Donkeys are a ubiquitous beast of burden, and are repeatedly employed to slog supplies throughout lengthy distances, similar to they had been within the historic previous. Now, a staff of geneticists has pinpointed precisely how historic that previous is: They imagine they’ve decided when and the place the primary donkeys had been domesticated.

By 238 donkey genomes—31 of which belonged to historic donkeys—the staff recognized a domestication occasion in East Africa that dates to about 5,000 BCE, barely sooner than the earliest archaeological proof of domesticated donkeys. Their analysis is published immediately within the journal Science.

“We located the Horn+Kenya as the region hosting those donkeys today that are the closest to those first domesticated,” stated research co-author Ludovic Orlando, a geneticist on the Université Paul Sabatier in France, in an e mail to Gizmodo. “It does not necessarily imply that this is the exact, precise location of the donkey homeland, since the ancestors could have lived in another nearby region.”

Whether initially from Sudan or Egypt, or certainly Africa’s Horn, someplace in northeast Africa is the more than likely origin level of those braying beasts of burden. In order to find out a extra exact origin level for the donkey, the staff believes, extra archaeological work shall be obligatory. New excavations might reveal materials tradition that point out indicators of donkey domestication.

Last yr, a staff together with Orlando published particulars on the genetic historical past of the horse and its domestication in East Asia; the latest work might assist scientists tease out extra particulars in regards to the two animals’ genetic histories, in addition to the place they intertwine.

The researchers additionally mapped clear dispersal patterns of donkeys between western Africa and Europe that stretch again to Roman instances and recognized a beforehand unknown donkey lineage within the Levant that existed about 2,200 years in the past.

Among the over 200 donkey genomes they interrogated had been the genetic data from three jennies (feminine donkeys) and 6 jacks (males) from Roman France. The web site, which dates to between 200 CE and 500 CE, seems to have been a breeding floor for giant donkeys. The analysis staff suspects that the location could have simply been considered one of many, serving to sate the demand for donkeys throughout the Roman Empire.

Earlier this yr, archaeologists revealed proof that the oldest human-bred hybrid animal was the kunga, a donkey-wild ass hybrid. Orlando thinks the latest paper might assist reply questions in regards to the origins of the mule, the sterile offspring of male donkeys and feminine horses. (The offspring of feminine donkeys and male horses are referred to as hinnies.)

These equine enigmas (and extra!) can now be probed by DNA, fashionable and historic, from these animals, filling in an image that beforehand might solely be constituted of materials proof. Taken collectively, the genomic and archaeological proof has the ability to inform a complete story of domestication—a narrative about donkeys, sure, but additionally the story of us.

More: Oldest Known Human-Bred Hybrid Animal Was a ‘Kunga’