Bronze Age meat industry: ancient mitochondrial DNA analyses of pig bones from the prehistoric salt mines of Hallstatt (Austria).

ABSTRACT:

Objective

In the Bronze Age Hallstatt metropolis ('Salzkammergut' region, Upper Austria), salt richness enabled the preservation of pork meat to sustain people's livelihood suggesting an organized meat production industry on a yearly basis of hundreds of pigs. To pattern the geographic and temporal framework of the early management of pig populations in the surrounding areas of Hallstatt, we want to gain insights into the phylogeographic network based on DNA sequence variation among modern pigs, wild boars and prehistoric (likely) domestic pigs.

Results

In this pilot study, we successfully adapted ancient DNA extraction and sequencing approaches for the analysis of mitochondrial DNA sequence variation in ten prehistoric porcine teeth specimens. Minimum-spanning network analy

SUBMITTER: Hammer SE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5899323 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature