Donkey Domestication

choi

(1) Todd ET et al, The genomic history and global expansion of domestic donkeys. Science, 377: 1172 (Sept 8, 2022).
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abo3503
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36074859/

My comment:
(a) On Aug 27, 2021 I published a posting in this website, titled "Horse and Xiongnu" and introduced a commentary (on a scientific report):
Andrew Curry, How the Horse Powered Human Prehistory; Wide-ranging warriors made Mongolian empire a melting pot, sweeping gene study shows. Science (magazine), Nov 6, 2020, at page 646.
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/ ... -multiethnic-empire

(That remains true.) At the time, I was going to make a series of postings -- I finished drafts -- on a book published two years earlier:
David Reich, Who We Are and How We Got Here; Ancient DNA and the new science of the human past. Oxford Univ Press, 2019.

I got cold feet and did not put the finishing touch on the project, as I developed doubt about the book. Many aspects of the book remains correct, but the book speculated that the farmers from Anatolia (which constitutes the principal part of the present-day Turkey) swept north to the present-day Ukraine and and then westward across European continent (which is still correct) with the aid of houses, as conquerors. However, horses DNA in that era of Europe are shown (after the publication of the book) to be divergent -- if farmers had used horses, they and their offspring (plural of offspring is offspring or offsprings) would keep those horses and offspring while they spread. See
Librado P et al, The Origins and Spread of Domestic Horses from the Western Eurasian steppes. Nature, 598: 634 (Oct 20, 2021)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-04018-9
The paper defined Western Eurasian steppes as "steppes of Western Eurasia and Central Asia" as demonstrated in Fig 1a.

Indeed about a decade before the book was published, an archaeologist had proposed Anatolia farmers used cattle, with some -- limited, archaeological (including linguistic among various languages), not genetic -- evidence. The book did not acknowledge the theory.

Now, learning the Science paper for the first time, I think the donkey may be a candidate, too.
(b)
(i) Science magazine locks article (1) behind paywall, which is available in American government's website (Pubmed).
(ii) When article (1) was published on paper (after being published electronically), the following commentary was published on the Science magazine website, but not on the magazine in paper form.
Pennisi Elizabeth, From a Single Domestication, Donkeys Helped Build Empires Around the World. Science.Org, Sept 8, 2022.
https://www.science.org/content/ ... mpires-around-world

She also made the same commentary earlier based on a different paper which is now deemed incorrect – about how many places independently domesticated donkey. This is discussed in NYT. See (2).
Pennisi Elizabeth, Heehaw History; Genetic study finds that humans have twice domesticated donkeys. Science.org, June 17, 2004.
https://www.science.org/content/article/heehaw-history

You read either Pennisi's  2002 commentary or the NYT news report in (2).



(2) Franz Lidz, It's worth Braying About; In a new study, genetics and archaeology revealed a donkey family tree at long last. New York Times, Mar 14, 2023, at page D1 (every Tuesday, section D is ScienceTimes).
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/ ... cs-archaeology.html