The origins of Chinese domestic cattle as revealed by ancient DNA analysis

Recent ancient DNA analyses have revealed the origins of European and Near Eastern domestic cattle. In East Asia, however, only a few ancient cattle remains from Korea have been studied. The origins of East Asian domestic cattle and the genetic contribution by ancient cattle to modern cattle are still unclear. To provide new insight into the early history of East Asian domestic cattle, we analyzed mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from 53 cattle remains, aged between 4500 and 2300 years, excavated from five archaeological sites in Northern China. All ancient Chinese cattle were identified as belonging to taurine cattle. On the one hand, the results support the previous hypothesis that taurine cattle spread into Northern China between 3000 and 2000 BC; on the other hand, the results suggest that zebu cattle did not spread into the Central Plains until at least 1500 BC. Three haplogroups T2, T3, and T4 were present in the ancient Chinese cattle, of which T3 was predominant (79.3%), while T2 and T4 were less common (9.4% and 11.3% respectively). Considering the geographic origin and estimated age of mtDNA haplogroups and the archaeological record of cattle remains in China, our results suggest that Chinese domestic cattle originated from the Near East and were already introduced into the Central Plains around 2500–1900 BC. Furthermore, phylogenetic network analysis indicates that the haplogroup distribution pattern of ancient Chinese cattle is similar to that of modern East Asian taurine cattle, suggesting a genetic continuity from the Bronze Age to present day. Lastly, population pairwise FST distance analysis and multidimensional scaling analysis also support close genetic relationship between ancient Chinese cattle and modern East Asian taurine cattle. All these results suggest that ancient Chinese cattle made an important contribution to the gene pool of modern East Asian taurine cattle.