Horse breeds in ancient steppe people

[Afshar]

Browsing the newly published paper on the ancient Volga samples I was curious why they dont sequence the horse genomes in order to get some trails on which steppe people used which breeds and so. I know its less relevant than human genomes, but it could lead to migration routes. Nowadays some nomad populations still prefer specific breeds. Is there data available on this subject?

[rms2]

I would like to know what sorts of mounts the Beaker Folk were using. Were they riding horses traceable to Iberia or to the steppe?

[David Mc]

I would like to know what sorts of mounts the Beaker Folk were using. Were they riding horses traceable to Iberia or to the steppe?

This doesn't answer your question directly and it's from 2012, but here's an interesting article tracing the origins of all modern horses to the steppe:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...an-plains.html

Given that the initial herd began on the steppe ca. 4000 AD, I would guess that the ancestors of BB rode in on steppe ponies/horses.

[jdean]

This doesn't answer your question directly and it's from 2012, but here's an interesting article tracing the origins of all modern horses to the steppe:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...an-plains.html

Given that the initial herd began on the steppe ca. 4000 AD, I would guess that the ancestors of BB rode in on steppe ponies/horses.

Presumably this paper

http://www.pnas.org/content/109/21/8202.full

[rms2]

So, if it is the case that horses capable of being ridden are descended from horses that were first domesticated on the steppe c. 4000 BC, and, as I understand it, Iberian horses of the same period were actually pretty small ponies, that is one more piece of evidence for a steppe pastoralist origin for Beaker, given that we are pretty sure they were riding horses by no later than c. 2500 BC.

[jdean]

Don't know how reliable this is but here's a paper suggesting horses could have first been domesticated 2000 yrs earlier and a little further east.

http://briai.ku.lt/downloads/AB/11/1...zhanazarov.pdf

[Gravetto-Danubian]

Good thread and very worthy question

[Afshar]

I think the domestication is a separate issue and probably involved a single type horse that was present in that area and adapted to the enviromental conditions.

[parasar]

Not on horses, but saw this on dogs:

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/10/14/1516215112
"Using genomic data from 5,392 dogs, including a global set of 549 village dogs, we find strong evidence that dogs were domesticated in Central Asia, perhaps near present-day Nepal and Mongolia. Dogs in nearby regions (e.g., East Asia, India, and Southwest Asia) contain high levels of genetic diversity due to their proximity to Central Asia and large population sizes. Indigenous dog populations in the Neotropics and South Pacific have been largely replaced by European dogs, whereas those in Africa show varying degrees of European vs. indigenous African ancestry ... Using a semicustom 185,805-marker genotyping array, we conducted a large-scale survey of autosomal, mitochondrial, and Y chromosome diversity in 4,676 purebred dogs from 161 breeds and 549 village dogs from 38 countries ... many populations—including those of Vietnam, India, and Egypt—show minimal evidence of European admixture. These populations exhibit a clear gradient of short-range linkage disequilibrium consistent with a Central Asian domestication origin."