The domestication of horses was not a single event, but a long, drawn-out process that took place over several thousand years. According to Occam's razor, it is very unlikely that it happened twice in history. I do not question the stated DNA method, but I do question the conclusion drawn here. There might be a link between the two domestications (if two or more have actually occurred) that hasn't been discovered yet.
A pet peeve of mine, but this is a misapplication of Occam's razor.
Occam's razor is not to be used to say "this explanation sounds complex, there must be a simpler explanation."
Rather, the point of Occam's razor is to say "here I have two competing explanations, and they both amount to the same thing, and we don't have any evidence of one over the other, so let's just pick the simpler one because it doesn't make a difference."
So, for example, if we had absolutely zero evidence as to the domestication of horses, and one person said "they were domesticated once" and another person said "they were domesticated twice", then it all amounts to the same thing (horses were domesticated) and we have no evidence either way, so we would use Occam's razor to favor the first explanation.
But in this case, it appears we do have evidence, so rather than relying on Occam's razor, we should just argue about the evidence instead.
From Wikipedia "This philosophical razor advocates that when presented with competing hypotheses about the same prediction and both theories have equal explanatory power one should prefer the hypothesis that requires the fewest assumptions"
Both hypotheses make the same prediction and have equal explanatory power. I think just one article where they say "may have been" in the title is not enough evidence to overrule occams principle in this case.
I don't believe that. How hard is it to capture baby horses, it would happen naturally hunting their parents. Horses bond decently with people and if captured and socialized heavily by the tribe from a young age I have no doubt first generation wild horses would be rideable and could be bred.
Wild horses run in herds, I think they're naturally social. If anything, it takes less work now - ranchers can ride horses that get very limited human contact, but the I image first generation tamed horses must have required a lot of socialization.
> According to Occam's razor, it is very unlikely that it happened twice in history
Is it? Sure, if you start with "we have domesticated horses, how did we get here" then "one event happened" are less assumptions than "two events happened". But if you start the other way around with "humans lived in vicinity of a species that lends itself to domestication" then "they only domesticated it once" sounds like the wild speculation.
Even if you assume exchange between the two civilizations, spreading the idea that horses can be domesticated is much easier and lower friction than spreading actual domesticated horses. Especially with a mountain range involved and early generations of barely-domesticated horses.
I think think the statement "humans lived in vicinity of a species that lends itself to domestication" is wrong. Horses do not lend itself to domestication, as stated earlier this process took thousands of years. No one would say, oh it just took humans a couple of thousands years todo X, well that was quiet easy.
He found that by breeding and selecting for the more human friendly animals they became tamer and tamer. Now they are to the point of domestication. True domestication as I have heard from some means that the animal cannot thrive in the wild as its wild counter part can. This is a technical labeling issue as in some dogs have reversed domestication on some islands etc.
The fox story in russia is interesting since they found that there was a reduction in adrenaline in the fox's as they became tamer and tamer. The reduction caused them to adopt traits similar to domesticated dogs: wagging tails, floppy ears, coat color change. They did embronic transplants and found wild mothers with tame embryo's raised tame offspring and the opposite was also true. So it was a genetic change that resulted in this taming. It only took 50 generations to result in the change.
It would not be that far off to think that humans gave food to cooperative animals and killed the aggressive ones.
Under labor conditions I would say at least 50 generations. But without these perfect conditions it is easy to imagine that it takes longer.
1) “Easy to imagine”? Idunno... What with the WP article showing how one guy got most of the way there in a single human lifetime (considerably less, actually, since he didn't start the project at birth), isn't it much easier to imagine that it would take just a few human lifespans?
2) Foxes. The plural is “foxes”. “Fox's” is the singular possessive, as in “Wow, look at that fox's beautiful pelt!”.
Fifty horse generations would span about 500 years. You can imagine that this would correspond to a few human lifespans, which could also fall in the range of 500 years, depending on the exact number of few. I think this is a reasonable lower bound.
> Horses typically have an average lifespan of between 25-30 years, but some can live much longer or shorter than this. Some breeds have been known to live up to 40 years or even longer in captivity depending on the breed, management practices, and overall care. Others, as a result of breeding and selection may live much shorter lives.
In the longest case, we could assume 50 x 30 = 1500 years. If you say that every generation came to live after 5 years, then 50 x 5 = 250 years. Again, you want to pick the absolute lowest bound (lowest number of generations) of the lowest bound (shortest years of generations) under labor conditions, which did not happen in reality. But if you think it took only 100-150 years to domesticate horses, then fine. I cannot provide a definite proof that you are wrong.
