Origin and dispersal of early domestic pigs in northern China

Hai Xiang,Ranran Liu,Xingbo Zhao,Yunbing Luo,Weitao Dun,Xi Wang,Xiaoyong Chen,Hui Zhou,Langqing Liu,Michael Hofreiter,Dawei Cai,Baoquan Yu,Jianqiang Gao

doi:10.1038/s41598-017-06056-8

Abstract

It is widely accepted that modern pigs were domesticated independently at least twice, and Chinese native pigs are deemed as direct descendants of the first domesticated pigs in the corresponding domestication centers. By analyzing mitochondrial DNA sequences of an extensive sample set spanning 10,000 years, we find that the earliest pigs from the middle Yellow River region already carried the maternal lineages that are dominant in both younger archaeological populations and modern Chinese pigs. Our data set also supports early Neolithic pig utilization and a long-term in situ origin for northeastern Chinese pigs during 8,000–3,500 BP, suggesting a possibly independent domestication in northeast China. Additionally, we observe a genetic replacement in ancient northeast Chinese pigs since 3,500 BP. The results not only provide increasing evidence for pig origin in the middle Yellow River region but also depict an outline for the process of early pig domestication in northeast China.

Highlights

It is widely accepted that pigs were domesticated independently in Near East and East Asia beginning ~10,000 years ago after Sus sp. emerged in Southeast Asia during the climatic fluctuations of the early Pliocene 5.3–3.5 My ago[1,2,3]
We investigated partial mitochondrial DNA control region (CR) sequences and a segment of the cytochrome b gene (Cytb) from both ancient and modern pigs, aiming to uncover the pattern of early maternal domestication and lineage dispersal in China
By combining our new results with previously reported sequences, we obtained a data set of 38 ancient pig CR sequences from China (Table S4) and combined Cytb/CR sequences from 37 samples, ranging geographically from northeast to northwest China and temporally from 10,000 BP to 2,500 BP (Table S1)

Summary

Introduction

It is widely accepted that pigs were domesticated independently in Near East and East Asia beginning ~10,000 years ago after Sus sp. emerged in Southeast Asia during the climatic fluctuations of the early Pliocene 5.3–3.5 My ago[1,2,3]. It has previously been shown that, at least with regard to maternal lineages, Chinese native pig breeds were direct descendants of the first domesticated pigs in the corresponding geographical regions[8, 9] It is Breeding and Reproduction; and College of Animal Science and Technology, China Agricultural University, Beijing, 100193, China. Human-mediated dispersal of and gene flow among domestic pig populations would not have been uncommon Both for European and Near Eastern pigs, ancient DNA and dental geometric morphometric analyses have revealed nonlinear patterns of early domestication, dispersal of animals, genetic turnover and interaction among various geographic regions[21,22,23].

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion