Cattle DNA traced back to single herd of wild ox

[microrobert]

Cattle DNA traced back to single herd of wild ox

http://cdni.wired.co.uk/620x413/a_c/cow.jpg

A genetic study of cattle has claimed that all modern domesticated bovines are descended from a single herd of wild ox, which lived 10,500 years ago.

A team of geneticists from the National Museum of Natural History in France, the University of Mainz in Germany, and UCL in the UK excavated the bones of domestic cattle on archaeological sites in Iran, and then compared those to modern cows (http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2010-09/09/oregano-belches). They looked at how differences in DNA sequences could have arisen under different population history scenarios, modelled in computer simulations.

Cattle DNA traced back to single herd of wild ox (Wired UK) (http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-03/27/cattle-dna-traced)

[Albion]

They must have diverged quite a lot since then because Europe and India have two very different types of cattle presumed to have evolved from two different subspecies of aurochs.

There's also evidence that they've diverged genetically to some extent too.

http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/108/cattlebreedsydna.jpg

And what about wild / domestic hybrids? Surely the cattle coming from the Middle East would have occasionally come into contact with aurochs in Europe and bred. We see this with domestic pigs and wild boar today as well as with cats and wild cats (especially in Europe where wild cats have been largely diluted into the domestic cat population).