--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
>
>
> > 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."
> >
>
> It doesn't even consider Asian cattle. The below took me 20 minutes to
> find. Note that archaeology in China as in India is developing and
> those late dates in NEAsia may slide thousands of years in the near
> future (Bos Taurus is the species we are looking for here).
> http://www.genetics.org/cgi/content/full/150/3/1169
>
>
> Torsten
The Indian cattle is a separate branch (Fig 2).
"The earliest remains of cattle in a domestic context occur in
Anatolia from at least 8000 YBP (PERKINS 1969 Down). The site of
Mehrgarh in Pakistan shows evidence for cattle herding as early as
7000 YBP, and the earliest securely identified African domestic cow
dates to only 500 yr later (MEADOW 1993 Down; ROUBET 1978 Down)"
"
http://www.naturalhistorymag.com/master.html?http://www.naturalhistorymag.com/0203/0203_feature.html>
"But there is evidence that cattle were also brought under
domestication farther east, in what are now Pakistan and India."
"According to our genetic analyses, African cattle originated neither
from Indian humped cattle nor from Near Eastern cattle. Those findings
support the separate-origins theory of cattle domestication favored by
archaeologists, who had maintained that in Africa, too, cattle
domestication was local."
http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Publications/ZooGoer/2004/4/kidsfarmside.cfm
"However, recent DNA evidence suggests that cattle evolved into
different types before they were domesticated. The authors of 1994 and
1996 papers in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
believe Indian cattle diverged about 200,000 years ago and formed a
genetically distinct group (B. indicus). Long before Near Eastern
cattle were domesticated, the remaining group split again about 25,000
years ago into two groups that are the forebears of African and
European cattle."
"Rather, cattle were independently domesticated in what are now India
and Pakistan, in the Fertile Crescent, and possibly in Africa."
The wild European bulls have been messing around with domesticated
cows from the Near East.
http://www.eva.mpg.de/evolution/staff/c_smith/pdf/Gotherstrom_et_alAurochs05.pdf
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=16243693&dopt=Abstract>
M. kelkar