Ancient DNA analysis of 101 cattle remains: limits and prospects

Abstract

A total of 101 cattle teeth and bones from 13 archaeological sites between 1000 to 9000 years old were assessed for the presence of verifiable mitochondrial sequences. It was possible to reproducibly amplify and sequence mitochondrial control region DNA extracted from twelve of the samples. The results were compared with published extant data by constructing phylogenetic networks. The sequences obtained from the cattle specimens were either identical to the reference sequence for modern cattle or closely related to it. They included three sequences not previously documented. The network analysis of the ancient data highlights the proximity of the ancient DNA cattle sequences to modern Near Eastern, European and African Bos taurus, as well as regional continuity.

Domesticating Animals in Africa: Implications of Genetic and Archaeological Findings

“…Extreme precautions must be taken in both field and laboratory to prevent between-sample or modern DNA contamination. Last but not least, ancient DNA conservation is highly dependent upon the environment, with arid zones being less favorable (Edwards et al 2004). Nevertheless, aDNA studies have addressed important questions, including the possible contribution of extinct wild populations to the modern domesticates' gene pool (Kimura et al 2010), and past diversity in domestic stock subsequently lost over their breeding history (Fernández et al 2006).…”

The origin of European cattle: Evidence from modern and ancient DNA

“…This process started Ϸ11,000 years ago (2,3), and the deep genetic divergence between taurine (B. taurus) and zebu (B. indicus) cattle breeds points to at least two independent domestication events from two distinct aurochsen groups (4). Archaeological data suggest that the zebu domestication occurred probably in the Indus Valley (today's Pakistan) (5), with a primary diffusion of these breeds in India and only a more recent (Ͻ3,000 years) secondary male introduction in Africa (6).…”

“…All of them are of the taurine type, and all of them are considered to be in strict mitochondrial genetic continuity with the breeds selected in the FC (3,6,11,12). The evidence for this hypothesis can be summarized as follows: (i) none of the British aurochs sequences typed so far was found in modern cattle, and the divergence between the two distinct clades (B. taurus and B. primigenius) predates by several thousand years the domestication event; (ii) European cattle belong almost exclusively to a single group of mtDNA sequences, haplogroup T3, which represents a subset of the variation observed in the Near East (where four major haplogroups, T, T1, T2, and T3, are present); and (iii) the shape and the age of the European network of sequences is compatible with a demographic expansion from a small population after domestication.…”

“…Interestingly, a crucial point of this hypothesis, that is, the assumption that all European aurochsen had DNA sequences similar to six British samples, already has been (and, as we will show, unsafely) used to define a genetic marker of cattle domestication. Accordingly, ancient remains, which are difficult to classify because morphological traits have overlapping distributions in cattle and aurochs and diagnostic features are identified only in horn and some cranial element, tend to be attributed to a cattle or to an aurochs depending on their mtDNA sequence (3,16,17).…”

What Forced the Prehistoric Cattle-Keepers to Emigrate from the Red Sea Mountains?

“…In more re cent pe ri ods, a num ber of new data pro vided by DNA stud ies sug gest an in de pend ent Af ri can cen ter of early cat tle do mes ti ca tion (e.g., Bradley et al, 1996;Hanotte et al, 2002;Ed wards et al, 2004;Beja-Pereira et al, 2006) on one hand; and/or sup port the idea of one Near East ern center of the taurine cat tle do mes ti ca tion, on the other. A pos sibil ity of lo cal introgression from wild aurochs (com pare sum mary in Achilli et al, 2008) has also been con sid ered.…”