How, where, when and who domesticated the first horses is still a mystery — but one that is steadily being unraveled by scientists as more and more evidence reveals the expansion of the species alongside their human companions.
In this adapted excerpt from "Horses: A 4,000-Year Genetic Journey Across the World (Princeton University Press, 2025), author Ludovic Orlando, the director of the Center of Anthropobiology and Genomics of Toulouse, explores the genetic relationship between modern, cold-adapted Yakutian horses, and ancient specimens pulled from the "gateway to the underworld" tens of thousands of years after they died.
