Camels, Copper and Donkeys in the Early Iron Age of the Southern Levant: Timna Revisited

Grigson, Caroline

doi:10.1179/175638012x13285409187919

Cited by 30 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…This finding implies that both haplogroups (H A and H B ) were already present in the Levantine herds of the fourth to seventh century CE. Different estimates of the time to the most recent common ancestor (TMRCA) of H A and H B [>5,700 y ago (ya)] (SI Appendix, Table S6) predate the assumed period of domestication during the end of the second or beginning of the first millennium BCE (7,8,12,14), suggesting that at least two, but more likely a minimum of six wild maternal lineages were captured during the process of domestication. The eight ancient wild dromedary samples from four different locations in the UAE presented at least six different mitochondrial haplotypes (Fig.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The domestication of the dromedary likely happened in the late second millennium BCE as deduced from: (i) diachronic osteometric analysis illustrating a significant decrease in bone size in remains dating to the very end of the second or beginning of the first millennium BCE (ca. 1,100-800 BCE) (7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12); (ii) changes in the cultural context, i.e., increased representation of dromedary bones in settlement refuse vs. large concentrations in sites without architecture, e.g., site of Al-Sufouh, United Arab Emirates (UAE); and (iii) figurines and representations of indubitably domesticated dromedaries (13). Based on the available zooarchaeological records, it is assumed that the wild one-humped camel did not survive the start of the CE (8,9,12,14), in contrast to the wild ancestors of most other livestock species (15,16).…”

Section: Significancementioning

confidence: 99%

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Ancient and modern DNA reveal dynamics of domestication and cross-continental dispersal of the dromedary

Almathen

Charruau

Mohandesan

et al. 2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

117

135

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Dromedaries have been fundamental to the development of human societies in arid landscapes and for long-distance trade across hostile hot terrains for 3,000 y. Today they continue to be an important livestock resource in marginal agro-ecological zones. However, the history of dromedary domestication and the influence of ancient trading networks on their genetic structure have remained elusive. We combined ancient DNA sequences of wild and early-domesticated dromedary samples from arid regions with nuclear microsatellite and mitochondrial genotype information from 1,083 extant animals collected across the species' range. We observe little phylogeographic signal in the modern population, indicative of extensive gene flow and virtually affecting all regions except East Africa, where dromedary populations have remained relatively isolated. In agreement with archaeological findings, we identify wild dromedaries from the southeast Arabian Peninsula among the founders of the domestic dromedary gene pool. Approximate Bayesian computations further support the "restocking from the wild" hypothesis, with an initial domestication followed by introgression from individuals from wild, now-extinct populations. Compared with other livestock, which show a long history of gene flow with their wild ancestors, we find a high initial diversity relative to the native distribution of the wild ancestor on the Arabian Peninsula and to the brief coexistence of early-domesticated and wild individuals. This study also demonstrates the potential to retrieve ancient DNA sequences from osseous remains excavated in hot and dry desert environments.anthropogenic admixture | Camelus dromedarius | demographic history | paleogenetics | wild dromedary T he dromedary (Camelus dromedarius) is one of the largest domestic ungulates and one of the most recent additions to livestock. Known as the "ship of the desert" (1), it enabled the transportation of people and valuable goods (e.g., salt, incense, spices) over long distances connecting Arabia, the Near East, and North Africa. This multipurpose animal has outperformed all other domestic mammals, including the donkey, in arid environments and continues to provide basic commodities to millions of people inhabiting marginal agro-ecological zones. In the current context of advancing desertification and global climate change, there is renewed interest in the biology and production traits of the species (2), with the first annotated genome drafts having been recently released (3, 4). SignificanceThe dromedary is one of the largest domesticates, sustainably used in arid and hostile environments. It provides food and transport to millions of people in marginal agricultural areas. We show how important long-distance and back-and-forth movements in ancient caravan routes shaped the species' genetic diversity. Using a global sample set and ancient mitochondrial DNA analyses, we describe the population structure in modern dromedaries and their wild extinct ancestors. Phylogenetic analyses of ancient and modern dro...

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Significancementioning

confidence: 99%

Ancient and modern DNA reveal dynamics of domestication and cross-continental dispersal of the dromedary

Almathen

Charruau

Mohandesan

et al. 2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

117

135

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Based on osteological and pictorial evidence as well as cultural context, the domestication of dromedaries probably happened in the late second millennium (1100-1800) BCE (Uerpmann & Uerpmann 2002;von den Driesch & Obermaier 2007;Iamoni 2009and Grigson 2012Uerpmann & Uerpman 2012;Magee 2015). Mitochondrial, nuclear and ancient DNA analyses of a global dataset of modern individuals and up to 7000-year-old wild dromedary samples revealed shared ancestry between wild dromedaries from the southeast coast of the Arabian Peninsula and modern animals ( Fig.…”

Section: Domestication Of Dromedariesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Old World camels in a modern world – a balancing act between conservation and genetic improvement

Burger¹,

Ciani

Faye

2019

Animal Genetics

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Old World camels have served humans in cross-continental caravans, transporting people and goods, connecting different cultures and providing milk, meat, wool and draught since their domestication around 3000-6000 years ago. In a world of modern transport and fast connectivity, these beasts of burden seem to be out-dated. However, a growing demand for sustainable milk and meat production, especially in countries affected by climate change and increasing desertification, brings dromedaries (Camelus dromedarius) and Bactrian camels (Camelus bactrianus) back onstage and into the focus of animal breeders and scientists. In this review on the molecular genetics of these economically important species we give an overview about the evolutionary history, domestication and dispersal of Old World camels, whereas highlighting the need for conservation of wild two-humped camels (Camelus ferus) as an evolutionarily unique and highly endangered species. We provide cutting-edge information on the current molecular resources and on-going sequencing projects. We cannot emphasise enough the importance of balancing the need for improving camel production traits with maintaining the genetic diversity in two domestic species with specific physiological adaptation to a desert environment.

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“…Dromedaries are widespread throughout northern and eastern Africa, the Arabian Peninsula and southwest Asia, and a large feral population exists in Australia (Köhler‐Rollefson ; Spencer & Woolnough ). Throughout their range, dromedaries are bred for a multitude of purposes including meat, milk production, transportation, wool and sport (Bulliet ; Grigson ). Archaeozoological evidence suggests that the domestication of dromedaries took place between 3000 and 4000 years ago in the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula (Uerpmann & Uerpmann ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The de novo genome assembly and annotation of a female domestic dromedary of North African origin

Fitak

Mohandesan

Corander

et al. 2015

Molecular Ecology Resources

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The single‐humped dromedary (Camelus dromedarius) is the most numerous and widespread of domestic camel species and is a significant source of meat, milk, wool, transportation and sport for millions of people. Dromedaries are particularly well adapted to hot, desert conditions and harbour a variety of biological and physiological characteristics with evolutionary, economic and medical importance. To understand the genetic basis of these traits, an extensive resource of genomic variation is required. In this study, we assembled at 65× coverage, a 2.06 Gb draft genome of a female dromedary whose ancestry can be traced to an isolated population from the Canary Islands. We annotated 21 167 protein‐coding genes and estimated ~33.7% of the genome to be repetitive. A comparison with the recently published draft genome of an Arabian dromedary resulted in 1.91 Gb of aligned sequence with a divergence of 0.095%. An evaluation of our genome with the reference revealed that our assembly contains more error‐free bases (91.2%) and fewer scaffolding errors. We identified ~1.4 million single‐nucleotide polymorphisms with a mean density of 0.71 × 10−3 per base. An analysis of demographic history indicated that changes in effective population size corresponded with recent glacial epochs. Our de novo assembly provides a useful resource of genomic variation for future studies of the camel's adaptations to arid environments and economically important traits. Furthermore, these results suggest that draft genome assemblies constructed with only two differently sized sequencing libraries can be comparable to those sequenced using additional library sizes, highlighting that additional resources might be better placed in technologies alternative to short‐read sequencing to physically anchor scaffolds to genome maps.

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Camels, Copper and Donkeys in the Early Iron Age of the Southern Levant: Timna Revisited

Cited by 30 publications

References 30 publications

Ancient and modern DNA reveal dynamics of domestication and cross-continental dispersal of the dromedary

Ancient and modern DNA reveal dynamics of domestication and cross-continental dispersal of the dromedary

Old World camels in a modern world – a balancing act between conservation and genetic improvement

The de novo genome assembly and annotation of a female domestic dromedary of North African origin

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