Getting their goat: TCD geneticists discover lineage of wild goat more than 10,000 years old

Geneticists from Trinity College Dublin have discovered the “Taurasian tur” — a previously unknown lineage of wild goats over 10 millennia old.

The animal, which was found with the help of a team of international collaborators, is thought to have survived the last ice age, which stranded their ancestors in the peaks of the Taurus Mountains in Turkey.

It was confirmed following an extensive analysis and genetic screening of bone remains. The research, which was subject to open peer review, has just been published in the journal eLife.

Bone remains were discovered at Direkli Cave near the present-day village of Döngel. The site was used by hunters for roughly three millennia, around 14,000 to 11,000 years ago, as a seasonal camp and may have been inhabited year-round.

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“Among the artefacts found at Direkli Cave were large amounts of bone remains with distinct processing marks, indicating that wild goats were butchered there for consumption,” said Dr Kevin Daly of the TCD School of Genetics and Microbiology, lead author of the study.

It was during genetic screening of these remains that geneticists noticed something unusual — many of the goats carried mitochondrial genomes similar to a different species.

Some of the cave samples were linked to the Caucasus tur, despite Direkli Cave being about 800km from their modern-day habitat.

On inspection of the goats’ nuclear genomes, one sample appeared different from the rest, with indications it might have been a different species.

To better understand this, the Trinity team collaborated with researchers from France’s Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle in Paris to generate genetic data from other species.

“The Last Glacial Maximum, or ice age, may have made many areas inhospitable, forcing these goats to compete with other species,” said Dr Daly.

“The Taurasian tur may have been a leftover group, restricted to the peaks in the Taurus Mountains. Increasing human activity would have placed additional pressure on the Taurasian tur, with hunting evidenced at Direkli Cave.

“While we don’t know exactly when or how this goat lineage became extinct, additional genomic surveys in the region might show that their genomes live on in present-day wild goats.”