The history of the domestication of horses goes back much further to at least about 3000 BCE

Amazing stuff!

"... Scholars continue to debate when this historic bond actually began. Some scientists have argued, for example, that horse domestication first occurred about 2200 to 2100 B.C.E., around the same time humans invented chariots.

This time period marked the expansion of horses from a lineage known as DOM2, the direct genetic ancestors of all modern domesticated horses. These equines possessed favorable genetic mutations linked to endurance and calmness around humans—and they eventually galloped their way across Europe, Anatolia, the Near East, and Central Asia.

But research published last week ... challenges this idea, suggesting that humans began riding horses much earlier than previously thought.

Researchers combined archaeological artifacts, ancient DNA, bone studies, and other evidence to show that horses from multiple genetic backgrounds were being eaten, managed, milked, and ridden in communities across Eurasia long before 2200 B.C.E. The team identified people from the Yamnaya culture, who lived across the Eurasian steppes between about 3200 and 2600 B.C.E., as early riders of DOM2 horses. “Rather than a sudden breakthrough, domestication was a protracted, regionally varied process whose transformative effects on human mobility and social organization began as early as the fourth, if not the fifth millennium B.C.E.,”  ..."

"Taming and domestication were not single events. They were a slow, stop-start process, full of setbacks, playing out over generations and across vast regions, before full domestication set in shortly before 2000 BCE. ...

“The role of horses in major historical developments is almost too vast to measure, hence the saying that the world was conquered on horseback,” ...

Today, truly wild horses no longer exist. Even Przewalski's horse

Opens in a new tab, long held up as a living relic of the wild, is now known to descend from early domesticated populations, showing how deeply humans have shaped horse populations over time.

The timing matters. Around 3,500 to 3,000 BCE, steppe populations began pushing east and west across Eurasia. They brought the wheel with them. Cattle pulled the first wagons. Horses came at the same time. A rider could cover ground in hours that a wagon took days to cross but both were key innovations in mobility and transport, revolutionizing human society.

Researchers now link that leap in mobility to the spread of Proto-Indo-European languages. The horse carried people. And with them, words. The languages spoken across much of Europe and Asia today trace back to those early riders and wagon drivers. ..."

From the abstract:

"Recent papers argued that the domestication of horses can be equated with the appearance of favorable genetic mutations that are first evident in individuals in the DOM2 clade dated about ∼2200–2100 BCE.

We challenge the idea that this genetic shift alone defines domestication.

Evidence from archaeology, ancient DNA, osteology, and other disciplines shows that horses from multiple genetic backgrounds (DOM1, DOM2, and, as we suggest here, DOM3) were managed, milked, and ridden long before 2200 BCE.

Yamnaya groups (∼3200–2600 BCE) rode DOM2 horses—the direct ancestors of modern domestic stock—while incorporating them into diets, rituals, and mobility systems. 

Selection for traits linked to endurance and temperament began centuries earlier. Rather than a sudden breakthrough, domestication was a protracted, regionally varied process whose transformative effects on human mobility and social organization began as early as the fourth, if not the fifth millennium BCE, and set the stage for later DOM2 dominance."

ScienceAdviser

The first domesticated horses: 6,000 years of a complex story (original news release) "Horses were being ridden, worked, and traded long before anyone thought it possible. New research pushes back the accepted timeline of human use of horses by centuries, showing that humans used horses in organized ways as early as the 4th millennium BCE, if not earlier."

Horse genetics, archaeology, and the beginning of riding (open access)

Fig. 1. Early horse representations in the steppes.

(A) The earliest clear image of a steppe horse, embossed on a silver cup from the Maikop-Oshad chieftain’s grave, Russia dated 3520–3350 cal BCE

Fig. 9. Wagons in the third millennium BCE record.

Two time slices, three geographical regions and three horse populations: A complex map of Eurasia.

Genomic study reveals how people moved pigs across the Asia-Pacific region for 50,000 years

Amazing stuff! The advantages of being an omnivore! 😊

"A new study ... reveals how millennia of human migration across Pacific islands led to the introduction of invasive pig species all over the Asia-Pacific region. ...

One notable exception is pigs. Pig populations occur on both sides of the Wallace Line and extend across Southeast Asia to New Caledonia, Vanuatu and remote Polynesia. Pigs are highly effective ecological invaders, and they are also culturally important across the region, raising a key question: what role did people play in their spread?

The new paper looked at the genome of over 700 pigs, including from living and archaeological specimens. This allowed the reconstruction of their movement across Southeast Asia and identify when they arrived on certain islands and how they might have interbred with various native pig species.

The researchers found that people of different cultures have moved pig species in the region for millennia. The earliest evidence points to people living in Sulawesi perhaps as early as 50,000 years ago, known to be the earliest cave painters, who both depicted and transported warty pig species as far away as Timor, possibly to establish future hunting stock.

The introduction of pigs in Island Southeast Asia dramatically accelerated, around 4,000 years ago, when early agricultural communities transported domestic pigs into the region.

Their journey began from Taiwan, extending across the Philippines, northern Indonesia (Maluku), into Papua New Guinea, and on to the outlying islands as far as Vanuatu, and remote Polynesia. The authors also found evidence for the introduction of pigs from Europe during the colonial period.

Many of these domestic pigs escaped, and became feral, in some cases, like on the Komodo islands, hybridizing with the warty pigs brought by people from Sulawesi thousands of years earlier. These hybrid pigs are now a major source of food for the endangered Komodo dragons.

The findings of this study highlight the dramatic and enduring impact of human activity on local ecosystems in the Pacific, raising conservation conundrums. Pigs in the region today have dramatically different statuses and impacts across islands: some are considered spiritual beings, others pests, while some are now so ingrained in local ecosystems that they could almost be considered native. ..."

From the editor's summary and abstract:

"Editor’s summary

Multiple species of pigs are endemic to Maritime Southeast Asia. Some of them exhibit a distinctive tooth shape and mitochondrial DNA haplogroups, but the history of pigs in this region is not clear. Stanton et al. collected genetic data from 117 modern, historic, and ancient individuals and examined morphometric data from over 700 modern and archeological samples. After comparing with 585 published mitochondrial genomes, the authors found that domestic pigs, which were likely introduced by Austronesian-speaking groups, contributed to most pigs found today from Hawaii to the Philippines. However, early specimens from these groups show no admixture with endemic species, mirroring the lack of mixture between these early human groups with local groups during their initial migrations. ...

Structured Abstract

INTRODUCTION

Humans have long moved animal species beyond their native ranges, drastically altering ecosystems, especially on islands. The translocation of vertebrates eastward across the Wallace Line into Wallacea, a biogeographic region between the Asian and Australasian biotas, has had major environmental impacts. For example, although the natural range of the genus Sus (pigs) is primarily located in Eurasia and Western Indonesia, free-living pigs are now widespread in Wallacea.

RATIONALE

The human-mediated translocation of pigs east of the Wallace Line most likely began with S. celebensis, a species native to Sulawesi, in pre-Neolithic times >4000 years ago.

S. scrofa (the ancestor of modern domestic pigs) populations were also likely introduced east of the Wallace Line between 4000 and 3000 years ago during the expansion of Austronesian speakers from mainland East Asia and Taiwan, through the Philippines and northern Wallacea, into Melanesia and Polynesia. The geographic origin and ancestry of these populations from Wallacea and Oceania, however, remain unknown.

To establish the geographic origins of the pig populations in Wallacea, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia and the potential dispersal routes along which they traveled alongside people, we sequenced 119 Sus nuclear genomes (including 63 historical and ancient genomes) and generated geometric morphometric data (from the third lower molar) from 401 modern and 307 archaeological individuals.

RESULTS

Ancestry analyses based on ancestry deconvolution, a process by which specific ancestries in admixed individuals can be identified and isolated using local ancestry inference, highlighted multiple pig-dispersal processes in Wallacea.

The initial dispersal was a natural and/or human-mediated translocation of Island Southeast Asian endemic pigs from Java (S. verrucosus) into present-day Bali. The indigenous suid on Sulawesi, S. celebensis, then dispersed over water to the Lesser Sunda Islands, including Flores and Timor, potentially as a result of hunter-gatherer translocations more than 4000 years ago.

More recently, domestic S. scrofa pigs from southern China and the Philippines were introduced across most islands of Wallacea and Oceania sometime after 3500 to 3000 years ago.

Many of these introduced pigs later became feral on islands across the region. Finally, during the colonial period, pigs with European ancestry were introduced broadly across the region, including in the Lesser Sundas and Papua New Guinea.

CONCLUSION

Our results demonstrate that non-native free-living pigs east of the Wallace Line have a complex ancestry that primarily reflects multiple intentional introductions by people. The most important of these events was the migration of Austronesian-speaking groups, ~4000 years ago, who moved from Southeast China and Taiwan via the Philippines and introduced domestic pigs across a vast geographical region from the Philippines to Hawai‘i, many of which became feral."

Genomic study reveals how people moved pigs across the Pacific

Genomic and morphometric evidence for Austronesian-mediated pig translocation in the Pacific (no public access)

Genomic and morphometric evidence for Austronesian-mediated pig translocation in the Pacific (preprint, open access)

Map showing the dispersal of pigs into Wallacea, including deliberate introductions by people in Wallacea and the Pacific.

The numbers (1–4) on the arrows indicate the chronological order of these dispersal events, as per our analysis.