# The Domestication of the Horse

IELTS Academic Listening - 10 questions - 8 minutes - Summary completion, Note completion

Source: Written by Testmigo.

## The recording

6 minutes of audio. Practice it with the player on the page; the transcript is on the answers page.

## Questions

### Questions 31-35: Summary completion

Complete the summary below. Write ONE WORD ONLY for each answer.

The case for Botai
The Botai culture of northern Kazakhstan, dating from around 3500 BC, was long seen as the first place where horses were domesticated. A 2009 paper noted that the leg bones of its horses resembled those of later domestic animals, and that some teeth showed marks like those left by a **(31)** _____, a device placed in a horse's mouth to control it. Fat residues in cooking vessels revealed that, alongside meat, people were preparing the **(32)** _____ of mares, while deposits of **(33)** _____ left by horses indicate that the animals were confined in enclosures. A genetic study in 2018, however, linked the Botai herds to Przewalski's horse rather than to modern domestic breeds, and its authors concluded that Przewalski's horse is **(34)** _____ and not genuinely wild. Two researchers later proposed that the damage to the teeth more probably came from **(35)** _____ that occurs naturally, and that the Botai people may only have hunted wild horses in large numbers.

### Questions 36-40: Note completion

Complete the notes below. Write ONE WORD ONLY for each answer.

Origins of modern domestic horses
**Where and when**
Evidence: 273 ancient genomes (Librado and colleagues, 2021)
Homeland: western Eurasian steppe, near the lower Volga and Don
From about 2200 BC, bred in large numbers for travel on horseback
By 1500 to 1000 BC, had taken the place of the **(36)** _____ horses across most of Eurasia
**How they spread**
Spoke-wheeled chariots appear in the Sintashta culture, east of the Urals
The lineage reached some areas before chariots did, so the researchers think chariots were preceded by **(37)** _____
In Asia, horses and chariots spread along with the **(38)** _____ spoken by Indo-Iranian peoples
Link between horses and the Yamnaya migration into Europe is rejected
**Genes favoured by breeders**
GSDMC: in people, a marker of long-term **(39)** _____ pain
ZFPM1: helps to regulate mood; selection points to horses with a more **(40)** _____ temperament that withstood stress

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