Extinction, replacement and trade: Tracking 100,000 years of horse evolution in Iberia

Horses provided humans with the ability to travel well above their own speed and changed the way they made war. As such, the domestication of the horse ~5,500-years ago, represents a historical turning point in human history.

Throughout the whole Upper Palaeolithic period and right into the Holocene, Iberia has always offered favorable climatic conditions for equine populations to thrive. Much remains to be discovered on the horses that once roamed the region.

For instance, the true nature and diversity of the Iberian horse represented in the famous cave paintings of Altamira remains unknown. The exact dynamics underlying their replacement by foreign domestic horses during the Bronze Age is also debated.

Similarly, while the Muslim expansion of the C7th-C9th is known to have reshaped the genetic makeup of horses across Europe, the exact impact of this expansion in Iberia is unknown, despite Muslim kingdoms being maintained there up until the C15th.

The same holds true for previous equine civilizations such as the Phoenicians who traded in the area, or the Romans who largelly expanded into the region.

Finally, the true extinction timing of the Iberian zebro, an European wild ass closely related to Asian hemiones, is contentious, with some scholars advocating survival up until the Middle Ages.

By focusing on a single region, Iberia, the ZEPHYRUS project provides the unique opportunity to solve many long-standing debates in horse evolution and (pre-)history.

Through the development of innovative genotyping solutions and state-of-the-art approaches in ancient DNA research, ZEPHYRUS will genetically predict how the physical traits of Iberian horses have changed since the Upper Palaeolithic and how different equine civilizations have remodelled the Iberian horse through space and time.

Reciprocally, ZEPHYRUS will unveil the influence that Iberian horses have had an how they contributed to reshaping the genetic makeup of other European regions.