Because cattle are so important to the Indo-Europeans, this letter
published in Nature may be of interest.
M. Kelkar
"Nature 410, 1088-1091 (26 April 2001) | doi:10.1038/35074088;
Received 10 August 2000; Accepted 19 January 2001
Genetic evidence for Near-Eastern origins of European cattle
Christopher S. Troy1,2, David E. MacHugh3,2, Jillian F. Bailey1, David
A. Magee1, Ronan T. Loftus1, Patrick Cunningham1, Andrew T.
Chamberlain4, Bryan C. Sykes5 and Daniel G. Bradley1
1. Department of Genetics, Smurfit Institute, Trinity College,
Dublin 2, Ireland
2. Department of Animal Science and Production, Faculty of
Agriculture, University College Dublin , Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland
3. Department of Archaeology and Prehistory, University of
Sheffield, Sheffield S1 4ET, UK
4. Institute of Molecular Medicine, University of Oxford, John
Radcliffe Hospital, Headington, Oxford OX3 9DS, UK
5. These authors contributed equally to this work
Correspondence to: Daniel G. Bradley1 Correspondence and requests for
materials should be addressed to D.G.B. (e-mail: Email:
dbradley@...).
The limited ranges of the wild progenitors of many of the primary
European domestic species point to their origins further east in
Anatolia or the fertile crescent1, 2. The wild ox (Bos primigenius),
however, ranged widely3 and it is unknown whether it was domesticated
within Europe as one feature of a local contribution to the farming
economy1, 2, 4. Here we examine mitochondrial DNA control-region
sequence variation from 392 extant animals sampled from Europe, Africa
and the Near East, and compare this with data from four extinct
British wild oxen. The ancient sequences cluster tightly in a
phylogenetic analysis and are clearly distinct from modern cattle.
Network analysis of modern Bos taurus identifies four star-like
clusters of haplotypes, with intra-cluster diversities that
approximate to that expected from the time depth of domestic history.
Notably, one of these clusters predominates in Europe and is one of
three encountered at substantial frequency in the Near East. In
contrast, African diversity is almost exclusively composed of a
separate haplogroup, which is encountered only rarely elsewhere. These
data provide strong support for a derived Near-Eastern origin for
European cattle."