A rare breed of goat in Ireland turned out to be descendants of Bronze Age animals
A rare breed of Old Irish Goat has an unexpectedly long history: researchers have said that these goats are genetically linked to animals that lived in Ireland some 3,000 years ago, at the end of the Bronze Age.
The work was published in the Journal of Archaeological Science.
The team led by University College Dublin studied goat bones from two sites: Haughey's Fort in County Armagh (dated to around 1100-900 BC) and medieval Carrickfergus in County Antrim. Radiocarbon analyses confirmed the age of the finds, and biomolecular techniques helped to pinpoint that they were goats (their bones are often confused with sheep bones).
Next, scientists extracted and compared the ancient DNA with the genomes of modern breeds. And here is the key result: the ancient Irish goats turned out to be the closest (by genetic affinity) to today's population of Old Irish Goat, which is now considered extremely rare and needs to be protected. This means that the same line of domestic goats may have persisted on the island for thousands of years.
The study adds an important 'modern' detail: the medieval goats appear to be genetically more diverse, while the current population shows signs of close breeding. The authors attribute this to a recent decline in numbers - that is, the bottleneck could have already occurred in modern times, rather than stretching back centuries.
The scientists believe that the results support the idea of preserving this breed as a 'living part' of Ireland's cultural and agricultural heritage.