GENETICS AND DOMESTIC CATTLE ORIGINS

Genetics has the potential to provide a novel layer of information per taining to the origins and relationships of domestic cattle. While it is important not to overstate the power of archeological inference fro m genetic data, some previously widespread conjectures are inevitably contradicted with the addition of new information. Conjectures regardi ng domesticated cattle that fall into this category include a single d omestication event with the development of Bos indicus breeds from ear lier Bos taurus domesticates; the domestication of a third type of cat tle in Africa having an intermediate morphology between the two taxa; and the special status of the Jersey breed as a European type with som e exotic influences. In reality, a wide-ranging survey of the genetic variation of modern cattle reveals that they all derive from either ze bu or taurine progenitors or are hybrids of the two. The quantitative divergence between Bos indicus and Bos taurus strongly supports a pred omestic separation; that between African and European taurines also su ggests genetic input from native aurochsen populations on each contine nt. Patterns of genetic variants assayed from paternally, maternally, and biparentally inherited genetic systems reveal that extensive hybri dization of the two subspecies is part of the ancestry of Northern Ind ian, peripheral European, and almost all African cattle breeds. in Afr ica, which is the most extensive hybrid zone, the sexual asymmetry of the process of zebu introgression into native taurine breeds is striki ngly evident.