Horse domestication revolutionized warfare and accelerated travel, trade and the geographic expansion of languages. This study presents the largest genome-scale time-series for a non-human organism to access the legacy of past equestrian civilizations in the genetic makeup of modern horses.

There is the tendency to assume that endangered species have been both genetically and demographically healthier in the past. The Iberian lynx suffered a dramatic and continuous decline during the 20th century. Ancient, historical, and contemporary samples with microsatellite and mitogenome data were analyzed to reconstruct the species' demography and investigate patterns of genetic variation across space and time.