Despite the important roles that horses have played in human history, particularly in the spread of languages and cultures, and correspondingly intensive research on this topic, the origin of domestic horses remains elusive. Several domestication centers have been hypothesized, but most of these have been invalidated through recent paleogenetic studies. Anatolia is a region with an extended history of horse exploitation that has been considered a candidate for the origins of domestic horses but has never been subject to detailed investigation. Our paleogenetic study of pre- and protohistoric horses in Anatolia and the Caucasus, based on a diachronic sample from the early Neolithic to the Iron Age (~8000 to ~1000 BCE) that encompasses the presumed transition from wild to domestic horses (4000 to 3000 BCE), shows the rapid and large-scale introduction of domestic horses at the end of the third millennium BCE. Thus, our results argue strongly against autochthonous independent domestication of horses in Anatolia.

尽管马在人类历史中发挥了重要作用，特别是在语言和文化的传播中，以及对这一主题的相应深入研究，但家养马的起源仍然难以捉摸。已经假设了几个驯化中心，但其中大多数已通过最近的古成因研究无效。安纳托利亚是一个有着悠久历史的马利用历史的地区，被认为是家马起源的候选者，但从未进行过详细调查。我们基于从新石器时代早期到铁器时代（约公元前 8000 年至约 1000 年）的历时样本，对安纳托利亚和高加索地区的史前和原史马进行了古遗传学研究，其中包括假定的从野生马到家养马的过渡（4000 到 3000 年）公元前），显示了公元前三千年末国内马匹的快速和大规模引进。因此，我们的结果强烈反对在安纳托利亚对马进行本土独立驯化。