I could have sworn I had already blogged about the fascinating recent archaeological finds in Saudi Arabia which seem to have pushed the evidence of horse domestication back to 9000 years ago and to a somewhat different area. But if I did, I can’t find the post. Uzbekistan, yes. A genetic nibble from China, yes.
But nothing about the Al-Magar finds. No matter, though, because now horsetalk.co.nz has a great roundup not only of the Saudi findings, but also of those from different sites in Kazakhstan, complete with photos. Findings which may well lead to a slight change in the geographical reference in the following pithy summary of the genetic evidence that we also blogged about recently.
Horses were domesticated in a broad area across the Eurasian steppe, and in this species the husbandry style has left considerable signatures. It is presumed that mares were domesticated numerous times, but that only a few stallions contributed to the genetic make-up of the domestic horse.