The genetic identity of the earliest human-made hybrid animals, the kungas of Syro-Mesopotamia. Hemippe&Kunga

Before the introduction of horses in Mesopotamia in the late third millennium BCE, contemporary cuneiform tablets and seals document intentional breeding of highly valued equids called kungas, for use in diplomacy, ceremony and warfare. Their precise zoological classification, however, has never been conclusively determined. Morphometric analysis of equids uncovered in rich Early Bronze Age burials at Umm el-Marra, Syria, placed them beyond the ranges reported for other known equid species. We sequenced the genomes of one of these ~5,000-year-old equids, together with an 11,000-year-old Syrian wild ass (hemippe) from Göbekli Tepe and two of the last surviving hemippes. We conclude that kungas were F1 hybrids between female domestic donkeys and male hemippe, thus documenting the earliest evidence of hybrid animal breeding.