DNA Find Reveals New Insights Into the History of Cattle in Europe

Metacarpus of a small and compact adult bovid found in Twann after sampling for genetic analysis. (Fig: University of Basel, IPAS)

A research team from the University of Basel made a surprising find in a Neolithic settlement at the boarders of Lake Biel in Switzerland: The DNA of a cattle bone shows genetic traces of the European aurochs and thus adds a further facet to the history of cattle domestication. The journal Scientific Reports has published the results.

The modern cattle is the domesticated descendant of the aurochs, a wild species that became extinct in the 17th century. The aurochs' domestication already began roughly 10,000 years ago in the Near East. It is their DNA that reveals their ancestry: Aurochs of the Near East carry a maternally inherited genetic signature (mtDNA) called T haplogroup. Modern cattle still carry this signature and thus show that they derive from these early domesticated cattle of the Near East. This suggests that with the spreading of early farmers from the Near East to Europa, the domesticated cattle was imported to Europe alongside. [...]  unibas.ch/