horses which can be observed today is a result of selective breeding by ancient farmers. Our modern human societies were founded on the Neolithic revolution, which was the transformation of wild plants and animals into domestic ones available for human nutrition. Within all domestic animals, no other species has had such a significant impact on the warfare, transportation and communication capabilities of human societies as the horse. For many millennia, horses were linked to human history changing societies on a continent-wide scale, be it with Alexander the Great’s or Genghis Khan’s armies invading most of Asia and Eastern Europe or Francis Pizarro destroying the Inca Empire with about 30 mounted warriors. The horse was a costly and prestigious animal in all times, featured in gifts from one sovereign to another as a nobleman’s mark. Journal reference: Arne Ludwig, Melanie Pruvost, Monika Reissmann, Norbert Benecke, Gudrun A. Brockmann, Pedro Castaños, Michael Cieslak, Sebastian Lippold, Laura Llorente, Anna-Sapfo Malaspinas, Montgomery Slatkin, and Michael Hofreiter. Coat Color Variation at the Beginning of Horse Domestication. Science, 2009; 324 (5926): 485 DOI: 10.1126/science.1172750 Adapted from materials provided by Forschungsverbund Berlin e.V. (FVB), via AlphaGalileo.

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I believe the 3rd millennium BCE is too late for domestication of the horse. Right on the same page the above-referenced article appeared is a link to a Science Daily article from March 6, 2009 (Archaeologists Find Earliest Known Domestic Horses: Harnessed and Milked), in which well-researched archaeological evidence indicates that horses were first domesticated by the "Botai Culture of Kazakhstan circa 5,500 years ago. This is about 1,000 years earlier than thought and about 2,000 years earlier than domestic horses are known to have been in Europe. Their findings strongly suggest that horses were originally domesticated, not just for riding, but also to provide food, including milk." This earlier date (c. 5,500 years ago) is confirmed by another Science Daily article from November 3, 2006: New Evidence Of Early Horse Domestication, which points to a date of approximately 5,600 years ago.