La domesticazione di specie antropocore: analisi della variabilità genetica nei bovini italiani antichi

The domestication of grazing species is a fundamental part of the neolithization, the formation of modern productive society. The species that has aroused more interest in the scientific world , both for its particular morpho - ethological behaviour, both for the importance it has played in our understanding of the spread of agriculture and livestock in Europe , is definitely the domestic ox , Bos taurus ( Harris , 1996) . In recent years, the domestication of cattle has been the subject of multidisciplinary studies that have developed a point of connection between archeology and genetics (Catalano et al. , 2007). The socio-cultural changes produced by the advent and spread of the earliest forms of pastoralism, documented by archaeological studies are completed through a molecular genetic approach. Recent studies (Troy et al. , 2001; Bradley 2006) , based on comparison of mitochondrial sequences from a large representative sample of t he different breeds of cattle , have identified the region of the Fertile Crescent the center of origin of all variants present today in Europe , thus confirming the hypothesis suggested in the past by numerous archeological findings (Diamond et al. , 2002). Some authors (Epstein, 1971) argue , however, that the wide spread of the wild ox in the forest areas of Europe does not exclude the possibility of its independent domestication in these regions. Basing on these assumptions and on data that in recent years have revealed a clear genetic discontinuity in Europe between the ancestral species and modern races (Bollongino et al. , 2006; Edwards et al. , 2007) , we performed analyzes on Italian cattle (post- domestication Neolithic period). Aims of project were: - analyze the "gap" between genotypic cattle, going to cover , with the comparison between samples of the Upper Paleolithic and Neolithic, Italians and Europeans, the post- domestication (Neolithic and Bronze Age); - compare the data obtained from a large number of modern cattle to understand if the current populations derive from the effects of local or imported from the domestication of Neolithic populations (farmers / breeders); All this in order to add useful information about the process of domestication of cattle breeds in Italy and in Europe. The study haplotype T3 that characterize the Neolithic Bos taurus samples of this thesis was found in Europe in samples dated in a pre-domestication period, and is the most frequent haplogroup in modern samples, suggesting that there may have been two events of domestication: a local one in Europe (in particular in Italy) and another in the Near East regardless of Neolithic migration.