From: tgpedersen
Message: 47362
Date: 2007-02-09
> The limited ranges of the wild progenitors of many of the primaryIt doesn't even consider Asian cattle. The below took me 20 minutes to
> 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."
>