Use of the DNA in the study of ancient livestock populations in a location of central Italy
Author(s)
Gabbianelli, Federica
Date Issued
February 10, 2011
Type
Doctoral Thesis
Abstract
The study of ancient DNA (aDNA) is a recent subject in continuous
evolution. It is crucial in evolutionary and population studies and it helps the
historical investigations. aDNA is difficult to analyse because of its low recovery
rate and its strong degradation to small fragments, and also for the likely
contamination occurring during molecular work. For these reasons, stringent
standards for the authentication of ancient DNA must be applied.
The study focused on livestock remains excavated in Ferento, a site near
Viterbo (central Italy). 13 cattle remains, three Roman (~2100BP) and nine
medieval (~1000BP) bones and 15 ovine medieval bones and teeth, recovered
from five different excavations areas, were collected and analyzed. Four
extraction protocols were tested in order to identify the method giving best results
in term of yield and purity.
In bovine samples, nuclear genes were investigated i) to retrieve information
questions about phenotypic characteristics of the samples impossible to obtain
from fossil material, as in the case of three coat color genes (MC1R, TYR and
TYRP1), and ii) to help in authenticating data as well as retrieving information of
the breeding purposes, as in the case of sex related genes (TSPY, ZFX/ZFY),
analyzed to establish the sex of the individuals sometimes impossible to ascertain
by morphometric analysis.
Ovine ancient samples were compared to modern European and Middle Eastern
sheep through the amplification and sequencing of small portions of the D-loop
region.
Preliminary data suggest that Ferento sheep belong to two divergent lineages:
group A (a mixture of animals coming from the Middle East, Asia and Europe)
and group B (dominated by animals localized to Europe).
This study was useful also to distinguish sheep (Ovis aries) and goat (Capra
hircus) remains with an uncertain morphometric attribution thanks to the highly
polymorphic mitochondrial region examined.
Additional information
Dottorato in Ecologia e gestione delle risorse biologiche
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