RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Ancient genomes revisit the ancestry of domestic and Przewalski’s horses
JF Science
JO Science
FD American Association for the Advancement of Science
SP 111
OP 114
DO 10.1126/science.aao3297
VO 360
IS 6384
A1 Gaunitz, Charleen
A1 Fages, Antoine
A1 Hanghøj, Kristian
A1 Albrechtsen, Anders
A1 Khan, Naveed
A1 Schubert, Mikkel
A1 Seguin-Orlando, Andaine
A1 Owens, Ivy J.
A1 Felkel, Sabine
A1 Bignon-Lau, Olivier
A1 de Barros Damgaard, Peter
A1 Mittnik, Alissa
A1 Mohaseb, Azadeh F.
A1 Davoudi, Hossein
A1 Alquraishi, Saleh
A1 Alfarhan, Ahmed H.
A1 Al-Rasheid, Khaled A. S.
A1 Crubézy, Eric
A1 Benecke, Norbert
A1 Olsen, Sandra
A1 Brown, Dorcas
A1 Anthony, David
A1 Massy, Ken
A1 Pitulko, Vladimir
A1 Kasparov, Aleksei
A1 Brem, Gottfried
A1 Hofreiter, Michael
A1 Mukhtarova, Gulmira
A1 Baimukhanov, Nurbol
A1 Lõugas, Lembi
A1 Onar, Vedat
A1 Stockhammer, Philipp W.
A1 Krause, Johannes
A1 Boldgiv, Bazartseren
A1 Undrakhbold, Sainbileg
A1 Erdenebaatar, Diimaajav
A1 Lepetz, Sébastien
A1 Mashkour, Marjan
A1 Ludwig, Arne
A1 Wallner, Barbara
A1 Merz, Victor
A1 Merz, Ilja
A1 Zaibert, Viktor
A1 Willerslev, Eske
A1 Librado, Pablo
A1 Outram, Alan K.
A1 Orlando, Ludovic
YR 2018
UL http://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6384/111.abstract
AB The domestication of horses was very important in the history of humankind. However, the ancestry of modern horses and the location and timing of their emergence remain unclear. Gaunitz et al. generated 42 ancient-horse genomes. Their source samples included the Botai archaeological site in Central Asia, considered to include the earliest domesticated horses. Unexpectedly, Botai horses were the ancestors not of modern domestic horses, but rather of modern Przewalski's horses. Thus, in contrast to current thinking on horse domestication, modern horses may have been domesticated in other, more Western, centers of origin.Science, this issue p. 111The Eneolithic Botai culture of the Central Asian steppes provides the earliest archaeological evidence for horse husbandry, ~5500 years ago, but the exact nature of early horse domestication remains controversial. We generated 42 ancient-horse genomes, including 20 from Botai. Compared to 46 published ancient- and modern-horse genomes, our data indicate that Przewalski’s horses are the feral descendants of horses herded at Botai and not truly wild horses. All domestic horses dated from ~4000 years ago to present only show ~2.7% of Botai-related ancestry. This indicates that a massive genomic turnover underpins the expansion of the horse stock that gave rise to modern domesticates, which coincides with large-scale human population expansions during the Early Bronze Age.