Ancient DNA Analysis of Goat Bones in Kashan and Qazvin plain in the Neolithic Period

One of the interdisciplinary approaches which recently had a key role in resolving of archaeological issues, especially domestication process, was Archaeogenetics. Caprines were domesticated in the early Neolithic period and their domestication was a major part of the process that led to the invention of agriculture. Since goat has had a key role in subsistence economy of human societies in different environments hence it became one of the main aims of archeogentics studies. By use of aDNA of goats and archaeogenetics approaches, this paper extracted and analyzed 10 samples of goat aDNA from Neolithic period of Kashan and Qazvin plains and determined their phylogenetic relations with modern domestic and wild goats to shed more light on the life of late Neolithic society of central plateau of Iran. Results show that these samples have closest genetic relations with haplogroup A of wild goats which now live in southeastern of Turkey. Hence archeogenetic evidences show that by 7500 B.P, Neolithic societies of Iran central plateau used goats which were domesticated about 10000 B.P in southeastern Turkey.