Abstract
The Aceramic Neolithic (∼9600 to 7000 cal BC) period in the Zagros Mountains, western Iran, provides some of the earliest archaeological evidence of goat (Capra hircus) management and husbandry by circa 8200 cal BC, with detectable morphological change appearing ∼1,000 y later. To examine the genomic imprint of initial management and its implications for the goat domestication process, we analyzed 14 novel nuclear genomes (mean coverage 1.13X) and 32 mitochondrial (mtDNA) genomes (mean coverage 143X) from two such sites, Ganj Dareh and Tepe Abdul Hosein. These genomes show two distinct clusters: those with domestic affinity and a minority group with stronger wild affinity, indicating that managed goats were genetically distinct from wild goats at this early horizon. This genetic duality, the presence of long runs of homozygosity, shared ancestry with later Neolithic populations, a sex bias in archaeozoological remains, and demographic profiles from across all layers of Ganj Dareh support management of genetically domestic goat by circa 8200 cal BC, and represent the oldest to-this-date reported livestock genomes. In these sites a combination of high autosomal and mtDNA diversity, contrasting limited Y chromosomal lineage diversity, an absence of reported selection signatures for pigmentation, and the wild morphology of bone remains illustrates domestication as an extended process lacking a strong initial bottleneck, beginning with spatial control, demographic manipulation via biased male culling, captive breeding, and subsequently phenotypic and genomic selection.
Highlights
To cite this version: Kevin Daly, Valeria Mattiangeli, Andrew Hare, Hossein Davoudi, Homa Fathi, et al
These analyses indicate that the managed goats found at the Aceramic Neolithic (AN) sites of Ganj Dareh and Tepe Abdul Hosein are of a type ancestral to domestic goat variation
At Ganj Dareh these archaeological signals are clear from the earliest occupation level (Fig. 2A) and at Tepe Abdul Hosein (SI Appendix, Table S3), and are complemented by genetic evidence of management with kin matings (Fig. 6B), an ancestral position within domestic goat genetic diversity (Fig. 4), and sex-biased diversity patterns implying strong restriction of the male mating pool (Fig. 7)
Summary
Published archaeozoological analyses, along with new data presented here, provide an outline of the process of goat domestication in the central Zagros. With their large scimitarshaped horns and large body size, goats from archaeological sites dating to the Late Pleistocene and the earliest phases of the Early Holocene bear the morphological features of wild bezoars. Nearly 70% of the goats from the Early Holocene site of Asiab (9750 to 9300 cal BC) [12, 15] were older than 4 y of age when killed (SI Appendix, Table S3), with an emphasis on prime age animals indicated for both males and females (SI Appendix, Table S4). Herd management should be reflected in archaeological assemblages composed of the bones of young males and older adult females. At Ganj Dareh, goat remains recovered from both earlier [14, 15, 23, 24] and recent excavations analyzed by L.Y. and P.B. show a strong emphasis on the harvest of younger animals, with
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