article_snippet: The domestication of the horse some 5,500 years ago ultimately revolutionized human civilization and societies.
article_snippet: Horses facilitated transportation as well as the circulation of ideas, languages and religions.
article_snippet: Horses also revolutionized warfare with the advent of chariotry and mounted cavalry and beyond the battlefield horses greatly stimulated agriculture.
article_snippet: However, the domestication of the horse and the subsequent encroachment of human civilization also resulted in the near extinction of wild horses.
article_snippet: The only surviving wild horse population, the Przewalski's horses from Mongolia, descends from mere 13 individuals, preserved only through a massive conservation effort.
article_snippet: As a consequence of this massive loss of genetic diversity, the effects of horse domestication through times have been difficult to unravel on a molecular level.