Wild Boars in Israel Originated in Europe, Genetic Study Confirms

A new study claims that wild boars in Israel are descendants of domesticated pigs brought in by Philistines some 3,000 years ago.

The latest finding, conducted by scientists from the Tel Aviv University, claims that unlike the Near Eastern wild boars in surrounding countries, Israel's wild boars originated in Europe. They were brought to Israel by Philistines and other sea people some 3,000 years ago. The genetic analysis revealed that pigs from the Bronze Age and the early Iron Age carry the local near eastern genetic traits whereas the European genetic trait is present in the early Iron Age around 900 BCE, and have been dominant since then.

"Our DNA analysis proves that the wild boars living in Israel today are the descendants of European pigs brought here starting in the Iron Age, around 900 BCE," Prof. Israel Finkelstein and Dr. Meirav Meiri of Tel Aviv University's Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near East Civilizations, said in a statement. "Given the concentration of pig bones found at Philistine archaeological sites, the European pigs likely came over in the Philistines' boats."

The major Philistine site along Israel's southern coastal plain that dates from the beginning of the Iron Age has an abundant of pigs' bones, whereas at the Iron Age sites present in other parts of the country, pig bones are absent.

Through this finding the researchers wanted to find out whether the Philistines and other sea people made use of the local pig breed or introduced new breeds that were carried from their native lands. The  researchers solved this mystery using DNA testing because they could not see any prominent difference in the size and shape of the European and Near Eastern pigs.

They noticed that the present day wild boars from Israel shared the same genetic signature as that of the Europeans boars. On the other hand, the modern day boars from neighboring countries like Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Syria and Armenia shared the genetic signature of the Near Eastern boars.

With this the researchers confirmed that the European pigs were introduced in Israel at some point and from then on they dominated over the local pig population.

The researchers also assume that the domesticated European pigs either led to the extinction of the local pigs or mated with them.

Dr. Meiri, who conducted the laboratory work for the study in a special, highly sterile lab in TAU's Sonia and Marco Nadler Institute of Archaeology, concluded,  "If the European pigs mated with the local pigs, as we suspect, today's modern wild boars should have some Near Eastern DNA. If the European pigs just out-competed the locals, we'd expect the wild boars to have purely European DNA."

The findings were published this week in Scientific Reports.