Asian/Siberian Genotype Samples
(Iron Age/Medieval Age)
Of the 22 horse fossils isolated from Siberia during this time period, eleven of the fossils had the base color of a Bay, three had the base color of a Black, and eight had the base color of a chestnut. Two new phenotypes also emerged during this time period: Buckskin and Black-Silver.
Of the eleven base color Bay horses, five were solely Bay horses with no other color genes affecting their phenotype. These plain Bay horses had at least one functional Extension Gene (E) and one functional Agouti Gene (A). Three of the base color Bay horses additionally had one copy of the functional Tobiano allele (KM1) giving them the Bay Tobiano phenotype. One of the new phenotypes that emerged during this time period, Buckskin, originated from a horse with a base color Bay phenotype; three of the fossils sampled from this time period had the new Buckskin phenotype. These fossils all had at least one functional copy of the Extension Allele (E) and one functional Agouti Allele (A) that should have coded for a Bay, however, these fossils also had one mutated Cream Gene (cr) resulting in a dilution of the Bay phenotype.
Of the three base color Black horses, two were solely Black with no other color genes affecting their phenotype. The plain Black horses had two non-functional Agouti alleles (a/a) and at least one functional Extension allele (e). One of these three base color Black horses showed a new phenotype of Black-Silver. This horse fossil (Arz 1-3) had two copies of the non-functional Agouti allele (a/a), one functional Extension allele (E) –giving the base black phenotype– as well as two additional alleles; this fossil also had a mutation at both the SIL9 and SIL11 loci resulting in the Black-Silver phenotype.
Finally, of the eight horse fossils found with the base color Chestnut, seven were solid Chestnut horses with two non-functional Extension alleles (e/e). The other horse fossil found with the base Chestnut color had one functional copy of the Tobiano Gene (KM1) making it a Chestnut Tobiano.