title: Barcoding the largest animals on Earth: ongoing challenges and molecular solutions in the taxonomic identification of ancient cetaceans.
abstract: Over the last few centuries, many cetacean species have witnessed dramatic global declines due to industrial overharvesting and other anthropogenic influences, and thus are key targets for conservation. Whale bones recovered from archaeological and palaeontological contexts can provide essential baseline information on the past geographical distribution and abundance of species required for developing informed conservation policies. Here we review the challenges with identifying whale bones through traditional anatomical methods, as well as the opportunities provided by new molecular analyses. Through a case study focused on the North Sea, we demonstrate how the utility of this (pre)historic data is currently limited by a lack of accurate taxonomic information for the majority of ancient cetacean remains. We then discuss current opportunities presented by molecular identification methods such as DNA barcoding and collagen peptide mass fingerprinting (zooarchaeology by mass spectrometry), and highlight the importance of molecular identifications in assessing ancient species' distributions through a case study focused on the Mediterranean. We conclude by considering high-throughput molecular approaches such as hybridization capture followed by next-generation sequencing as cost-effective approaches for enhancing the ecological informativeness of these ancient sample sets.This article is part of the themed issue 'From DNA barcodes to biomes'.
authors.affiliation: BioArCh, Department of Archaeology, University of York, Environment Building, York, North Yorkshire YO10 5DD, UK camilla.speller@york.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Camilla
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Speller
authors.affiliation: Institute of Archaeology, University College London, 31-34 Gordon Square, London WC1H 0PY, UK.
authors.forename: Youri
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: van den Hurk
authors.affiliation: CEFE UMR 5175, CNRS, Université de Montpellier, Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier, EPHE - CNRS, Montpellier Cedex 5, France.
authors.forename: Anne
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Charpentier
authors.affiliation: CEFE UMR 5175, CNRS, Université de Montpellier, Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier, EPHE - CNRS, Montpellier Cedex 5, France.
authors.forename: Ana
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Rodrigues
authors.affiliation: Archéologie des Sociétés Méditerranéennes, UMR 5140, CNRS, Labex Archimede IA-ANR-11-LABX-0032-01, Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier, 34970 Lattes, France.
authors.forename: Armelle
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Gardeisen
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Scienze della Natura e del Territorio, Università degli Studi, Sassari, Italy.
authors.forename: Barbara
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Wilkens
authors.affiliation: BioArCh, Department of Archaeology, University of York, Environment Building, York, North Yorkshire YO10 5DD, UK.
authors.forename: Krista
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: McGrath
authors.affiliation: BioArCh, Department of Archaeology, University of York, Environment Building, York, North Yorkshire YO10 5DD, UK.
authors.forename: Keri
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Rowsell
authors.affiliation: BioArCh, Department of Archaeology, University of York, Environment Building, York, North Yorkshire YO10 5DD, UK.
authors.forename: Luke
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Spindler
authors.affiliation: BioArCh, Department of Archaeology, University of York, Environment Building, York, North Yorkshire YO10 5DD, UK.
authors.forename: Matthew
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Collins
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biochemistry and Biology, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, University of Potsdam, 14476 Potsdam, Germany michael.hofreiter@uni-potsdam.de.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-0441-4705
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hofreiter
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001106:Archaeology / Q000379:methods; D044822:Biodiversity; D002591:Cetacea / Q000145:classification*; D002965:Classification / Q000379:methods*; D003094:Collagen / Q000032:analysis; D058893:DNA Barcoding, Taxonomic; D059014:High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing / Q000379:methods; D009659:North Sea
chemical_list: D003094:Collagen
keywords: ancient DNA; archaeozoology; cetaceans; collagen peptide mass fingerprinting; species identification; zooarchaeology by mass spectrometry