EARLYRIDERS · Tracking the temporal and geographic origins of modern domestic horses
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2018-11-01 → 2021-01-02
- EU contribution
- €173,076
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF-EF-ST
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Tracking the temporal and geographic origins of modern domestic horses
The aim of the project was to advance our understanding of the horse domestication process. Horse domestication has been transformative for the history of human civilizations and promoted the first stage of globalization. It was also hypothesized to be involved in the spread of Indo-European languages and culture, as the expansion of these societies could be heavily linked to the emergence of horse riding, among other technological breakthroughs. As such, the results of the project will be influential for understanding this major breakthrough in human history. Moreover, animal domestication, and the genomic changes underlying this process, represent an essential model in evolutionary biology, offering an opportunity to better understand the evolutionary process of selection. Secondly, the project was aimed at testing ambitious but risky hypotheses with regards to the spread of important human diseases during domestication. More specifically, recent work has revealed that the plague, caused by Yersinia pestis, was already affecting Early Bronze Age populations. As this was also characterized by the intensification of human-horse relationships and massive population movements facilitated by the horse, we aimed at determining, against conventional views, whether the horse could be the source or vector of this disease. Finally, the project was aimed at developing novel DNA-capture protocols, allowing to enrich the ancient genomic libraries for the DNA horse fragments. Besides important applications for basic research, such methods have also potential applications of importance for the horse industry through the innovative target-enrichment methods for a fast, cost-effective genotyping of horses, even from damaged samples and using minute amounts of tissue.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
The goal of the EARLYRIDERS project is to identify the geographic and temporal locus of modern horse domestication. It also focuses on the interplay between domestication and the increase of pathogen load in horses, and the role of epizootic transfer of human pathogens, especially plague. Horse domestication represents a turning point in human history, revolutionizing transport, trade, warfare, agriculture, and allowing humans to form larger, interconnected societies. Despite its importance for human history, this process remains poorly understood. Recent genome sequencing shows that the earliest archaeological remains of domestic horses are not the ancestors of modern domestic horses and that another, still unknown, wave of domestication forged the modern horse during the Early Bronze Age. Horse riding also allowed a rapid spread of diseases. For instance, the plague, that regularly haunted human populations in history, has been already commonly found in human remains dating to the Early Bronze Age. As the gene essential for the transmission through fleas was absent in these ancient strains, the plague might have been transmitted through other, still unknown vectors. This represents a serious gap in understanding of the early epidemiology of this important disease. As the spread of plague appears to be concurrent to horse domestication, the question remains whether the horse accounted for its spread, either as a vector or passively, by contagious riders. We aim at identifying the source of the second domestication wave and pathogen load in ancient horse populations by sequencing 300+ samples originating from all potential centers of domestication. Full genome sequencing is not possible due to low endogenous DNA content, therefore the samples will be subjected to sequence enrichment techniques, including the novel hyRAD method developed by the experienced researcher, scalable to thousands of loci in hundreds of samples at moderate cost.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- UNIVERSITE PAUL SABATIER TOULOUSE III · Toulouse Cedex 9CoordinatorFrance
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union