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Title:
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Iron age genomic data from Althiburos – Tunisia renew the debate on the origins of African taurine cattle
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Author:
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Ginja, Catarina; Guimarães, Silvia; da Fonseca, Rute R.; Rasteiro, Rita; Rodriguez-Varela, Ricardo; Simões, Luciana G.; Sarmento, Cindy; Belarte Franco, Maria Carme; Kallala, Nabil; Ramon, Joan, 1956-; Sanmartí, Joan (Sanmartí i Grego); Arruda, Ana Margarida, 1955-; Detry, Cleia; Davis, Simon; Matos, José Luís de; Götherström, Anders; Pires, Ana Elisabete; Valenzuela Lamas, Sílvia
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Abstract:
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The Maghreb is a key region for understanding the dynamics of cattle dispersal and admixture with local aurochs following their earliest domestication in the Fertile Crescent more than 10,000 years ago. Here, we present data on autosomal genomes and mitogenomes obtained for four archaeological specimens of Iron Age (∼2,800 cal BP–2,000 cal BP) domestic cattle from the Eastern Maghreb, i.e. Althiburos (El Kef, Tunisia). D-loop sequences were obtained for an additional eight cattle specimens from this site. Maternal lineages were assigned to the elusive R and ubiquitous African-T1 haplogroups found in two and ten Althiburos specimens, respectively. Our results can be explained by post-domestication hybridization of Althiburos cattle with local aurochs. However, we cannot rule out an independent domestication in North Africa considering the shared ancestry of Althiburos cattle with the pre-domestic Moroccan aurochs and present-day African taurine cattle. |
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Notes:
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The authors gratefully acknowledge the following for funding their research: Fundação Nacional para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT), Portugal, contract grants 2020.02754.CEECIND (C.G.) and DL57/2016/CP1440/CT0029 (A.E. Pires), Project grant PTDC/CVTLIV/2827/2014 co-funded by COMPETE 2020 POCI-01-0145-FEDER-016647 and LISBOA-01-0145-FEDER-016647 (C.G. and A.E.P); R.D.F. acknowledges the support of the Villum Fonden for the Center for Global Mountain Biodiversity (grant no 25925) and ERC-StG ZooMWest (ERC-StG 716298). This study was also co-funded by the project NORTE-01-0246-FEDER-000063, supported by Norte Portugal Regional Operational Programme (NORTE2020), under the PORTUGAL 2020 Partnership Agreement, through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). We acknowledge the use of computational resources from UPPMAX—the Uppsala Multidisciplinary Centre for Advanced Computational Science under the projects b2014175 and SNIC 2018/8-54. We are grateful for the excellent service and support provided by the National Genomics Infrastructure (NGI, SciLifeLab) in Stockholm, Sweden. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. We thank Vendela Kempe Lagerholm, Maja Krzewinska, Petter Larsson, and Nicolas Dussex for the cameradage and technical support during our work at CPG, Stockholm, Sweden. We thank Emma Svensson for fruitful discussions on the 454-sequence data and the broad subject of cattle dispersal and evolution. We thank Dan Bradley for his comments and careful reading of the manuscript. Tribute: Joan Sanmartí was an Archaeologist specialized in Mediterranean protohistory and Professor of Archaeology at the University of Barcelona. Member of the Institut d'Estudis Catalans, in 2009 he received the ICREA – Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies Academy Award. He joined numerous research and excavation projects, including Althiburos archaeological site in El Kef, Tunisia. Without his precious collaboration, this study could not have been accomplished. |
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Publication date:
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2023-06-24 |
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Subject (UDC):
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90 - Arqueologia. Prehistòria |
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Subject(s):
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Althiburos (Ciutat antiga) -- Arqueologia
Paleobiologia -- Tunísia
Edat del ferro -- Tunísia |
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Rights:
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© 2023 The Author(s). Creative Commons Reconeixement-NoComercial-SenseObraDerivada 4.0 Internacional |
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Pages:
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18 p. |
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Document type:
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Article
Article - Published version |
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ISSN:
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2589-0042
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DOI:
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10.1016/j.isci.2023.107196
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Published by:
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Elsevier
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Publish at:
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iScience 26, 107196, July 21, 2023
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Share:
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