Palaeogenomic analysis of black rat (Rattus rattus) reveals multiple European introductions associated with human economic history

• Published in: Nature Communications
• Main Authors: Yu, He, Jamieson, Alexandra, Hulme-Beaman, Ardern, Conroy, Chris, Knight, Becky, Speller, Camilla, Al-Jarah, Hiba, Eager, Heidi, Trinks, Alexandra, Adikari, Gamini, Baron, Henriette, Böhlendorf-Arslan, Beate, Bohingamuwa, Wijerathne, Crowther, Alison, Cucchi, Thomas, Esser, Kinie, Fleisher, Jeffrey, Gidney, Louisa, Gladilina, Elena, Gol’din, Pavel, Goodman, Steven, Hamilton-Dyer, Sheila, Helm, Richard, Hillman, Jesse, Kallala, Nabil, Kivikero, Hanna, Kovács, Zsófia, Kunst, Günther Karl, Kyselý, René, Linderholm, Anna, Maraoui-Telmini, Bouthéina, Marković, Nemanja, Morales-Muñiz, Arturo, Nabais, Mariana, O’connor, Terry, Oueslati, Tarek, Quintana Morales, Eréndira, Pasda, Kerstin, Perera, Jude, Perera, Nimal, Radbauer, Silvia, Ramon, Joan, Rannamäe, Eve, Sanmartí Grego, Joan, Treasure, Edward, Valenzuela-Lamas, Silvia, van der Jagt, Inge, van Neer, Wim, Vigne, Jean-Denis, Walker, Thomas
• Other Authors: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History (MPI-SHH), Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art Oxford, University of Oxford Oxford, University of Liverpool, Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU), Museum of Vertebrate Zoology Berkeley, University of California Berkeley (UC Berkeley), University of California (UC)-University of California (UC), Department of Archaeology, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Jena, 07745, Germany, School of Social Science, University of Queensland, University of Queensland Brisbane, Archéozoologie, archéobotanique : sociétés, pratiques et environnements (AASPE), Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle (MNHN)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Rent a Peasant, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (NASU), Field Museum of Natural History Chicago, USA, Histoire, Archéologie et Littérature des Mondes Anciens - UMR 8164 (HALMA), Université de Lille-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Ministère de la Culture (MC), Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2022
• Subjects: [SHS.ARCHEO]Humanities and Social Sciences/Archaeology and Prehistory; [SHS]Humanities and Social Sciences; [SDV]Life Sciences [q-bio]; Rattus rattus
• Online Access: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-03659617; https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-03659617/document; https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-03659617/file/Yu_et_al-2022-Nature_Communications.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-30009-z

International audience The distribution of the black rat (Rattus rattus) has been heavily influenced by its association with humans. The dispersal history of this non-native commensal rodent across Europe, however, remains poorly understood, and different introductions may have occurred during the Roman and medieval periods. Here, in order to reconstruct the population history of European black rats, we first generate a de novo genome assembly of the black rat. We then sequence 67 ancient and three modern black rat mitogenomes, and 36 ancient and three modern nuclear genomes from archaeological sites spanning the 1st-17th centuries CE in Europe and North Africa. Analyses of our newly reported sequences, together with published mitochondrial DNA sequences, confirm that black rats were introduced into the Mediterranean and Europe from Southwest Asia. Genomic analyses of the ancient rats reveal a population turnover in temperate Europe between the 6th and 10th centuries CE, coincident with an archaeologically attested decline in the black rat population. The near disappearance and re-emergence of black rats in Europe may have been the result of the breakdown of the Roman Empire, the First Plague Pandemic, and/or post-Roman climatic cooling.