image: This is a feral male juvenile pig from inner Sardinia. view more
Credit: Domenico Fulgione
A study examines the genetic origins of domestic European pigs. Archaeological and genetic evidence indicates that humans began domesticating pigs in the Near East around 10,500 years ago and that the pigs arrived in Europe around 8,500 years ago. However, whether humans independently domesticated European wild boar without genetic contribution from Near Eastern pigs is unclear. Laurent A. F. Frantz, Greger Larson, and colleagues analyzed the mitochondrial DNA sequences of 2,099 ancient and modern pig samples and 63 ancient nuclear genomes from European and Near Eastern pigs. The authors found that European domestic pigs that lived between 7,100 and 6,000 years ago had both European and Near Eastern ancestry, whereas pigs that lived after 6,000 years ago had up to approximately 4% of Near Eastern ancestry. The findings suggest that besides a genetic locus that encodes coat color differences between wild and domestic pigs, modern European pigs almost completely lost their Near Eastern ancestry less than 3,000 years after being introduced, as a result of gene flow from European wild boars. Further, interbreeding with local wild boars was sufficient to almost completely erase the original genomic ancestry of pigs domesticated in the Near East, according to the authors.
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Article #19-01169: "Ancient pigs reveal a near-complete genomic turnover following their introduction to Europe," by Laurent A. F. Frantz et al.
MEDIA CONTACT: Laurent A. F. Frantz, Queen Mary University of London, UNITED KINGDOM; tel: +44-7950351348; email: laurent.frantz@qmul.ac.uk; Greger Larson, University of Oxford, UNITED KINGDOM; tel: +447963905362; email: greger.larson@arch.ox.ac.uk; Melinda Zeder, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC; tel: 703-626-9118; email: zederm@si.edu
Journal
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences