Data from: Like a pig out of water: seaborne spread of domestic pigs in Southern Italy and Sardinia during the Bronze and Iron Ages

Southern Italy has a long history of human occupation and passage of
different cultures since the Early Holocene. Repeated, ancient
introductions of pigs in several geographic areas in Europe make it
difficult to understand pig translocation and domestication in Italy. The
archeozoological record may provide fundamental information on this, hence
shedding light on peopling and on trading among different ancient cultures
in the Mediterranean. Yet, because of the scanty nature of the fossil
record, ancient remains from human-associated animals are somewhat rare.
Fortunately, ancient DNA analysis as applied to domestic species proved to
be a powerful tool in revealing human migrations. Herein, we analyzed
80-bp fragment of mitochondrial DNA control region from 27 Sus scrofa
ancient samples retrieved from Southern Italian and Sardinian
archeological sites, spanning in age from the Mesolithic to the Roman
period. Our results surprisingly indicate the presence of the Near Eastern
haplotype Y1 on both Italy’s major islands (Sardinia and Sicily) during
the Bronze Age, suggesting the seaborne transportation of domestic pigs by
humans at least during 1600–1300 BC. The presence of the Italian E2 clade
in domestic contexts shows that the indigenous wild boar was effectively
domesticated or incorporated into domestic stocks in Southern Italy during
the Bronze Age, although the E2 haplotype has never been found in modern
domestic breeds. Pigs belonging to the endemic E2 clade were thus traded
between the Peninsula and Sardinia by the end of the second millennium BC
and this genetic signature is still detected in Sardinian feral pigs.