Domestication interests us as the most momentous change in Holocene human history. Why
did it operate on so few wild species, in so few geographic areas? Why did people adopt it at …

▪ Abstract About 20 years ago, DNA sequences were separately described from the quagga
(a type of zebra) and an ancient Egyptian individual. What made these DNA sequences …

There exists extraordinary morphological and genetic diversity among the maize landraces
that have been developed by pre-Columbian cultivators. To explain this high level of …

DNA that has been recovered from archaeological and palaeontological remains makes it
possible to go back in time and study the genetic relationships of extinct organisms to their …

The domestication of plants and animals over the past 11,500 years has had a significant
effect not just on the domesticated taxa but also on human evolution and on the biosphere …

The domestication of animals led to a major shift in human subsistence patterns, from a
hunter–gatherer to a sedentary agricultural lifestyle, which ultimately resulted in the …

We report a high-quality draft sequence of the genome of the horse (Equus caballus). The
genome is relatively repetitive but has little segmental duplication. Chromosomes appear to …

Domestication of livestock species and a long history of migrations, selection and adaptation
have created an enormous variety of breeds. Conservation of these genetic resources relies …

In the past two decades, ancient DNA research has progressed from the retrieval of small
fragments of mitochondrial DNA from a few late Holocene specimens, to large-scale studies …

Horse domestication revolutionized transport, communications, and warfare in prehistory,
yet the identification of early domestication processes has been problematic. Here, we …