Iberian horse

Likewise, some modern breeds are understood from mitochondrial DNA to be descended from historic landraces, while others have origins outside the Iberian peninsula.

DNA studies indicate certain breeds have ancestry that can be traced to wild horses that lived about 6200BCE, in the Early Iberian Neolithic period.

[3][7][8] Throughout history, Iberian horses have been influenced by many different peoples and cultures who occupied Spain, including the Celts, the Carthaginians, the Romans, various Germanic tribes and the Arabs.

It is not possible to determine which of these strains is the older one, and both trace to the Roman era, far earlier than the Muslim conquest of Spain that is commonly assumed to mark the beginning of such crossbreeding.

[10] In Spain and Portugal, the 1980s marked the start of efforts to bring back several of the Northern Iberian breeds from extinction, some of which were down to a few dozen individuals.