Early medieval cattle remains from a Scandinavian settlement in Dublin: Genetic analysis and comparison with extant breeds

A panel of cattle bones excavated from the 1000-year-old Viking Fishamble S treet site in Dublin was assessed for the presence of surviving mitochondri al DNA (mtDNA). Eleven of these bones gave amplifiable mtDNA and a portion of the hypervariable control region was determined for each specimen. A com parative analysis was performed with control region sequences from five ext ant Nordic and Irish cattle breeds. The medieval population displayed simil ar levels of mtDNA diversity to modern European breeds. However, a number o f novel mtDNA haplotypes were also detected in these bone samples. In addit ion, the presence of a putative ancestral sequence at high frequency in the medieval population supports an early post-domestication expansion of catt le in Europe.