NYT SCIENCE: At Long Last, a Donkey Family Tree
By Franz Lidz and Samuel Aranda
Section: Science
Source: New York Times
Published Date: March 14, 2023 at 02:00AM
“I guess that we simply forgot the importance of this animal, probably being blown away by the impact of its close cousin, the horse,” said Ludovic Orlando, director of the Center for Anthropobiology and Genomics of Toulouse in France. “In Europe, the horse provided fast mobility and helped grow crops and make war. I am not sure we can claim that the impact of the donkey was as large.” Compared to horses and dogs, donkeys have received relatively little attention from archaeologists, much less geneticists.
Nonetheless, despite this being the Year of the Rabbit according to the Chinese zodiac, it might just be the Year of the Donkey. The Oscar-nominated film “EO” features as its hero a soulful, barbarously misused donkey. And donkeys star in a major new genetic study published in the journal Science; Peter Mitchell, an archaeologist at Oxford who was not involved in the project, called it “the most comprehensive study of donkey genomics yet.”
By Franz Lidz and Samuel Aranda
Section: Science
Source: New York Times
Published Date: March 14, 2023 at 02:00AM
In a new study, genetics and archaeology combine to reveal the ancient origins of humanity’s first beast of burden.
The donkey is a key, if increasingly marginalized, character in human history. Once venerated, the animal has been an object of ridicule for so long that the word “asinine” — derived from the Latin asinus, meaning “like an ass or a donkey” — means “stupid.” Donkeys and donkey work are essential to the livelihoods of people in developing countries, but elsewhere donkeys have all but disappeared.“I guess that we simply forgot the importance of this animal, probably being blown away by the impact of its close cousin, the horse,” said Ludovic Orlando, director of the Center for Anthropobiology and Genomics of Toulouse in France. “In Europe, the horse provided fast mobility and helped grow crops and make war. I am not sure we can claim that the impact of the donkey was as large.” Compared to horses and dogs, donkeys have received relatively little attention from archaeologists, much less geneticists.
Nonetheless, despite this being the Year of the Rabbit according to the Chinese zodiac, it might just be the Year of the Donkey. The Oscar-nominated film “EO” features as its hero a soulful, barbarously misused donkey. And donkeys star in a major new genetic study published in the journal Science; Peter Mitchell, an archaeologist at Oxford who was not involved in the project, called it “the most comprehensive study of donkey genomics yet.”
Read More at: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/14/science/donkeys-genetics-archaeology.html
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