Science Daily twists the archaeological order of things around a little. Humans came out of Africa, humans in Africa have domesticated cattle for thousands of years, the easy assumption is that cattle were first domesticated in Africa and kind of moved out with us into the Fertile Crescent, where they helped us settle down and build the first cities. Fresh milk to build bricks! But no – geneticists have proved that cattle came out of Mesopotamia and went out of the “cradle of civilization” and moved back to Africa:
Lead researcher Jared Decker, an assistant professor of animal science in the MU College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources, says the genetics of these African cattle breeds are similar to those of cattle first domesticated in the Middle East nearly 10,000 years ago, proving that those cattle were brought to Africa as farmers migrated south. Those cattle then interbred with wild cattle, or aurochs, which were native to the region, and changed their genetic makeup enough to confuse geneticists.
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“In many ways, the history of cattle genetics mirrors human history,” Decker said. “In the case of African cattle, anthropologists and geneticists used to suspect that domesticated African cattle were native to the continent, when in fact, they were brought by migrating peoples thousands of years ago. By better understanding the history of the animals we domesticate, we can better understand ourselves.”