Were horses domesticated 50,000 years ago?

[Skywizard]

Evidence of prehistoric horse domestication has been discovered in Siberia's Denisova Cave.

The site of some of the world's most important finds pertaining to early humans, the cave has yielded numerous prehistoric treasures over the years including the remains of an early human subspecies that lived 640,000 years ago.

Now experts believe they have uncovered the mitochondrial genome of a horse that lived 50,000 years ago, a discovery that could represent the earliest known attempt at equine domestication in history. If this turns out to be the case then it would pre-date all existing evidence of horse domestication by up to 44,000 years.

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Experts aim to discover the horses's coat colour as well as how it related to early man. Picture: Media Centre of the Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences.

Full Story: http://siberiantimes.com/science/casestudy/news/did-ancient-siberians-domesticate-horses-50000-years-ago/

Haven't researched the site... seems creditable.

peace...
skywizard

[william r sanford72]

I have a nice collection of fossilized horse teeth..other early mammals. from my fossil hunting days.wonder if this changes the date on some?44.00 thousand years.Wow!

[Atlas]

The link you provided says:
the Novosibirsk-based Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, part of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of ScienTISTS

But the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of ScienCE is the Institute of Cytology and Genetics.
Their website in english (www.bionet.nsc.ru/en (http://www.bionet.nsc.ru/en)) has no mention of a 50,000 years domesticated horse.

So I guess I will stick to Wikipedia for now:


Although horses appeared in Paleolithic cave art as early as 30,000 BCE, these were truly wild horses and were probably hunted for meat. How and when horses became domesticated is disputed. The clearest evidence of early use of the horse as a means of transport is from chariot burials dated c. 2000 BCE.

However, an increasing amount of evidence supports the hypothesis that horses were domesticated in the Eurasian Steppes (Dereivka centered in Ukraine) approximately 4000-3500 BCE.

Recent discoveries on Botai culture suggest that Botai culture settlements in the Akmola Province of Kazakhstan are the location of the earliest domestication of the horse.[4]

[4] The Earliest Horse Harnessing and Milking:

Horse domestication revolutionized transport, communications, and warfare in prehistory, yet the identification of early domestication processes has been problematic.

Here, we present three independent lines of evidence demonstrating domestication in the Eneolithic Botai Culture of Kazakhstan, dating to about 3500 B.C.E. Metrical analysis of horse metacarpals shows that Botai horses resemble Bronze Age domestic horses rather than Paleolithic wild horses from the same region.

Pathological characteristics indicate that some Botai horses were bridled, perhaps ridden. Organic residue analysis, using δ13C and δD values of fatty acids, reveals processing of mare's milk and carcass products in ceramics, indicating a developed domestic economy encompassing secondary products.

Alan K. Outram1,*,
Natalie A. Stear2,
Robin Bendrey3,7,
Sandra Olsen4,
Alexei Kasparov1,5,
Victor Zaibert6,
Nick Thorpe7,
Richard P. Evershed2

1 Department of Archaeology, University of Exeter, Exeter, EX4 4QE, UK.
2 School of Chemistry, University of Bristol, Bristol, BS8 1TS, UK.
3 CNRS UNR 5197, Muséum Nationale d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris 75005, France.
4 Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Pittsburgh, PA 15206–3706, USA.
5 Institute for the History of Material Culture, RAS, St. Petersburg 191186, Russia.
6 Kokshetau University, 020000 Kokshetau, Akmolinsk Oblast, Kazakhstan.
7 Department of Archaeology, University of Winchester, Winchester SO22 4NR, UK.

Science 6 March 2009: Vol. 323 no. 5919 pp. 1332-1335 (http://www.sciencemag.org/content/323/5919/1332.abstract?sid=d021eb55-bcbd-4ebd-9eca-145ce25969b0)