Heritage Cases

This application seeks permission to sample cattle teeth from the archaeological Zulu royal amakhanda, uMgungundlovu, and KwaBulawayo for ancient DNA analysis, in collaboration with the Population Genomics group at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine of the Ludwig Maximilians University in Germany. These cattle derived from herds that belonged to local Zulu people who resided at the royal amakhanda. Given the difficulty of identifying cattle remains from precolonial archaeological sites (Horsburgh & Gosling 2020), these historic samples offer the best opportunity currently available to us of investigating the ancestry of Zulu cattle. In the longer term, if we extract intact DNA from these historic sites, we may be able to extend this project into the deeper past, exploring the genetic relationships between cattle kept by different cultural groups and urban centres in deeper time of southern Africa. Today, two groups of cattle exist. Bos taurus form the majority of herds in Europe, West Africa and northern Asia. Bos indicus cattle are more adapted to dry climates and exist mostly across sub-Saharan Africa. In Africa, a third type exists known as Sanga (Bos taurus cf. africanus) and is considered an independent domestication in northern Africa, or the result of inter-breeding between B. taurus and B. indicus (Horsburgh 2020). Available genetic evidence for cattle in southern Africa is scanty. One herd of Nguni cattle show relative homogeneity and only 2 specimens of archaeological cattle have undergone genetic profiling. This is mainly due to poor preservation of the DNA, but also that some samples that had previously been thought to be cattle, were found to be wild species after aDNA analysis (Horsburgh and Gosling 2020). Therefore, we know very little of the genetic make-up and gene-flow of prehistoric cattle in southern Africa. uMgungundlovu was the royal amakhanda of the Zulu Kingdom. Archaeological excavations at uMgungundlovu have sampled deposits that date to its main military headquarters between 1829-1838. Studies have shown that 98% of the faunal assemblage at uMgungundlovu is made up of cattle (Plug and Roodt 1990). Investigation into the provisioning of cattle at uMgungundlovu have shown that cattle were brought into the centre from a wide area, with half the samples analyzed being raised locally, and the other half being imported. The movement of cattle into uMgungundlovu seems to be complex with evidence of cattle being raided from outlying areas, brought in through tribute, and expropriation of the animals by the Zulu King (Fowler, Yang et al. 2020). This makes a genetic study of the cattle remains at uMgungundlovu 4 the only method available to untie this complexity and to identify gene flow of cattle within the Zulu Kingdom. Much less is known of the cattle at KwaBulawayo (Zulu amakhanda 1820-1827) when compared to uMgungundlovu. We do know that most of the fauna comprises cattle which is not surprising as they were a symbolic resource for these communities. If we are able to sample the genetics of cattle between these 3 main Zulu centres, we will be able to better-understand their circulation in the Zulu Kingdom and know more of the breeding strategies employed within and between the centres. This application seeks permission to sample cattle tooth specimens each from the uMgungundlovu and KwaBulawayo excavations, a total of 22 teeth. At this stage, we do not know how well-preserved the DNA in these samples is, and it may vary considerably from one depositional context to another. Investigating samples from different areas will give the best chance of recovering at least some usable DNA and will be helpful in planning further work. As a result of the digitization project spear-headed by the Five Hundred Year Archive at the University of Cape Town, we have identified teeth suitable for the project. Since we do not have facilities or equipment for ancient DNA work in South Africa, the analyses will be done in a dedicated ancient DNA lab at the Ludwig Maximilians University (LMU) of Munich, under the supervision of Prof. Laurent Frantz, who is a world-leading expert in the genomics of animal domestication and archaeogenetics (ancient DNA). Over the past 5 years his research group has published over 30 papers focusing on population genomics of animals, including the first ancient pig genome (in PNAS), the first ancient dog genome (in Science) and the first ancient dire wolf genome (in Nature). With respect to this application, Prof. Frantz is now co-leading a consortium, together with Prof. Marle-Köster at the University of Pretoria, that aims to sequence the genomes of >250 modern African cattle, including >50 from southern African cattle. This modern data set will be compared with the data generated from the sample from uMgungundlovu, KwaBulaway and Ondini, which will offer a unique perspective on the evolutionary history of cattle in southern Africa. Because it is critical that samples are taken in a clean lab free of any possible contaminating DNA, it will be best to export these teeth to Munich so that small samples can be removed there, then the rest of the specimens returned to South Africa. This follows the precedent set by several recent studies of ancient human DNA in South Africa, in which whole archaeological teeth were temporarily exported, sampled in the labs that did the aDNA analyses, then returned to the collections. Sampling for DNA will focus on the tooth roots and is expected to leave minimal damage. The sampling will not damage the tooth crowns. This application therefore seeks to build an international partnership with world-leading ancient DNA researchers, as well as to investigate important questions about ancient cattle in southern Africa. In the long term, we hope to be able to compare the genomes of Zulu cattle with those of cattle kept by ‘Iron Age’ communities, and thus to gain a greater understanding of the origins of cattle-keeping in southern Africa.