Abstract
Now extinct, the aurochs (Bos primigenius) was a keystone species in prehistoric Eurasian and North African ecosystems, and the progenitor of cattle (Bos taurus), domesticates that have provided people with food and labour for millennia1. Here we analysed 38 ancient genomes and found 4 distinct population ancestries in the aurochs—European, Southwest Asian, North Asian and South Asian—each of which has dynamic trajectories that have responded to changes in climate and human influence. Similarly to Homo heidelbergensis, aurochsen first entered Europe around 650 thousand years ago2, but early populations left only trace ancestry, with both North Asian and European B. primigenius genomes coalescing during the most recent glaciation. North Asian and European populations then appear separated until mixing after the climate amelioration of the early Holocene. European aurochsen endured the more severe bottleneck during the Last Glacial Maximum, retreating to southern refugia before recolonizing from Iberia. Domestication involved the capture of a small number of individuals from the Southwest Asian aurochs population, followed by early and pervasive male-mediated admixture involving each ancestral strain of aurochs after domestic stocks dispersed beyond their cradle of origin.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Access Nature and 54 other Nature Portfolio journals
Get Nature+, our best-value online-access subscription
$32.99 / 30 days
cancel any time
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 51 print issues and online access
$199.00 per year
only $3.90 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on SpringerLink
- Instant access to the full article PDF.
USD 39.95
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
Data availability
Sequence reads and alignment files of new data are available through the ENA under accession number PRJEB75467. Previously published ancient data used in this study are available under accession numbers PRJEB31621, PRJNA379859, PRJNA803479 and PRJEB74338, and are detailed in Supplementary Table 2. Sources for previously published modern genomic data analysed here are listed in Supplementary Table 3. The ARS-UCD1.2 reference genome is available under NCBI assembly accession GCF_002263795.1. The B. taurus mitochondrial reference genome is available under NCBI accession number V00654.1.
Code availability
This study makes use of publicly available software, referenced throughout the main text and supplementary material.
References
van Vuure, C. & van Vuure, T. Retracing the Aurochs: History, Morphology and Ecology of an Extinct Wild Ox (Pensoft Publishers, 2005).
de Carvalho, C. N. et al. Aurochs roamed along the SW coast of Andalusia (Spain) during Late Pleistocene. Sci. Rep. 12, 9911 (2022).
Wang, X., Flynn, L. J. & Fortelius, M. Fossil Mammals of Asia: Neogene Biostratigraphy and Chronology (Columbia Univ. Press, 2013).
Schulz, E. & KaiSer, T. M. Feeding strategy of the Urus Bos primigenius BOJANUS, 1827 from the Holocene of Denmark. Cour. Forsch. Inst. Senckenberg 259, 155–164 (2007).
Bro-Jørgensen, M. H. et al. Ancient DNA analysis of Scandinavian medieval drinking horns and the horn of the last aurochs bull. J. Archaeol. Sci. 99, 47–54 (2018).
Bar-On, Y. M., Phillips, R. & Milo, R. The biomass distribution on Earth. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 115, 6506–6511 (2018).
Bailey, J. F. et al. Ancient DNA suggests a recent expansion of European cattle from a diverse wild progenitor species. Proc. Biol. Sci. 263, 1467–1473 (1996).
Troy, C. S. et al. Genetic evidence for Near-Eastern origins of European cattle. Nature 410, 1088–1091 (2001).
Park, S. D. E. et al. Genome sequencing of the extinct Eurasian wild aurochs, Bos primigenius, illuminates the phylogeography and evolution of cattle. Genome Biol. 16, 234 (2015).
Verdugo, M. P. et al. Ancient cattle genomics, origins, and rapid turnover in the Fertile Crescent. Science 365, 173–176 (2019).
Ginja, C. et al. Iron age genomic data from Althiburos – Tunisia renew the debate on the origins of African taurine cattle. iScience 26, 107196 (2023).
Svendsen, J. I. et al. Late Quaternary ice sheet history of northern Eurasia. Quat. Sci. Rev. 23, 1229–1271 (2004).
Wright, E. in Cattle and People: Interdisciplinary Approaches to an Ancient Relationship (eds Wright, E. & Ginja, C.) 3–27 (Lockwood Press, 2022).
Hewitt, G. Post-glacial re-colonization of European biota. Biol. J. Linn. Soc. Lond. 68, 87–112 (1999).
Linseele, V. Size and size change of the African aurochs during the Pleistocene and Holocene. J. Afr. Archaeol. 2, 165–185 (2004).
Lefèvre, D., Raynal, J.-P., Vernet, G., Kieffer, G. & Piperno, M. Tephro-stratigraphy and the age of ancient Southern Italian Acheulean settlements: the sites of Loreto and Notarchirico (Venosa, Basilicata, Italy). Quat. Int. 223–224, 360–368 (2010).
Pereira, A. et al. The earliest securely dated hominin fossil in Italy and evidence of Acheulian occupation during glacial MIS 16 at Notarchirico (Venosa, Basilicata, Italy). J. Quat. Sci. 30, 639–650 (2015).
Cassoli, P. F., Di Stefano, G. & A., T. in Notarchirico: Un Sito del Pleistocene Medio Iniziale nel Bacino (ed. di Piperno, M.) 361–438 (Osanna, 1999).
Lambeck, K., Esat, T. M. & Potter, E.-K. Links between climate and sea levels for the past three million years. Nature 419, 199–206 (2002).
Batchelor, C. L. et al. The configuration of Northern Hemisphere ice sheets through the Quaternary. Nat. Commun. 10, 3713 (2019).
Otvos, E. G. The Last Interglacial Stage: definitions and marine highstand, North America and Eurasia. Quat. Int. 383, 158–173 (2015).
Leonardi, M., Boschin, F., Boscato, P. & Manica, A. Following the niche: the differential impact of the last glacial maximum on four European ungulates. Commun. Biol. 5, 1038 (2022).
Helmens, K. F. The Last Interglacial–Glacial cycle (MIS 5–2) re-examined based on long proxy records from central and northern Europe. Quat. Sci. Rev. 86, 115–143 (2014).
Kosintsev, P. A. & Bachura, O. P. Late Pleistocene and Holocene mammal fauna of the Southern Urals. Quat. Int. 284, 161–170 (2013).
Robin, M. et al. Ancient mitochondrial and modern whole genomes unravel massive genetic diversity loss during near extinction of Alpine ibex. Mol. Ecol. 31, 3548–3565 (2022).
Miller, W. et al. Polar and brown bear genomes reveal ancient admixture and demographic footprints of past climate change. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 109, E2382–E2390 (2012).
Lord, E. et al. Population dynamics and demographic history of Eurasian collared lemmings. BMC Ecol. Evol. 22, 126 (2022).
Murray, C., Huerta-Sanchez, E., Casey, F. & Bradley, D. G. Cattle demographic history modelled from autosomal sequence variation. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 365, 2531–2539 (2010).
Sinding, M.-H. S. et al. Kouprey (Bos sauveli) genomes unveil polytomic origin of wild Asian Bos. iScience 24, 103226 (2021).
Bergman, J. et al. Worldwide Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene population declines in extant megafauna are associated with Homo sapiens expansion rather than climate change. Nat. Commun. 14, 7679 (2023).
Erven, J. A. M. et al. A high-coverage Mesolithic aurochs genome and effective leveraging of ancient cattle genomes using whole genome imputation. Mol. Biol. Evol. 41, msae076 (2024).
MacLeod, I. M., Larkin, D. M., Lewin, H. A., Hayes, B. J. & Goddard, M. E. Inferring demography from runs of homozygosity in whole-genome sequence, with correction for sequence errors. Mol. Biol. Evol. 30, 2209–2223 (2013).
Clutton-Brock, T. Mammal Societies (Wiley, 2016).
Cubric-Curik, V. et al. Large‐scale mitogenome sequencing reveals consecutive expansions of domestic taurine cattle and supports sporadic aurochs introgression. Evol. Appl. 15, 663–678 (2022).
Makarewicz, C. & Tuross, N. Finding fodder and tracking transhumance: isotopic detection of goat domestication processes in the Near East. Curr. Anthropol. 53, 495–505 (2012).
Bollongino, R. et al. Modern taurine cattle descended from small number of near-eastern founders. Mol. Biol. Evol. 29, 2101–2104 (2012).
Scheu, A. et al. The genetic prehistory of domesticated cattle from their origin to the spread across Europe. BMC Genet. 16, 54 (2015).
Upadhyay, M. R. et al. Genetic origin, admixture and population history of aurochs (Bos primigenius) and primitive European cattle. Heredity 118, 169–176 (2017).
Marshall, F. B., Dobney, K., Denham, T. & Capriles, J. M. Evaluating the roles of directed breeding and gene flow in animal domestication. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 111, 6153–6158 (2014).
Götherström, A. et al. Cattle domestication in the Near East was followed by hybridization with aurochs bulls in Europe. Proc. Biol. Sci. 272, 2345–2350 (2005).
Achilli, A. et al. The multifaceted origin of taurine cattle reflected by the mitochondrial genome. PLoS One 4, e5753 (2009).
Yang, D. Y., Eng, B., Waye, J. S., Dudar, J. C. & Saunders, S. R.Improved DNA extraction from ancient bones using silica-based spin columns. Am. J. Phys. Anthropol. 105, 539–543 (1998).
Mattiangeli, V., Cassidy, L. M., Daly, K. G., Mullin, V. E. & Verdugo, M. Multi-step ancient DNA extraction protocol for bone and teeth. Protocols.io https://doi.org/10.17504/protocols.io.6qpvr45b2gmk/v1 (2023).
Dabney, J. et al. Complete mitochondrial genome sequence of a Middle Pleistocene cave bear reconstructed from ultrashort DNA fragments. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 110, 15758–15763 (2013).
Boessenkool, S. et al. Combining bleach and mild predigestion improves ancient DNA recovery from bones. Mol. Ecol. Resour. 17, 742–751 (2017).
Mattiangeli, V., Cassidy, L. M., Daly, K. G. & Mullin, V. E. Bleach extraction protocol: damaged or degraded DNA recovery from bone or tooth powder. Protocols.io https://doi.org/10.17504/protocols.io.8epv5j88nl1b/v1 (2023).
Meyer, M. & Kircher, M. Illumina sequencing library preparation for highly multiplexed target capture and sequencing. Cold Spring Harb. Protoc. 2010, pdb.prot5448 (2010).
Gamba, C. et al. Genome flux and stasis in a five millennium transect of European prehistory. Nat. Commun. 5, 5257 (2014).
Botigué, L. R. et al. Ancient European dog genomes reveal continuity since the Early Neolithic. Nat. Commun. 8, 16082 (2017).
Carøe, C. et al. Single‐tube library preparation for degraded DNA. Methods Ecol. Evol. 9, 410–419 (2018).
Martin, M. Cutadapt removes adapter sequences from high-throughput sequencing reads. EMBnet.journal 17, 10–12 (2011).
Schubert, M., Lindgreen, S. & Orlando, L. AdapterRemoval v2: rapid adapter trimming, identification, and read merging. BMC Res. Notes 9, 88 (2016).
Li, H. & Durbin, R. Fast and accurate short read alignment with Burrows–Wheeler transform. Bioinformatics 25, 1754–1760 (2009).
Li, H. et al. The Sequence Alignment/Map format and SAMtools. Bioinformatics 25, 2078–2079 (2009).
Jónsson, H., Ginolhac, A., Schubert, M., Johnson, P. L. F. & Orlando, L. mapDamage2.0: fast approximate Bayesian estimates of ancient DNA damage parameters. Bioinformatics 29, 1682–1684 (2013).
Skoglund, P. et al. Separating endogenous ancient DNA from modern day contamination in a Siberian Neandertal. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 111, 2229–2234 (2014).
Okonechnikov, K., Conesa, A. & García-Alcalde, F. Qualimap 2: advanced multi-sample quality control for high-throughput sequencing data. Bioinformatics 32, 292–294 (2016).
Bolger, A. M., Lohse, M. & Usadel, B. Trimmomatic: a flexible trimmer for Illumina sequence data. Bioinformatics 30, 2114–2120 (2014).
Li, H. Aligning sequence reads, clone sequences and assembly contigs with BWA-MEM. Preprint at arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.1303.3997 (2013).
Danecek, P. et al. Twelve years of SAMtools and BCFtools. Gigascience 10, giab008 (2021).
Danecek, P. et al. The variant call format and VCFtools. Bioinformatics 27, 2156–2158 (2011).
Korneliussen, T. S., Albrechtsen, A. & Nielsen, R. ANGSD: Analysis of Next Generation Sequencing Data. BMC Bioinformatics 15, 356 (2014).
Hahn, C., Bachmann, L. & Chevreux, B. Reconstructing mitochondrial genomes directly from genomic next-generation sequencing reads—a baiting and iterative mapping approach. Nucleic Acids Res. 41, e129 (2013).
Robinson, J. T. et al. Integrative genomics viewer. Nat. Biotechnol. 29, 24–26 (2011).
Bouckaert, R. et al. BEAST 2.5: an advanced software platform for Bayesian evolutionary analysis. PLoS Comput. Biol. 15, e1006650 (2019).
Edgar, R. C. MUSCLE: multiple sequence alignment with high accuracy and high throughput. Nucleic Acids Res. 32, 1792–1797 (2004).
Gouy, M., Tannier, E., Comte, N. & Parsons, D. P. Seaview Version 5: a multiplatform software for multiple sequence alignment, molecular phylogenetic analyses, and tree reconciliation. Methods Mol. Biol. 2231, 241–260 (2021).
Bouckaert, R. R. & Drummond, A. J. bModelTest: Bayesian phylogenetic site model averaging and model comparison. BMC Evol. Biol. 17, 42 (2017).
Drummond, A. J., Rambaut, A., Shapiro, B. & Pybus, O. G. Bayesian coalescent inference of past population dynamics from molecular sequences. Mol. Biol. Evol. 22, 1185–1192 (2005).
Rambaut, A., Drummond, A. J., Xie, D., Baele, G. & Suchard, M. A. Posterior summarization in Bayesian phylogenetics using Tracer 1.7. Syst. Biol. 67, 901–904 (2018).
Chang, T.-C., Yang, Y., Retzel, E. F. & Liu, W.-S. Male-specific region of the bovine Y chromosome is gene rich with a high transcriptomic activity in testis development. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 110, 12373–12378 (2013).
Guindon, S. et al. New algorithms and methods to estimate maximum-likelihood phylogenies: assessing the performance of PhyML 3.0. Syst. Biol. 59, 307–321 (2010).
Browning, B. L., Tian, X., Zhou, Y. & Browning, S. R. Fast two-stage phasing of large-scale sequence data. Am. J. Hum. Genet. 108, 1880–1890 (2021).
Browning, B. L., Zhou, Y. & Browning, S. R. A one-penny imputed genome from next-generation reference panels. Am. J. Hum. Genet. 103, 338–348 (2018).
Rubinacci, S., Ribeiro, D. M., Hofmeister, R. J. & Delaneau, O. Efficient phasing and imputation of low-coverage sequencing data using large reference panels. Nat. Genet. 53, 120–126 (2021).
Schiffels, S. & Wang, K. MSMC and MSMC2: the Multiple Sequentially Markovian Coalescent. Methods Mol. Biol. 2090, 147–166 (2020).
Chen, N. et al. Whole-genome resequencing reveals world-wide ancestry and adaptive introgression events of domesticated cattle in East Asia. Nat. Commun. 9, 2337 (2018).
Purcell, S. et al. PLINK: a tool set for whole-genome association and population-based linkage analyses. Am. J. Hum. Genet. 81, 559–575 (2007).
Paradis, E. & Schliep, K. ape 5.0: an environment for modern phylogenetics and evolutionary analyses in R. Bioinformatics 35, 526–528 (2019).
Meisner, J. & Albrechtsen, A. Inferring population structure and admixture proportions in low-depth NGS data. Genetics 210, 719–731 (2018).
Soraggi, S., Wiuf, C. & Albrechtsen, A. Powerful inference with the D-statistic on low-coverage whole-genome data. G3 8, 551–566 (2018).
Maier, R. et al. On the limits of fitting complex models of population history to f-statistics. eLife 12, e85492 (2023).
Skotte, L., Korneliussen, T. S. & Albrechtsen, A. Estimating individual admixture proportions from next generation sequencing data. Genetics 195, 693–702 (2013).
Kopelman, N. M., Mayzel, J., Jakobsson, M., Rosenberg, N. A. & Mayrose, I. Clumpak: a program for identifying clustering modes and packaging population structure inferences across K. Mol. Ecol. Resour. 15, 1179–1191 (2015).
Evanno, G., Regnaut, S. & Goudet, J. Detecting the number of clusters of individuals using the software STRUCTURE: a simulation study. Mol. Ecol. 14, 2611–2620 (2005).
Pickrell, J. K. & Pritchard, J. K. Inference of population splits and mixtures from genome-wide allele frequency data. PLoS Genet. 8, e1002967 (2012).
Harney, É., Patterson, N., Reich, D. & Wakeley, J. Assessing the performance of qpAdm: a statistical tool for studying population admixture. Genetics 217, iyaa045 (2021).
Haak, W. et al. Massive migration from the steppe was a source for Indo-European languages in Europe. Nature 522, 207–211 (2015).
Lisiecki, L. E. & Raymo, M. E. A Pliocene–Pleistocene stack of 57 globally distributed benthic δ18O records. Paleoceanogr. Paleoclimatol. 20, PA1003 (2005).
Acknowledgements
This work is funded by the European Research Council under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program, grant agreements 885729-AncestralWeave and 295729-CodeX. M.-H.S.S. is supported by the Carlsberg Foundation (Reintegration Fellowship, CF20-0355) and the Independent Research Fund Denmark (International Postdoc, 8020-00005B), which also contributed to the sequencing costs and carbon dating costs of this project; E.R. is supported by the Jan Löfqvist Endowment and Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit and contributed to the sequencing and carbon dating costs of this project; K.G.D. is supported by Science Foundation Ireland (grant number 21/PATH-S/9515/); V.E.M. is supported by a Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Fellowship (GOIPD/2020/605); A.G.-d. and A.V.-G. are supported by Xunta de Galicia (CN 2021/17); M. Sablin is supported by state assignment no. 122031100282-2; A.A.T. is supported by the Russian Science Foundation (‘The World of Ancient Nomads of Inner Asia: Interdisciplinary Studies of Material Culture, Sculptures and Economy’, project no. 22-18-00470); and C.A.M. is supported by the European Council for Research for a Horizon 2020 grant (ASIAPAST, action no. 772957). We thank TrinSeq for sequencing support; L. Cassidy and L. Wright for discussions; R. Verdugo for contributions to figure design; the Margulan Institute of Archaeology Committee of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Kazakhstan for storing, archiving and providing the material from the Roschinskoe site; the Museum of the Institute of Plant and Animal Ecology (Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Ekaterinburg) for providing specimens for sampling; A. Zeeb-Lanz and R. Arbogast for permitting the sampling of bones from Herxheim; R. W. Schmitz for permitting the sampling of bones from Bedburg-Königshoven; and H. Hartnagel for assistance in sampling the Rhine specimens.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
D.G.B. and M.-H.S.S. conceived the project. Laboratory work was done by C.R., M.-H.S.S., V.E.M., A.S., M.P.V., K.G.D., M.M.C., V.M., D.D. A.M. and P.B. C.R. processed and analysed the data with contributions from M.-H.S.S., V.E.M., J.A.M.E. and K.G.D. All other authors gave access to samples, provided archaeological and osteological context and aided in the interpretation of results. The manuscript was written by D.G.B., C.R., M,-H.S.S. and V.E.M., with contributions from all co-authors.
Corresponding authors
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Peer review
Peer review information
Nature thanks the anonymous reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Peer reviewer reports are available.
Additional information
Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Extended data figures and tables
Extended Data Fig. 1 Three genomic groups within European aurochs.
a, Heat map of pairwise IBS distance values between European aurochsen drawn using pheatmap (https://github.com/raivokolde/pheatmap). European aurochs cluster into geographically coherent groups; western Europe, Italy and the Balkans. Genomes from Iberia cluster within the western European group, consistent with the Iberian glacial refugium being a source of postglacial recolonization. The lowest pairwise IBS distances are observed in a tight Scandinavian cluster of five genomes in the top left corner. b, Best-fitting model estimated using AdmixtureGraph allowing m = 2 admixture edges. This infers a closely shared evolutionary history among western European genomes (Iberia, Britain, Germany, Scandinavia). Italians derive from a more basal European source but also have ~12% admixture contribution of a Southwest Asian population. Balkans genomes are modelled as having ~41% Southwest Asian contribution.
Extended Data Fig. 2 MSMC2 cross-population analysis.
MSMC2 was used to perform cross-population analysis to determine the approximate divergence time between four putative postglacial Eurasian populations; European aurochsen, North Asian aurochsen, Southwest Asian aurochsen (represented by the Anatolian Neolithic, Sub1), South Asian Bos namadicus (represented by their descendants, South Asian indicine). The relative cross-coalescence rate (CCR) was computed between all population pairings of the four populations of aurochs and the split time between two populations was estimated as the time interval at the relative CCR of 0.5. Three splits were observed; first European aurochs versus Near Eastern aurochs during the LGM, second European and Southwest Asian/Near Eastern aurochs versus north Asian aurochs during MIS 5, third all Bos primigenius populations versus Bos indicus (proxy for Bos namadicus). The timings of these splits reflect the phylogenetic relationship of the populations.
Extended Data Fig. 3 Summary of analyses timing the divergence of Southwest Asian and European aurochs populations versus North Asian aurochs populations.
The top panel displays the range of estimates observed when X chromosome divergence began based on pseudodiploid X chromosome analysis of 10 pairs of North Asian-Southwest Asian/European samples (Supplementary Information Section 4). The second panel displays the range of split time between Southwest Asian/European aurochsen and North Asian aurochsen estimated by MSMC2 cross-population analysis (Extended Data Fig. 2). The third panel displays the 95% HPD interval of major mtDNA haplogroup divergences associated with Southwest Asian/European aurochsen and North Asian aurochsen splits. The final panel displays the LR04 stack of benthic d18O records89 overlaid with MIS periods21. Interglacial periods (MIS 1, MIS 5e) are coloured red, stadial periods (MIS 2-4, MIS 5b, MIS 5d) are coloured blue and interstadial periods (MIS 5a and 5c) are coloured yellow. All divergence estimates overlap with the final interstadial of MIS 5.
Extended Data Fig. 4 NGSadmix K = 4 composition, mitochondrial haplogroups and 14C dates of 16 Holocene Bos sampled from Asia.
Pleistocene North Asian samples (Tula1, Baikal1, Gyu1) display an unadmixed ancestral profile that stretches from ~41.5 to ~12.2 ka. By contrast, Holocene Asian aurochsen display an admixed ancestral profile and four separate wild maternal lineages, including the European P haplogroup and the Southwest Asian Q. The advent of Central Asian domestic taurine cattle during the Bronze Age presents a different ancestral profile, where animals are modelled mostly with the Southwest Asian ancestral component typical of Bos taurus, although also with minor North Asian and Europe wild components reflecting introgression from local wild herds (Supplementary Information Section 6). Domestic maternal haplotypes (T3) are detected in 4 of 5 Central Asian domesticates.
Extended Data Fig. 5 Unequal Bovini allele sharing in Bos.
We explicitly tested allele sharing of Bos populations (East Asian indicine, n = 3; South Asian indicine, n = 4; North Asia, n = 3; Rhine, n = 2; North Africa wild, n = 1; Neolithic Anatolia, n = 3; Southwest Asia wild, n = 1). with wild Eurasian Bovini (Banteng, n = 4; Gaur, n = 3; Wild Yak, n = 3; Wisent, n = 1) relative to western European aurochs (n = 12) using D (water buffalo (n = 3), Bovini sp.; western Europe, Bos test) using SNPs called on Bovini outgroups. We repeatedly observed significant excess allele sharing between indicine and outgroup Bovini species compared to western European populations. All other Bos primigenius/Bos taurus populations suggest clade integrity, except Pleistocene North Asia which displayed slightly higher allele sharing with Bovini outgroups, but at an order of magnitude lower than that shown by Bos indicus. Error bars depict the standard error of each test multiplied by 3.
Extended Data Fig. 6 Sex bias in domestic introgression.
We explicitly tested allele sharing of Bos populations with aurochsen (n = 15) relative to Neolithic Anatolian cattle (n = 3) with (D (water buffalo (n = 3), aurochs population; Neolithic Anatolia, test sample) using two pseudohaploid datasets (SNPs called on the autosome and SNPs called on the X chromosome). In domestic samples (n = 21) there is a pattern of increased autosomal contribution relative to the X chromosome, suggesting introgression was male biased. This contrasts with the patterns observed in wild populations, where the minor component is more often female-biased. Error bars depict the standard error of each test multiplied by 3.
Extended Data Fig. 7 Maximum likelihood phylogeny constructed from Y chromosomal sequences of 206 ancient and modern Bos samples.
Patterns within the phylogeny reveal that Bos taurus and Bos primigenius Y chromosomal variation were not reciprocally monophyletic. Haplotypes of ancient and modern domestic cattle were found in six distinct clades and in one solitary individual, suggesting that there were at least seven male contributions to Bos taurus.
Supplementary information
Supplementary Information
Supplementary Information sections 1–6 including Supplementary Figs 1–29, Supplementary Tables 1– 5 and Supplementary References – see contents for details.
Supplementary Data
Supplementary Data 1–6 – see Supplementary Information for full descriptions.
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Rossi, C., Sinding, MH.S., Mullin, V.E. et al. The genomic natural history of the aurochs. Nature 635, 136–141 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-08112-6
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Version of record:
Issue date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-08112-6
This article is cited by
-
The applications and potential prospects of paleogenomics in investigating the demographic changes and adaptive evolution of the giant panda
Science China Earth Sciences (2025)
-
The genetic legacy of the wild ancestors of modern cattle
Nature (2024)
