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The origins of the domestics goats 

 

It is necessary a general review of the taxonomical classification for understanding the origins of the domestic goats: 

  • Order: Artiodactyla (Artiodactyls are paraxonic, that is, the plane of symmetry of each foot passes between the third and fourth digits. In all species the number of digits is reduced at least by the loss of the first digit, and the second and fifth digits are small in many. The third and fourth digits, however, remain large and bear weight in all artiodactyls. This pattern has earned them their name, Artiodactyla, which means "even-toed". To this order belong: Suidae, Tayassuidae, Hippopotamidae,  Camelidae, Tragulidae, Giraffidae, Moschidae, Cervidae,  Antilocapridae, Bovidae .

  • Family: Bovidae  All bovid have horns on their frontals. The skulls of members of this family lack sagittal crests. A postorbital bar defines the rear of the orbit. The lacrimal canals of bovids have a single opening, and it lies within the orbit. Pits in front of the orbits, called preorbital vacuities, are often present.

    Bovid cheek teeth are hypsodont ( Mammals that feed on abrasive substances are subject to rapid wear on their teeth. Many of these species have especially high-crowned teeth, that is, teeth that extend unusually far above the gum line,cráneo caprino providing lots of extra material for wear) and selenodont (large the number and size of enamel cutting surfaces is to elongate the primary cusps in an anterior-posterior direction). The. Upper incisors are absent. On the lower jaw, three incisors are present on each side of the jaw, and in addition, the canines (usually absent on the upper jaw) are modified to resemble an additional pair of incisors (one on each side). A well-developed diastema separates the lower incisors and the first lower molar-like teeth. The dental formula is 0/3, 0/1, 2-3/3, 3/3 = 30-32.

    • All bovids have a four-chambered stomach and digest cellulose through bacterial fermentation.

     

  • Tribe: Caprini : that includes different members:   

    • Goat like antilope: Oreamnos americanus (Mountain Goat)
    • Sheep and goats: the main differences between them:
GOATS SHEEP
60 chromosomes 54 chromosomes
Presence of beard Absence of beard
Presence of  face and caudal glands Absence of  face and caudal glands
Absence of  foot glands Presence of foot glands
Tail held up Tail hanging down
  • Genus: Capra (very related to goats are the Hemitragus or Thar, but  it has 48 chromosomes, no beard  and horns short and stout):

 

    • Capra ibex: the main species are:

      • Capra ibex ibex or Alpine ibex was hunted to he extinction in Switzerland(1800-1850), Germany and Austria (1720) and remained only in the Gran paradiso park in Aosta (Italy), and from there it was successfully reintroduced in to the other alpine countries starting with Switzerland in 1911.

       

       

      • Capra ibex nubiana: its located in the rocky deserts of Judea (Israel), the hills of the Rea Sea coast  (Egypt and Sudan), Sinai and Arabia. It's endangered by hunting. There are certain pictures that suggest it was domesticated by the ancient Egyptians. There is not relation between this ibex and the Nubian breed that was formed by grading up native English goats with lop eared goats from the east (Zaraibi, Jamnapari and Chitral from Pakistan) 

 

    • Capra pyrenaica or Spanish ibex: it  resembles the tur ( Capra cylidricornis) but the horns have a sharp inner edge and the front its marked by knots like the ibex. Its was nearly extinct in the early XX century but by careful conservation its number  have now risen in the national reserve in Sierra de Gredos. There are subspecies:  

      • Capra pyrenaica victorae: located in the center in the national reserve in Sierra de Gredos.

      • Capra pyrenaica hispanica: located in the south in Sierra Nevada

Prirenaica hispánica

      • Capra pyrenaica pyrenaica: it was extinct in January of 2000 when the last female was died. There is an ambitious project for cloning the DAN material  of this animal.

      • Capra pyrenaica lusitana: it was the Portuguese subspecies but became extinct in 1892 .

 

    • Capra caucásica (west Caucasian tur) and Capra cylindricornis (east Caucasian tur or Kuban) : it is a heavily built animal with a dull brown coat and massive horns, almost circular in cross section. 

West turWest tur

Capra caucásica 

CylindricornisCylindricornis

Capra cylindricornis 

    • Capra falconeri or markhor (from the Persian "snake eater"): The range of the markhor has historically extended from Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan to Afghanistan, Pakistan and northern India (Kashmir). Sparsely markor wooded mountainous regions in themarkor western Himalayas at an elevation of 600-3,600 m. Within this area, markhor populations are usually very small (<100 individuals) and isolated from each other. The number of animals is dramatically reduced. The main characteristic is  the presence of tightly curled, corkscrew-like horns in both sexes, starting close together at the head, but spreading towards the tips. They suppose to be the angora goats ancestors. To this specie belongs the following subspeciesmarkor depends of the spiral form in the horns :
      • Capra falconeri falconeri: very wide spiral
      • Capra falconeri cashmirensis: slightly closer spiral
      • Capra falconeri megaceros: nearly straight and closer spiral 
      • Capra falconeri jerdoni: vertical  straight like the thread of a screw
       
    • Capra aegagrus: is the wild progenitor of the domestic goats that belong to the Capra hircus  specie. It's known like bezoar or pasan   that derive from the Persian. Bezoar  meaning counter poison, because in the savage animals it's aegagrus possible find a concrete in the stomach with believed to be an antidote. Pazan is the Persian word for the mountain goat. It is located in Iran, Turkey, southern Caucasus, southern Turkmenistan, western Afghanistan and some Greek Islands. The main characteristic of the specie is the long saber or scimitar shaped horns.     

 

The origins of the Capra hircus or domestic goats are uncertain, but archeological evidence suggests it was probably domesticated in the Fertile Crescent (10.000 years ago), it was probably the first ruminant to be domesticated because the wild goat was present in those regions of South West Asia where the agriculture was developing. Herds of wild goats (Capra aegagrus) and the Nubian ibex (Capra ibex) native to the canyon system comprised a resource crucial to the Nabataean population of Beidha. Byrd (1989:81) reported that caprines were the two best represented species in the faunal collections retrieved during archaeological excavations of the Nabataean component of the site. The exact percentages of each species are difficult to determine, because it is very difficult to distinguish between the bones of these species. (Despite these anatomical similarities, Capra aegagrus was eventually domesticated while Capra ibex was not.) The earliest unambiguous fossil evidence of domestic goats was found in southwest Iran dating 9.000 years ago and in the Iranian plateau dating 10.000 years ago. 

To help understand the origin and the phylogenetic history of the domestic goats,  G.Luikart et al. *  sequenced in 407 goats:

  • a hypervarible segment of mtDNA  of 80 breeds worldwide
  • Y-chromosome DNA of all wild goats and 54 domestic, to asses the paternal origins

The results were:

  • The sequences were very polymorphic: 331 goat mtDNA types.
  • The 331 mtDNA types fall into three highly divergent clusters (Capra hircus1 found in 371 individuals, C. hircus2 found in 25 individuals and C. hircus 3 found in 11 individuals).
  • C. aegagrus was considered the wild progenitor of the C. hircus because one mtDNA control region differs by only  61,3 nucleotides sites (on average) from the C. hircus3 sequences.
  • The second closest was the C. cylindricornis differing in 84,5 substitutions.
  • The  Y-chromosome DNA types  of C. aegagrus were identical to the domestic goats.
  • The control region sequences revealed only limited geographic structuring:
    • Capra hircus1 type is found in all countries and all breeds

    • C. hircus 2 type is found across  Asia ( from Malasya to Mongolia and Pakistan).

    • C. hircus 3 type is found in Slovenia, Switzerland and Mongolia.

  • Very closely related mtDNA types are found in very distant locations (Denmark and Portugal, Mongolia and Ukraine, Algeria and Turkey) this suggests that goats have often been transported for commercial trade.

  • The presence of the three different lineages of C. hircus  could be interpreted as either evidence for two different hypothesis:

    • one domestication from a large population containing the three lineages, but the lineages are monophyletic (descend from one common progenitor)  and not paraphyletic (the wild Capra not cluster between the three lineages).
    • three independent origins from genetically distinct populations: it is supported by:  
      • The most recent common ancestor dates between 201.380-281.932 years ago and this is long before the domestication time, this rather suggest that the three lineages arose  from several populations.
      • The C. hircus 2 and 3 probably arose in Asia during a secondary domestication or secondary introgression from wild species.

In Europe the domestic goats came from the south west Asia already domesticated because there was not wild goats only ibex, except for Crete and other Greek islands .

Scimitar horned goats are commonly found in the early Neolithic Swiss lake-dwellings, north east Yugoslavia and Hungary; in the middle Neolithic  goats with twisted horns became more frequent in central and eastern Europe. In the Bronze Age this became dominant in Austria and Germany  but scimitar horns remained in Switzerland, Hungary and Scandinavia.

In Greece both types of horns are represented in coins and seals. The first polled goat appears during the Roman empire.

AgrigentanaThe twisted and scimitar type occur in the modern breeds with predominate moderate twisted . True corkscrew horns are founded in the Agrigentana breed from Sicily and the Ulokeros of Greece .

Some of the Spanish breeds  resemble the wild bezoar (Murciana, Malagueña) and the differences in the horns (Pirenaica and Verata) are due to genetic selection. In the breeds with twisted horns (Blanca Celtibérica, Blanca Andaluza and Canary ) there is influence of the falconery type.

This work is based in: