PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Ancient DNA analyses bring to life the 11,000-year intertwined genomic history of sheep and humans

Ancient DNA analyses bring to life the 11,000-year intertwined genomic history of sheep and humans
2025-01-30
(Press-News.org)

Sheep have been intertwined with human livelihoods for over 11,000 years. As well as meat, their domestication led to humans being nourished by their protein-rich milk and clothed by warm, water-resistant fabrics made from their wool. 

Now, an international and interdisciplinary team of researchers led by geneticists from Trinity College Dublin and zooarchaeologists from LMU Munich and the Bavarian State Collections of Natural History (SNSB) has deciphered the prehistoric cultural trajectory of this species by analysing 118 genomes recovered from archaeological bones dating across 12 millennia and stretching from Mongolia to Ireland. 

The earliest sheep-herding village in the sample, Aşıklı Höyük in central Türkiye, has genomes that seem ancestral to later populations in the wider region, confirming an origin in captures of wild mouflon over 11,000 years ago in the western part of the northern Fertile Crescent.

By 8,000 years ago, in the earliest European sheep populations, the team found evidence that farmers were deliberately selecting their flocks – in particular for the genes coding for coat colour.  Along with a similar signal in goats, this is the earliest evidence for human moulding of another animal’s biology and shows that early herders, like today’s farmers, were interested in the beautiful and unusual in their animals.

Specifically, the main gene the team found evidence of selection near was one known as “KIT”, which is associated with white coat colour in a range of livestock.

Also by that time, the earliest domestic sheep genomes from Europe and further east in Iran and Central Asia had diverged from each other. However, this separation did not last as people translocated sheep from eastern populations to the west.  

First, in parallel with human cultural influences spreading out from the early cities of Mesopotamia we see sheep genomes moving west within the Fertile Crescent around 7,000 years ago.

Second, the rise of pastoralist peoples in the Eurasian steppes and their westward spread some 5,000 years ago profoundly transformed ancestral European human populations and their culture. This process changed the makeup of human populations, for example, altering the ancestry of British peoples by around 90%, and introduced the Indo-European language ancestor of the tongues spoken across the continent today.

From the dataset used in this study it now seems that this massive migration was fuelled by sheep herding and exploitation of lifetime products, including milk and probably cheese, as it is around the same time that sheep ancestries are also changed. Consequently, by the Bronze Age, herds had about half their ancestry from a source in the Eurasian steppe.

Dr Kevin Daly, Ad Astra Assistant Professor at UCD School of Agriculture and Food Science and an Adjunct Assistant Professor in Trinity’s School of Genetics and Microbiology, is the first author on the research article that has just been published in leading international journal Science. He said: “One of our most striking discoveries was a major prehistoric sheep migration from the Eurasian steppes into Europe during the Bronze Age. This parallels what we know about human migrations during the same period, suggesting that when people moved, they brought their flocks with them.”

Dan Bradley, leader of the research and Professor of Population Genetics in Trinity’s School of Genetics and Microbiology, said: “This research demonstrates how the relationship between humans and sheep has evolved over millennia. From the early days of domestication through to the development of wool as a crucial textile resource, sheep have played a vital role in human cultural and economic development.”

Joris Peters, co-corresponding author, Professor of Paleoanatomy, Domestication Research and the History of Veterinary Medicine at LMU Munich and Director of the State Collection for Paleoanatomy Munich (SNSB-SPM), said: “Our study, while convincingly reconciling morphological and genomic evidence of the geographic origin of domestic sheep, clearly illustrates that further transdisciplinary research is needed to clarify the patterns of dispersal and selection of the many landraces occurring today in Eurasia and Africa.”

END


[Attachments] See images for this press release:
Ancient DNA analyses bring to life the 11,000-year intertwined genomic history of sheep and humans Ancient DNA analyses bring to life the 11,000-year intertwined genomic history of sheep and humans 2 Ancient DNA analyses bring to life the 11,000-year intertwined genomic history of sheep and humans 3

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Climate change increases risk of successive natural hazards in the Himalayas

Climate change increases risk of successive natural hazards in the Himalayas
2025-01-30
An international study has investigated the causes and impacts of the devastating flood disaster in the Himalayas in October 2023, which destroyed large areas along and surrounding the Teesta River in Sikkim, India. A research team from nine countries, including researchers from the University of Zurich (UZH), analyzed the complex drivers, causes and consequences of this flood cascade and reconstructed the exact time of its onset.  Massive damage caused by tsunami wave  On 3 October 2023, approximately 14.7 million cubic meters of frozen ...

From bowling balls to hip joints: Chemists create recyclable alternative to durable plastics

2025-01-30
ITHACA, N.Y. – Cornell University researchers have developed a recyclable alternative to a durable class of plastics used for items like car tires, replacement hip joints and bowling balls. Known as thermosets, this type of plastic boasts a “crosslinked polymer” chemical structure that guarantees longevity but has also made these petrochemical-based materials – which comprise 15%-20% of all polymers produced – impossible to recycle. “Currently, zero percent of the world’s thermoset materials are recycled – they’re either incinerated ...

Promoting cacao production without sacrificing biodiversity

Promoting cacao production without sacrificing biodiversity
2025-01-30
The productivity of cacao trees decreases with time, forcing farmers to renew their plantations by either cutting down the old trees or establishing a new crop elsewhere. Frequently, new plantations are established in areas of the forest that are thinned out to accommodate new, young cacao trees. However, this comes with high economic and ecological costs. An alternative approach is to graft highly productive and native cultivars onto the existing older cacao trees. An international team led by scientists of the University of Göttingen found that cacao grafting is a useful measure to rejuvenate cacao plants, increasing their yield and profits with minimal impact on biodiversity. The ...

New £2 million project to save UK from food shortages

2025-01-30
Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) is leading a new £2 million initiative to help prevent food shortages that could potentially trigger civil unrest in the UK. The project, called Backcasting to Increase Food System Resilience in the UK, is being led by experts from Anglia Ruskin’s Global Sustainability Institute and has received £2,048,461 in funding from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). Building on recent research that found that over 40% of food experts believe widespread civil unrest linked to food shortages, such as demonstrations and violent looting, is possible or likely in the UK within the next 10 ...

SCAI mourns Frank J. Hildner, MD, FSCAI: A founder and leader

SCAI mourns Frank J. Hildner, MD, FSCAI: A founder and leader
2025-01-30
The Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions (SCAI) and the interventional cardiology community mourn the passing of Frank J. Hildner, MD, FSCAI, a founding member and past president (1989-90) of SCAI. “Dr. Frank Hildner laid the foundation for SCAI’s growth and success. His visionary leadership helped guide SCAI through its formative years, ensuring it would become the trusted home for interventional cardiology. We are deeply grateful for his contributions and will continue to honor his legacy,” said SCAI President James B. Hermiller, MD, MSCAI. Recognizing the need for a dedicated platform for interventional cardiologists, Dr. ...

New diagnostic tool will help LIGO hunt gravitational waves

2025-01-30
RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- Finding patterns and reducing noise in large, complex datasets generated by the gravitational wave-detecting LIGO facility just got easier, thanks to the work of scientists at the University of California, Riverside.  The UCR researchers presented a paper at a recent IEEE big-data workshop, demonstrating a new, unsupervised machine learning approach to find new patterns in the auxiliary channel data of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, or LIGO. The ...

Social entrepreneurs honored for lifesaving innovations

2025-01-30
DALLAS, Jan. 30, 2025 – An organization that developed a health monitor to continuously track blood oxygen levels and one that launched a digital health platform to provide peer support to people recovering from addiction are the recipients of the 2025 Impact with Heart awards from the American Heart Association. The Association, a global force changing the future of health for all, annually recognizes leaders in innovative entrepreneurship that supports equitable health outcomes. According to the just released American Heart Association 2025 Heart Disease & Stroke Statistics report, heart disease continues ...

Aspects of marriage counseling may hold the key to depolarizing, unifying the country, study finds

Aspects of marriage counseling may hold the key to depolarizing, unifying the country, study finds
2025-01-30
Research has shown that polarization undermines democracy by driving citizens to prioritize partisan preferences over democratic principles, encourages democratic gridlock and threatens democratic attitudes and norms, such as tolerance for opposition. Today, Americans are grappling with deep political divides, often seeing those on the other side as untrustworthy, unpatriotic and misinformed — a rift that threatens democracy. Could marriage counseling hold the key to a more unified country? A recent study, published in Political Behavior and co-authored by Laura Gamboa, an assistant professor of democracy and global affairs at the Keough ...

With $2 million in new funding, Montana State research lab continues explorations into viruses and honeybee health

2025-01-30
BOZEMAN – With the help of two major grants from the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, a team in Montana State University’s College of Agriculture is furthering investigations of honeybee antiviral defense mechanisms with the goal of developing strategies to reduce honeybee colony deaths. According to Michelle Flenniken, a professor in MSU’s Department of Plant Sciences and Plant Pathology and co-director of the university’s Pollinator Health Center, annual honeybee colony losses have averaged roughly 38% in the ...

Scientists chip away at potato storage problems

2025-01-30
They’re one of the UK’s most loved staples, providing around half of our carbohydrate intake as a nation and supporting over 20,000 farm, transport and manufacturing jobs. Now, new research is focusing on ensuring reliable supplies of the potato all year round with a project that focuses on potato dormancy and extending storage life. To achieve year-round supplies in the UK, around 1.5 million tonnes of potatoes are kept in cold stores for up to eight months to prevent sprouting. However, following the withdrawal of a chemical that ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Engineers uncover why tiny particles form clusters in turbulent air

GLP-1RA drugs dramatically reduce death and cardiovascular risk in psoriasis patients

Psoriasis linked to increased risk of vision-threatening eye disease, study finds

Reprogramming obesity: New drug from Italian biotech aims to treat the underlying causes of obesity

Type 2 diabetes may accelerate development of multiple chronic diseases, particularly in the early stages, UK Biobank study suggests

Resistance training may improve nerve health, slow aging process, study shows

Common and inexpensive medicine halves the risk of recurrence in patients with colorectal cancer

SwRI-built instruments to monitor, provide advanced warning of space weather events

Breakthrough advances sodium-based battery design

New targeted radiation therapy shows near-complete response in rare sarcoma patients

Does physical frailty contribute to dementia?

Soccer headers and brain health: Study finds changes within folds of the brain

Decoding plants’ language of light

UNC Greensboro study finds ticks carrying Lyme disease moving into western NC

New implant restores blood pressure balance after spinal cord injury

New York City's medical specialist advantage may be an illusion, new NYU Tandon research shows

Could a local anesthetic that doesn’t impair motor function be within reach?

1 in 8 Italian cetacean strandings show evidence of fishery interactions, with bottlenose and striped dolphins most commonly affected, according to analysis across four decades of data and more than 5

In the wild, chimpanzees likely ingest the equivalent of several alcoholic drinks every day

Warming of 2°C intensifies Arctic carbon sink but weakens Alpine sink, study finds

Bronze and Iron Age cultures in the Middle East were committed to wine production

Indian adolescents are mostly starting their periods at an earlier age than 25 years ago

Temporary medical centers in Gaza known as "Medical Points" (MPs) treat an average of 117 people daily with only about 7 staff per MP

Rates of alcohol-induced deaths among the general population nearly doubled from 1999 to 2024

PLOS One study: In adolescent lab animals exposed to cocaine, High-Intensity Interval Training boosts aversion to the drug

Scientists identify four ways our bodies respond to COVID-19 vaccines

Stronger together: A new fusion protein boosts cancer immunotherapy

Hidden brain waves as triggers for post-seizure wandering

Music training can help the brain focus

Researcher develop the first hydride ion prototype battery

[Press-News.org] Ancient DNA analyses bring to life the 11,000-year intertwined genomic history of sheep and humans