Origin of domestic horses家馬起源說(shuō)

Rasha Aridi

家馬是由野馬馴化而來(lái)的，但是馬最早是在何時(shí)何地被人類(lèi)馴化的就沒(méi)人知道了。最近，科學(xué)家終于找到了這個(gè)問(wèn)題的答案。

People have relied on the moderndomestic horses to plow fields （犁 地），travel long distances for millennia and soon. Horses have transformed humansocieties with every step. But scientistshave struggled to answer the seeminglysimple question of when and where theseanimals were domesticated.

It took an international team of morethan 160 scientists to pinpoint the origin ofthe modern horse’s domestication： between4，200 and 4，700 years ago near the Volgaand Don Rivers in southwestern Russia.The team reported their findings in thejournal Nature.

The researchers collected samplesfrom 273 ancient horses that once livedacross Europe and Asia between 50，000and 200 BCE. Using DNA sequencing （排序）， the team created a genetic map thatallowed them to trace the horses’lineage（血統(tǒng)）. They found four separate lineages，but the one most closely related to moderndomestic horses originated in the Volga?Don region.

Their genetic map also revealed thatup until about 2，000 BCE， horse popula?tions across Europe and Asia were geneti?cally diverse. But within just a few centu?ries thereafter， the level of variationdropped sharply， and all domestic horsescould be traced back to the population inthe Volga?Don region.

This likely happened when peopleliving in the Volga?Don region beganbreeding wild horses for domestication andtraveled with them to faraway places. Soonenough， this lineage took over Europe andAsia.“ As they expanded， they replaced allthe previous lineages that were roamingaround Eurasia，” says researcher Ludovic Orlando in France. The horse we knowtoday is the winner， the one we see every?where， and the other types are sort of thelosers.

Reading Check

When and where were wild horsesdomesticated？

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