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Giorgio Bertorelle

From hunters to supermarket customers:
the aurochs domestication history unveiled

The study of the mitochondrial DNA of an extinct wild bovine called aurochs once widespread in Europe, North-Africa and Asia is revealing a lot about modern European cattle breeds.
The studies we conducted in collaboration with David Caramelli from the University of Florence found that genetically diverse groups of aurochsen were probably living in Europe in the Paleolithic, that their global diversity was higher than in modern cattle, and that some aurochsen from Southern areas have likely contributed to the present diversity of European breeds which mostly originated in the Middle East.
These studies allow us to better understand the evolutionary history and the domestication of a species which was as important for our hunting ancestors – aurochsen are painted in the caves of Lascaux – as it is for us today.
The domestication of the aurochs started around 10.000 years ago. The major domestication centers were probably the Fertile Crescent and the Indus Valley.
Domestication involved several changes in the morphology (e.g., cattle is smaller and with many different coat colors), physiology (e.g., high milk and/or muscle production), and behaviour (e.g., docility) of the aurochs. Humans were also affected by this process, both culturally (e.g., socioeconomic structure) and genetically (e.g., milk digestion in adulthood). The aurochs went extinct about 400 years ago, but its decline started some 2-3.000 years ago as a consequence of hunting and habitat reduction.
The ancient DNA data were obtained from pieces of bones or teeths of 19 aurochsen radiocarbon dated between 7.000 and 17.000 years ago. Several protocols were applied in the molecular laboratory to prevent contamination with modern DNA and to reach confidence on the final sequences.
Some samples were independently analysed in different laboratories, obtaining the same results. The results of our studies were published by the Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences USA in 2006 and by BMC Evolutionary Biology in 2010. A recent paper on the complete mtDNA genome of one Italian aurochs is in revision.

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Giorgio Bertorelle

Department of Biology and Evolution
University of Ferrara, Italy
Phone: +39 0532 455743
Email: ggb@unife.it
Web site: http://docente.unife.it/giorgio.bertorelle