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Edited by Ofer Bar-Yosef, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, and approved March 22, 2010 (received for review October 28, 2009)
Abstract
The establishment of agricultural economies based upon domestic animals began independently in many parts of the world and led to both increases in human population size and the migration of people carrying domestic plants and animals. The precise circumstances of the earliest phases of these events remain mysterious given their antiquity and the fact that subsequent waves of migrants have often replaced the first. Through the use of more than 1,500 modern (including 151 previously uncharacterized specimens) and 18 ancient (representing six East Asian archeological sites) pig (Sus scrofa) DNA sequences sampled across East Asia, we provide evidence for the long-term genetic continuity between modern and ancient Chinese domestic pigs. Although the Chinese case for independent pig domestication is supported by both genetic and archaeological evidence, we discuss five additional (and possibly) independent domestications of indigenous wild boar populations: one in India, three in peninsular Southeast Asia, and one off the coast of Taiwan. Collectively, we refer to these instances as “cryptic domestication,” given the current lack of corroborating archaeological evidence. In addition, we demonstrate the existence of numerous populations of genetically distinct and widespread wild boar populations that have not contributed maternal genetic material to modern domestic stocks. The overall findings provide the most complete picture yet of pig evolution and domestication in East Asia, and generate testable hypotheses regarding the development and spread of early farmers in the Far East.
Footnotes
- 2To whom correspondence may be addressed. E-mail: greger.larson{at}durham.ac.uk or ninglcau{at}cau.edu.cn.
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Author contributions: N.L., X-B.Z., J.Y., G.L., and R-R.L. designed research; R-R.L., G.L., X-B.Z., J.Y., Q-P.F., Z-L.G., X-H.L., Y-B.L., and P.L. performed research; L.A. contributed new reagents/analytic tools; G.L., R-R.L., X-B.Z., J.Y., D.F., L.B., K.D., Y.L., P.L., L.A., and N.L. analyzed data; and G.L., N.L., R-R.L., J.Y., D.F., L.B., K.D., and L.A. wrote the paper.
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1G.L. and R.L. contributed equally to this work.
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The authors declare no conflict of interest.
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↵This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.
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Database deposition: The sequences reported in this paper have been deposited in the GenBank database (accession nos. FJ601390–FJ601547).
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This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/0912264107/DCSupplemental.
Freely available online through the PNAS open access option.
Patterns of East Asian pig domestication, migration, and turnover revealed by modern and ancient DNA
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