New evidence suggests cattle domestication started in China 10,000 years ago, at about the same time as the Near East.
Researchers believed they had tracked cattle domestication across Asia and throughout history; they thought cattle domestication started in the Near East 10,000 years ago, which led to the rise of the Taurine (humpless) cattle, a University of York news release reported.
Researchers know that 2,000 years later people from Southern Asia began managing zebu (humped) cattle, but a newly-discovered jawbone may have changed what scientists thought they knew about cattle development on the continent.
"The specimen is unique and suggests that, similar to other species such as pigs and dogs, cattle domestication was probably also a complex process rather than a sudden event," study co-leader Professor Michi Hofreiter of the Department of Biology at the University of York, said.
Researchers found a lower jaw bone of a 10,660-year-old cow species while excavating in China's north-east. The pattern of wear on the specimen's molars suggested the animal had been under human management.
Researchers performed a DNA analysis on the ancient jaw and found it belonged to a separate lineage than the early domesticated cattle on the Near East and South Asia.
The finding suggests cattle domestication was taking place in north-eastern China around the same time it was happening in the Near East 10,000 years ago.
"This indicates that humans may have started domesticating cows in more regions around the world than was previously believed," the news release stated.
The unique wear in the jaw and genetic signatures is believed to show that cattle domestication was happening in a time and place researchers had once believed to be impossible.
"This is a really exciting example of the power of multi-disciplinary research; the wear pattern on the lower jaw itself is already really interesting, and together with the carbon dating and ancient DNA we have been able to place it in an even bigger picture of early cattle management," Johanna Paijmans, the PhD student at York who performed the DNA analysis, said.
The findings were published in the journal Nature Communications.
