Genetics and domestic cattle origins

Abstract

Genetics has the potential to provide a novel layer of information pertaining to the origins and relationships of domestic cattle. While it is important not to overstate the power of archeological inference from genetic data, some previously widespread conjectures are inevitably contradicted with the addition of new information. Conjectures regarding domesticated cattle that fall into this category include a single domestication event with the development of Bos indicus breeds from earlier Bos taurus domesticates; the domestication of a third type of cattle in Africa having an intermediate morphology between the two taxa; and the special status of the Jersey breed as a European type with some exotic influences. In reality, a wideranging survey of the genetic variation of modern cattle reveals that they all derive from either zebu or taurine progenitors or are hybrids of the two. The quantitative divergence between Bos indicus and Bos taurus strongly supports a predomestic separation; that between African and European taurines also suggests genetic input from native aurochsen populations on each continent. Patterns of genetic variants assayed from paternally, maternally, and biparentally inherited genetic systems reveal that extensive hybridization of the two subspecies is part of the ancestry of Northern Indian, peripheral European, and almost all African cattle breeds. In Africa, which is the most extensive hybrid zone, the sexual asymmetry of the process of zebu introgression into native taurine breeds is strikingly evident. © 1998 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.

The Multifaceted Origin of Taurine Cattle Reflected by the Mitochondrial Genome

“…The predominant subclade T1'2'3 is formed by three major branches corresponding to the previously defined haplogroups T1, T2 and T3, whereas T4 turned out to be nested within T3. Coalescence ages and geographical distributions of the T branches support a Neolithic origin for all T mtDNAs from a Fertile Crescent aurochs population, and dismiss the possibility of other domestication foci involving T mtDNAs in different geographic areas [1], [4], [10], [11]. Indeed, multiple domestication events would have required that African, European and East Asian B. primigenius populations not only harboured mtDNAs belonging to T but that their T mtDNAs had remained almost identical relative to the Near Eastern counterparts during their allopatric evolution.…”

The Neolithic Macro-(R)evolution: Macroevolutionary Theory and the Study of Culture Change

“…172-173;Horwitz et al 1999). Demographic evidence suggests that at least one of the four domestic lineages of taurine cattle (Bradley 2006) originated in the Euphrates Valley between about 11,000 and 10,000 cal. B.P.…”

Ancient Humped Cattle in Africa: A View from the Chad Basin

“…The original has a maximum length/height of 7.5 and 3.9 cm respectively the situation further north. Acrocentric Y chromosomes, indicative of crossing with zebu males, are, for example, known from recent Eastern African breeds, such as the Kenana, Boran and some Malawi zebus (Bradley, Loftus, Cunningham, & MacHugh, 1998;Bradley et al, 1994;Frisch et al, 1997). These and other analyses indicate that the introgression of zebu genes into East African cattle, presumably from the 7th century AD onwards, mainly or exclusively occurred through paternal lineage (cf.…”