Around 4,200 years ago, one particular lineage of horse quickly became dominant across Eurasia, suggesting that's when humans started to spread domesticated horses around the world, according to research published Thursday in the journal Nature.
That genetic diversity was evident in ancient DNA samples the researchers analyzed from archaeological sites across Eurasia dating back to 50,000 years ago. But their analysis of 475 ancient horse genomes showed a notable change around 4,200 years ago.
Within three hundred years, the horses in Spain were similar to those in Russia. We saw this genetic type spreading almost everywhere in Eurasia clearly this horse type that was local became global very fast, said co-author Ludovic Orlando, a molecular archaeologist at the Centre for Anthropobiology and Genomics of Toulouse in France.
The researchers believe that this change was because a Bronze Age people called the Sintashta had domesticated their local horse and begun to use these animals to help them dramatically expand their territory.
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