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For thousands of years, the grassy plains of Europe and Asia hosted a mosaic of genetically distinct horse lineages. But a single lineage galloped to surpass and replace all the other wild horses. This domesticated lineage became the horse of our modern imagination: slender legs, a muscular back, and a mane that shimmered in the wind.

For decades, scientists have tried to find out when and where modern horses were first domesticated, but they had yet to find the smoking claw they needed.

Now, in an article published Wednesday in the journal natureScientists have finally solved the mystery. After collecting and sequencing 273 ancient horse genomes, a team of 162 authors concluded that modern horses were domesticated about 4,200 years ago in the steppes of southern Russia, near the confluence of the Volga and Don rivers.

According to Peter Heintzman, a paleogenomics researcher at the Norwegian Arctic University Tromso campus who was not involved in the research, this new paper is now getting as close as possible to unraveling the mystery of the domestic horse’s origins. Dr. “This is a monumental effort,” Heintzman said, noting that they collected a “wall of data” from “hundreds of horses.”

Ludovic Orlando, paleogeneticist and research director of the Center for Anthropobiology and Genomics in Toulouse in France, and author of the paper, has worked on this question for ten years.

In recent years, academics nested At a Botai settlement in the Kazakh steppes filled with clay pots covered with what looks like horse bones and mare’s milk. This was the earliest archaeological evidence of horse domestication and looked promising as the birthplace of the modern horse.

But in 2018, among them Dr. A research team, including Orlando, sequenced the genomes of horse bones from Botai. To the researchers’ surprise, Botai horses did not give rise to modern horses, but instead were their direct ancestors. Przewalski’s horses, a stocky lineage originally thought to be the last wild horses on the planet. They revealed that Przewalski was not a savage after all, but rather the wild descendants of the servants. Thus, the riddle of the origins of modern horses remained unsolved. Dr. “Every time I expected something, it was wrong,” Orlando said.

“We decided to go into detail and really look everywhere,” he said, to solve the mystery.

In this case, everywhere meant Eurasia. Starting in 2016, Dr. Orlando collected specimens from archaeological collections and recent excavations across the region, essentially every ancient horse bone they could get their hands on.

To preserve the remains for the future, the researchers drilled tiny holes in the inner ears, teeth and other bones of ancient horses to retrieve the tiny samples.

The picture became clearer as researchers gradually mapped horse genomes across time and space. A little over a year ago, they were able to pinpoint the exact location: the Volga-Don region, which is now Russia.

With such a huge dataset, the researchers answered with additional historical details. They found that modern horses have twice as many genetic differences from other ancient lineages – one gene linked to tameness and the other to a stronger spine – which may have facilitated the animals’ spread.

Local horses changed human historyIt allows people to travel great distances and develop new war technologies. “Everyone wanted the horse,” said Dr. Orlando.

Accordingly, Pauline Hanot, a postdoctoral researcher at the French National Center for Scientific Research, who was unrelated to the research, said the paper’s genetic findings “make great advances in our understanding of the human societies that bred these horses.”

The study also broke down ideas about the role of horses in earlier human history. For example, a pre-existing theory has been proposed. A pastoralist people called the Yamnaya They were able to migrate to Europe in large numbers on horseback 5,000 years ago. But the new genetic map found no evidence; The researchers point out that oxen, not horses, may have been the driving factor for their expansion.

The new paper also reveals native horses that spread across Eurasia, along with the Bronze Age Sintashta culture, which had wheeled chariots about 3,800 years ago.

After taming all that horse data, Dr. Orlando took up a new hobby: He started taking riding lessons.

Like all other peoples, he rides domesticated horses, the descendants of ancient animals that galloped in southern Russia.

Dr. “I wouldn’t dare approach a Przewalski’s horse,” said Orlando. “They kill wolves. I’m not that fast runner.”