Professional Documents
Culture Documents
net/publication/221965271
CITATIONS READS
124 569
6 authors, including:
Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:
ERC Persia- Persia and its Neighbours: The Archaeology of Late Antique Imperial Power in Iran View project
All content following this page was uploaded by Mark G Thomas on 23 February 2015.
The earliest signs of wild aurochs domestication are seen at little or no interbreeding with wild European aurochs. How-
Dja’de in the Middle Euphrates Valley, dating to the Early ever, a lack of consensus on bovine mtDNA mutation rates
Pre-Pottery Neolithic (EPPNB; 10,800–10,300 cal. BP, Helmer and an absence of sequence data from early domesticates
et al. 2005) and at Cxayönü in the High Tigris Valley, between in the region where they were first identified, due to poor
the Early and Middle PPNB (around 10,200 cal. BP, Hongo sample preservation (Edwards et al. 2004; Bollongino and
et al. 2009). After an initial breeding phase lasting some 1.5 Vigne 2008), as well as stochasticity in the genealogical pro-
millennia in an area between the Levant, central Anatolia cess, mean that the number of founding individuals cannot
and western Iran, domestic cattle started to appear in west- be inferred directly from the number of surviving lineages
ern Anatolia and southeastern Europe by 8,800 cal. BP, in modern cattle populations that date to the domestica-
southern Italy by 8,500 cal. BP, and Central Europe by tion period. We report reliable mtDNA hypervariable re-
Letter
8,000 cal. BP. Archaeozoological (Helmer and Vigne gion sequences (np. 15914–8) from 15 domestic cattle
2007; Vigne 2008) residual lipid (Craig et al. 2005; Evershed from several sites in Iran dating from between 8,000 and
et al. 2008) and lactase persistence data (Itan et al. 2009) 1,900 BP (see supplementary table S1, Supplementary Ma-
point to an increasing economic importance of cattle for terial online). These sites are near the archaeological sites
meat and milk production. containing the earliest evidence of domestication (Hongo
Archaeozoological data provide substantial information et al. 2009). These data, and an additional 26 modern cattle
on time, region, and duration of initial domestication, but sequences from Anatolia and Iraq, were used to estimate
reliable estimates of the number of wild progenitors that the number of female aurochs that were initially involved in
contributed to modern populations remain elusive. It is the domestication process (for sample details and acces-
widely accepted that Eurasian taurine cattle have a single sion numbers, see supplementary tables S1 and S2, Supple-
origin in the Near East and ancient and modern mitochon- mentary Material online). The modern data were restricted
drial DNA (mtDNA) data reveal a limited number of to the region of domestication in order to minimize any
lineages (Bollongino et al. 2006) and—with the possible ex- possible bias due to subsequent introgression from other
ception of some Italian cattle (Mona et al. 2010)—indicate aurochs populations outside the Near East and to allow
© The Author 2012. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution. All rights reserved. For permissions, please
e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com
Mol. Biol. Evol. 29(9):2101–2104. 2012 doi:10.1093/molbev/mss092 Advance Access publication March 14, 2012 2101
Bollongino et al. · doi:10.1093/molbev/mss092 MBE
us to avoid modeling the bottleneck and range expansion estimates of predomestication ancestral effective popula-
processes associated with the movement of taurine cattle tion size being similar across a range of modern taurine
into Europe. breeds (Bovine HapMap Consortium 2009), and 3) there
Coalescent simulations were performed assuming an is no archaeological evidence of multiple independent do-
intergeneration time of 6 years (published generation mestication events in the Near East (Vigne 2008; Hongo
times vary between 5 and 7 years, MacEachern et al. et al. 2009). Nonetheless, it is possible that we have used
2009; Gautier et al. 2007) and an ancestral Near Eastern a misspecified model—which would lead to misleading pa-
wild aurochs female effective population size (NAef) of rameter estimates. To examine this possibility, we used
45,000 (MacEachern et al. 2009). A single domestication Fisher’s method to combine two-tailed probabilities of
event of unknown size (NDef) was assumed, followed by the 14 observed conditioning statistics—obtained by com-
exponential growth to a modern Near Eastern female do- parison to simulations—across the same range of NDef and
mestic cattle effective population size (NMef) of 1,007,170 l combinations as above (Voight et al. 2005). We then
(for details, see supplementary materials, Supplementary compared the resultant v2 values to those obtained by
Material online). We simulated with values of NDef drawn comparing each simulation against the set of all other sim-
initially from a uniform prior of range 1–5,000, and later ulations for each combination of NDef and l (Voight et al.
from a prior of range 1–1,000, and mutation rates (l) 2005). The resultant joint probability distribution (fig. 1b) is
2102
Number of Domesticated Neolithic Cattle · doi:10.1093/molbev/mss092 MBE
aurochs was too complex to be disseminated more widely dicates that successful cattle domestication was a limited
before breeding for docile characteristics. But evidence for phenomenon in the Near East.
a transportation of cattle by boat to Cyprus (Vigne et al.
2003, 2011) and their use to carry loads at an early stage of
domestication (Helmer and Gourichon 2008) do not en- Supplementary Material
dorse this view. Alternatively, other attempts to domesti- Supplementary materials, figure S1, and tables S1 and S2 are
cate cattle might simply not have been successful in the available at Molecular Biology and Evolution online (http://
longer term. Either way, the low number of progenitors in- www.mbe.oxfordjournals.org/).
2103
Bollongino et al. · doi:10.1093/molbev/mss092 MBE
Acknowledgments Helmer D, Gourichon L. 2008. Premières données sur les modalités
de subsistance à Tell Aswad (Syrie, PPNB moyen et récent,
We thank Anna Schulz and Christian Sell for support, Azadeh Néolithique céramique ancien). Fouilles 2001–2005. In: Archae-
Mohaseb, Shiva Sheikhi, and Julie Daujat for providing bones. ozoology of the Near East VIII (TMO 49); 2008. Lyon (France):
R.B. was supported by CNRS and the University of Mainz. Maison de l’Orient et de la Méditerranée. p. 119–151.
This work was also supported by the LeCHE project (Marie Helmer D, Gourichon L, Monchot H, Peters J, Saña Segui M. 2005.
Curie International Training Network; https://sites.google. Identifying early domestic cattle from Pre-Pottery Neolithic sites
on the Middle Euphrates using sexual dimorphism. In: Vigne J-D,
com/a/palaeome.org/leche/) to J.B. and M.G.T. and by Helmer D, Peters J, editors. First steps of animal domestication.
an Arts and Humanities Research Council Centre for the New archaeozoological approaches. London: Oxbow Books. p.
Evolution of Cultural Diversity studentship awarded to A.P. 86–95.
Helmer D, Vigne J-D. 2007. Was milk a ‘‘secondary product’’ in the
References Old World Neolithisation process? Its role in the domestication
Bandy M. 2008. Global patterns of early village development. In: of cattle, sheep and goats. Anthropozoologica 42(2):9–40.
Bocquet Appel J-P, Bar-Yosef O, editors. The Neolithic de- Hongo H, Pearson J, Öksük B, Ilgezdi G. 2009. The process of
mographic transition and its consequences. New York: Springer ungulate domestication at Cayönü, Southeastern Turkey:
Verlag. p. 333–357. a multidisciplinary approach focusing on Bos sp. and Cervus
Bollongino R, Edwards CJ, Alt KW, Burger J, Bradley DG. 2006. Early elaphus. Anthropozoologica 44:63–73.
2104
View publication stats