Close genetic relationship of early neolithic cattle from Ziegelberg (Freising, Germany) with modern breeds

In 2003 a variety of crafts and bone specimens were found during excavations of a Neolithic settlement near Freising, the southernmost site of the Linear Pottery Culture in Bavaria. Six cattle bones were used to extract ancient DNA (aDNA). Applying nested and touchdown PCR, two fragments of the mitochondrial (mt) DNA control region could be amplified from specimen 533/III which yielded a total of 230 base pairs (bp). The sequence was compared with the homologous part of 40 extant breeds of Bos taurus and B. indicus and related species, such as Banteng (B. javanicus), Gaur (B. gaurus), the European bison (Bison bonasus) and the aurochs (B. primigenius). A neighbour joining tree was constructed based on the appropriate model of sequence evolution. The control region sequence of the 533/III cattle bone, whose age was determined by radiocarbon dating, clusters close to the extant European breeds, but distinctly apart from the basal aurochs and far distant from the B. indicus group. The archaeological and genetic analyses of Bos Ziegelberg demonstrate that domesticated cattle reached southern Bavaria at least 7000 years ago.