Professor Cai Dawei's team from the School of Archeology of Jilin University and Professor Jiang Yu's team from the College of Animal Science and Technology of Northwest A&F University have made important progress in the field of Equusanimal ancient DNA research. For the first time in the world, we successfully obtained high-quality whole-genome data (sequencing depth 13.4X) of the extinct E. Equus is the fourth subgenus of animals in addition to the three subgenus of horse, zebra and donkey, and it still existed in the Bronze Age of China. It updated our understanding of early wild horses in China and provided a link between the origin and development of Chinese domestic horses. Domestication studies provide important clues. The relevant research results were officially published in the top international comprehensive journal "eLife" on May 28 under the title "Radiocarbon and genomic evidence for the survival of Equus Sussemionus until the late Holocene".
Research on the origin and domestication of domestic horses in China has always been a frontier and hot scientific issue of concern to the international academic community. Archaeological evidence shows that sporadic horse bones have been discovered in archaeological sites as early as the Longshan Period. However, whether horses were domesticated in China during this period has been academically controversial. Cai Dawei's team conducted a complete genome analysis of 26 ancient horses unearthed from three archaeological sites in northern China from Longshan to the Bronze Age (since 3,500 years ago): the Honghe site in Heilongjiang, the Muzhuliang site in Shaanxi, and the Shatang Beiyuan site in Ningxia. The analysis confirmed that these ancient horses belong to the extinct Equus genus E. (Sussemionus) ovodovi, thus denying the previous conclusion that the Ovodovi horse became extinct at the end of the Late Pleistocene-the turn of the Holocene (about 12,000 years ago). Pushing back the extinction date of Otis's horse by nearly 8,500 years.
Figure 1. Sample collection location (red)
Figure 2. Partial sample collection photos
Figure 3. Phylogenetic status of Otlovi's horse
Figure 4. Evolutionary history of Ott's horse
Ott's horse fossils are found in North America, Africa, and the Southwest They have been found in Siberia and Northeast China. Although there is abundant material, there are still large gaps in the research on Austrohorses, and many questions have never been resolved: 1) How did they evolve? 2) Is there any interbreeding with domestic horses , donkeys and zebras? 3) When did they become extinct? The study shows that Ostrich's horses are more distantly related to domestic horses and are close relatives of donkeys and zebras, with more gene flow between them. The study further evaluated the prehistoric group size of O. ostriches, showing that the group size of O. ostriches reached its peak around 74,000 years ago, followed by several major climate changes (especially the Last Glacial Maximum) and the presence of humans. Due to the large-scale expansion of Eurasia, the population of Austronesian horses continued to decline due to human predation, and stabilized 13,000 years ago. The study confirmed for the first time that the Austronesian horse still survived in the Bronze Age, but did not undergo any domestication. The relatively low genetic heterozygosity indicates that the Austrohorse population was already quite limited in the Bronze Age, which can be regarded as a precursor to its extinction. In addition, because this horse species is small in shape, between horses and donkeys, it can easily be identified as a donkey. This study provides new clues to zooarchaeologists, and it is necessary to study the morphology of early horse bones. research revisited. This study provides an important reference for exploring the evolutionary history of other large animals since the Holocene.
Professor Cai Dawei and Dr. Zhu Siqi from the School of Archeology of Jilin University, and Gong Mian, a doctoral student from the School of Animal Science of Northwest A&F University, are the co-first authors of the article. Professor Cai Dawei, Professor Ludovic Orlando and Professor Jiang Yu from the University of Toulouse in France are the co-corresponding authors . . Heilongjiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archeology, Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology , Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region Institute of Cultural Relics and Archeology, Lanzhou University are project cooperation units. Jilin University is the first unit to complete the research results. This research was funded by the National Social Science Fund Major Project (17ZDA221), National Natural Science Foundation of China (31822052) and other projects.
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