Abstract
Guinea pigs (Cavia spp.) have a long association with humans. From as early as 10,000 years ago they were a wild food source. Later, domesticated Cavia porcellus were dispersed well beyond their native range through pre-Columbian exchange networks and, more recently, widely across the globe. Here we present 46 complete mitogenomes of archaeological guinea pigs from sites in Peru, Bolivia, Colombia, the Caribbean, Belgium and the United States to elucidate their evolutionary history, origins and paths of dispersal. Our results indicate an independent centre of domestication of Cavia in the eastern Colombian Highlands. We identify a Peruvian origin for the initial introduction of domesticated guinea pigs (Cavia porcellus) beyond South America into the Caribbean. We also demonstrate that Peru was the probable source of the earliest known guinea pigs transported, as part of the exotic pet trade, to both Europe and the southeastern United States. Finally, we identify a modern reintroduction of guinea pigs to Puerto Rico, where local inhabitants use them for food. This research demonstrates that the natural and cultural history of guinea pigs is more complex than previously known and has implications for other studies regarding regional to global-scale studies of mammal domestication, translocation, and distribution.
Highlights
The use of ancient DNA in studies of animal domestication and subsequent translocation has radically improved our ability to identify spatially, temporally, and culturally variable processes of domestication and the diversity of social networks behind domestic species distribution (e.g.1,2)
Spotorno et al.[16] suggest that there were three phases of human interaction with guinea pigs: the initial domestication from C. tschudii to C. porcellus, which probably occurred in southern Peru/northern Chile, followed by two subsequent modern selection processes outside of South America resulting in the laboratory and pet breeds of Europe and improved breeds for the South American meat market
When we initially attempted to map all of our sequences to the C. porcellus reference mitogenome (Genbank ID: NC_000884.1), we found that none of the 12 Colombian samples mapped efficiently and all showed an identical pattern of alignment/coverage (SI Fig. S1)
Summary
The use of ancient DNA (aDNA) in studies of animal domestication and subsequent translocation has radically improved our ability to identify spatially, temporally, and culturally variable processes of domestication and the diversity of social networks behind domestic species distribution (e.g.1,2). Bioarchaeological and isotopic evidence Delgado[18,19,20] suggests that important changes in the relationship between guinea pigs and humans occurred in the Bogotá Highlands during the late Holocene (3180–500 BC). This is linked to the probable arrival of new people to the region from the lowlands, likely introducing agriculture[21].
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