The ancestors of this animal date back to prehistoric times. They can be traced back to wild boars – sus - from various geographical areas. They come from domesticated pigs in Asia and pigs from northern and central Europe . Breeding between the Sus Scrofa ferus - raised around the Baltic Sea and spread throughout Europe - with the Sus Mediterraneus - a domesticated European pig breed that lived on both shores of the Mediterranean - gave origin to the Iberian stock.

Most Spanish historians agree that, at the beginning of the 20th century, the term Iberian race had come to mean a group of pigs that was made up of as many varieties as the number of geographical areas where they were exploited. They were located between Spain and Portugal .

As time went by, the breed classification was carried out by the Ministry of Agriculture, based on Racial Prototypes. All of the breeds are different types of Iberian pig