Summary Horse domestication revolutionized warfare and accelerated travel, trade, and the geographic expansion of languages. Here, we present the largest DNA time series for a non-human organism to date, including genome-scale data from 149 ancient animals and 129 ancient genomes (≥1-fold coverage), 87 of which are new. This extensive dataset allows us to assess the modern legacy of past equestrian civilizations. We find that two extinct horse lineages existed during early domestication, one at the far western (Iberia) and the other at the far eastern range (Siberia) of Eurasia. None of these contributed significantly to modern diversity. We show that the influence of Persian-related horse lineages increased following the Islamic conquests in Europe and Asia. Multiple alleles associated with elite-racing, including at the MSTN “speed gene,” only rose in popularity within the last millennium. Finally, the development of modern breeding impacted genetic diversity more dramatically than the previous millennia of human management.

the house mouse (Mus musculus) represents the extreme of globalization of invasive mammals. However, the timing and basis of its origin and early phases of dispersal remain poorly documented. to track its synanthropisation and subsequent invasive spread during the develoment of complex human societies, we analyzed 829 Mus specimens from 43 archaeological contexts in Southwestern Asia and Southeastern Europe, between 40,000 and 3,000 cal. BP, combining geometric morphometrics numerical taxonomy, ancient mitochondrial DnA and direct radiocarbon dating. We found that large late hunter-gatherer sedentary settlements in the Levant, c. 14,500 cal. BP, promoted the commensal behaviour of the house mouse, which probably led the commensal pathway to cat domestication. House mouse invasive spread was then fostered through the emergence of agriculture throughout the Near East 12,000 years ago. Stowaway transport of house mice to Cyprus can be inferred as early as

The version in the Kent Academic Repository may differ from the final published version. Users are advised to check http://kar.kent.ac.uk for the status of the paper. Users should always cite the published version of record.

Paleontological analysis of remains from Wezmeh Cave in western Iran have yielded a Holocene Chalcolithic archeological assemblage, a rich Late Pleistocene carnivore faunal assemblage, and an isolated unerupted human maxillary premolar (P(3) or possibly P(4)). Species representation and U-series dating of faunal teeth place the carnivore assemblage during oxygen isotope stages (OIS) 3 and 2, and noninvasive gamma spectrometry dating of the human premolar places it at least as old as early OIS 2. The human premolar crown morphology is not diagnostic of late archaic versus early modern human affinities, but its buccolingual diameter places it at the upper limits of Late Pleistocene human P(3) and P(4) dimensions and separate from a terminal Pleistocene regional sample. Wezmeh Cave therefore provides additional Paleolithic human remains from the Zagros Mountains and further documents Late Pleistocene human association with otherwise carnivore-dominated cave assemblages.

The Yafteh cave in Iran has an intact Aurignacian sequence over 2m deep. First explored by Frank Hole and Kent Flannery in the 1960s, its strata and assemblage are here re-evaluated at first hand by a new international team. The authors show that the assemblage is genuine Aurignacian and dates back to about 35.5K uncal BP. They propose it as emerging locally and even as providing a culture of origin for modern humans in West Asia and Europe.