Paleogenomics Reveals a Loss of Bovine Lineages in Mid-latitude Asia Over the Last 200,000 Years

TL;DR

Ancient DNA from bovine remains in Siberia reveals a lost lineage related to yaks that once thrived in the Altai mountains for 200,000 years.

Contribution

Discovery of a previously unknown yak-like mitochondrial lineage (yak X) in Pleistocene bovines from the Altai region.

Findings

Bovines with yak-like mitogenomes were common in the Altai mountains alongside bison and aurochs.

The yak X lineage is a sister group to modern yak diversity and persisted for 200,000 years.

The Altai region was a hotspot for bovine diversity, similar to its role in hominin diversity.

Abstract

Bovines have a complex yet poorly understood evolutionary history that is characterized by admixture and diversity loss during the Late Pleistocene. Unraveling this history is challenging in part because deep-time and geographically widespread genetic data are currently limited. In mid-latitude Asia, Denisova Cave, located in the Altai, Siberia, and nearby paleontological sites have yielded a large collection of remains spanning the Middle to Late Pleistocene, many of which are identifiable as bovines via morphology or paleoproteomics. In this study, we screened these bovine bones for ancient DNA and generated mitogenomes, to refine knowledge of Pleistocene bovine diversity in the region. We found that bovines carrying a yak-like mitogenome were common residents of the Altai mountains, along with bison belonging to the clade X mitochondrial lineage and, more rarely, aurochs. The yak-like mitochondrial lineage identified in this study represents a previously unknown lineage sister to present-day yak mitogenome diversity. This yak-like mitochondrial lineage, termed yak X, was identified at several sites, and survived in mid-latitude Asia across climatic transitions for around 200,000 years. Our findings suggest that all three bovine taxa harbored diversity no longer present in extant populations, thus mirroring archaic hominin findings at Denisova Cave. The Altai mountains therefore appear to have been a hotspot of both bovine and hominin diversity.

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