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From the Cover
BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES / EVOLUTION
The origin of European cattle: Evidence from modern and ancient DNA

Albano Beja-Pereira^a,b,c, David Caramelli^c,d, Carles Lalueza-Fox^e, Cristiano Vernesi^f, Nuno Ferrand^a,g, Antonella Casoli^h, Felix Goyacheⁱ, Luis J. Royoⁱ, Serena Conti^d,j, Martina Lari^d, Andrea Martini^j, Lahousine Ouragh^k, Ayed Magid^l, Abdulkarim Atash^l, Attila Zsolnai^m, Paolo Boscatoⁿ, Costas Triantaphylidis^o, Konstantoula Ploumi^p, Luca Sineo^q, Francesco Mallegni^r, Pierre Taberlet^b, Georg Erhardt^s, Lourdes Sampietro^t, Jaume Bertranpetit^t, Guido Barbujani^u, Gordon Luikart^b,c, and Giorgio Bertorelle^c,u,v

^aCentro de Investigação em Biodiversidade e Recursos Genéticos (CIBIO-UP) and Secção Autónoma de Engenharia de Ciências Agrárias, Universidade do Porto, 4485-661 Vairão, Portugal; ^bLaboratoire d’Ecologie Alpine–Génomique des Populations et Biodiversité, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique Unité Mixte de Recherche 5553, Université Joseph Fourier, B.P. 53, 38041 Grenoble Cedex 9, France; ^dDipartimento di Biologia Animale e Genetica, Laboratorio di Antropologia, Università di Firenze, Via del Proconsolo, 12-50122 Firenze, Italy; ^eSecció Antropologia, Departament Biologia Animal, Facultat de Biologia, Universitat de Barcelona, Avda. Diagonal, 645-08028 Barcelona, Spain; ^fCentro di Ecologia Alpina, Viote del Monte Bondone, 38040 Trento, Italy; ^gDepartamento de Zoologia/Antropologia da Faculdade de Ciências Praça Gomes Teixeira, Campus Agrario de Vairao, 4099-002 Porto, Portugal; ^hDipartimento di Chimica Generale e Inorganica, Chimica Analitica, Chimica Fisica, Università di Parma, Parco Area delle Scienze 17/A, 43100 Parma, Italy; ⁱServicio Regional de Investigación y Desarrollo Agroalimentario–Centro De Seleccion Y Reproduccion Animal-Somió, Área de Genética y Reproducción Animal, 33203 Gijón, Spain; ^jDipartimento di Scienze Zootecniche, Università di Firenze, Via delle Cascine, 5-50144 Firenze, Italy; ^kDépartement de Pathologie Médicale et Chirurgicale des Equidés et Carnivores, Institut Agronomique et Vétérinaire Hassan II, 10101 Rabat, Morocco; ^lAnimal Production Department, University of Al-Fateh, 13538 Tripoli, Libya; ^mResearch Institute for Animal Breeding and Nutrition, 2053 Herceghalom, Hungary; ⁿDipartimento di Dipartimento di Scienze Ambientali, Università di Siena, Via delle Cerchia, 5-53100 Siena, Italy; ^oDepartment of Genetics, Development and Molecular Biology, Aristotle University of Thessalonica, 54124 Thessalonica, Greece; ^pNational Agricultural Research Foundation, 63200 Greece; ^qDipartimento di Biologia Animale, Università di Palermo, Via Archirafi, 18-90123 Palermo, Italy; ^rDipartimento di Scienze Archeologiche, Università di Pisa, Via Santa Maria, 53-56126 Pisa, Italy; ^sInstitut für Tierzucht und Haustiergenetik, Justus-Liebig-Universität Gieben, Ludwigstrasse 21b, 35390 Gieben, Germany; ^tUnitat de Biologia Evolutiva, Departament di Ciències Experimentals e de la Salut, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, 08003 Barcelona, Spain; and ^uDipartimento di Biologia, Università di Ferrara, Via Borsari 46, I-44100 Ferrara, Italy

Edited by Henry C. Harpending, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, and approved March 30, 2006 (received for review October 21, 2005)

Cattle domestication from wild aurochsen was among the most important innovations during the Neolithic agricultural revolution. The available genetic and archaeological evidence points to at least two major sites of domestication in India and in the Near East, where zebu and the taurine breeds would have emerged independently. Under this hypothesis, all present-day European breeds would be descended from cattle domesticated in the Near East and subsequently spread during the diffusion of herding and farming lifestyles. We present here previously undescribed genetic evidence in contrast with this view, based on mtDNA sequences from five Italian aurochsen dated between 7,000 and 17,000 years B.P. and >1,000 modern cattle from 51 breeds. Our data are compatible with local domestication events in Europe and support at least some levels of introgression from the aurochs in Italy. The distribution of genetic variation in modern cattle suggest also that different south European breeds were affected by introductions from northern Africa. If so, the European cattle may represent a more variable and valuable genetic resource than previously realized, and previous simple hypotheses regarding the domestication process and the diffusion of selected breeds should be revised.

domestication | Europe | mtDNA | aurochs

Author contributions: A.B.-P., D.C., and G. Bertorelle designed research; A.B.-P., D.C., C.L.-F., N.F., S.C., M.L., L. Sampietro, G.L., and G. Bertorelle performed research; D.C., C.L.-F., N.F., A.C., F.G., L.J.R., S.C., M.L., A. Martini, L.O., A. Magid, A.A., A.Z., P.B., C.T., K.P., L. Sineo, F.M., P.T., G.E., L. Sampietro, and G. Bertorelle contributed new reagents/analytic tools; A.B.-P., C.V., J.B., and G. Bertorelle analyzed data; and A.B.-P., D.C., G. Barbujani, G.L., and G. Bertorelle wrote the paper.

Conflict of interest statement: No conflicts declared.

This paper was submitted directly (Track II) to the PNAS office.

Data deposition: The sequences reported in this paper have been deposited in the GenBank database (accession nos. DQ515232–DQ515756, DQ799167, DQ799249, DQ799263, DQ799283, and DQ799285).

^vTo whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: ggb{at}unife.it

© 2006 by The National Academy of Sciences of the USA

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