Pigs Domesticated from Wild Boars in South China 8,000 Years Ago
- A study led by Dartmouth College, published on June 9 in a leading scientific journal, reveals that pigs were first domesticated roughly 8,000 years ago in the Lower Yangtze River area of southern China.
- Researchers analyzed dental calculus from 32 pig molars excavated at Jingtoushan and Kuahuqiao, revealing that wild boars lived close to humans and ate human food and waste, indicating early domestication stages.
- The analysis found starches from cooked rice, yams, tubers, acorns, and wild grasses, and parasite eggs, highlighting a complex relationship between humans and pigs that affected ancient economies and disease transmission.
- Lead author Jiajing Wang noted that as humans began establishing permanent communities, certain wild boars, displaying less fear and aggression, were drawn to these areas due to the availability of food waste, supporting a domestication process grounded in behavioral adaptation consistent with the commensal pathway model.
- These results recast early pig domestication as a prolonged and complex development influenced by environmental factors and ongoing interactions between humans and wild boars, providing the earliest molecular proof of domestication in East Asia.
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Origin and dispersal of early domestic pigs in northern China
It is widely accepted that modern pigs were domesticated independently at least twice, and Chinese native pigs are deemed as direct descendants of the first domesticated pigs in the corresponding domestication centers. By analyzing mitochondrial DNA sequences of an extensive sample set spanning 10,000 years, we find that the earliest pigs from the middle Yellow River region already carried the maternal lineages that are dominant in both younger …
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