Sheep domestication started in Southeast Anatolia about 10 000 years before common era (BCE) and spread to from there to other regions by demic diffusion of managed/domesticated sheep, cultural diffusion or both. To contribute to the understanding of the process of sheep domestication and spread within Anatolia, ancient sheep bones were collected from three archaeological sites; Barcın Höyük (Bursa, 6500-2300 BCE), Tepecik Çiftlik Höyük (Niğde, 6850- 5800 BCE) and Yeşilova Höyük (İzmir, 6252-5800 BCE). Ancient DNA was extracted from these samples and 144 bp long fragment of mitochondrial DNA control region was sequenced. Genetic continuity between sheep populations from lower levels of Barcın (Barcın1,6500-6100 BCE)- upper levels of Barcın (Barcın2, 3800-2300 BCE), Tepecik Çiftlik - Barcın 1 and Tepecik Çiftlik - Yeşilova Höyük was tested assuming exponential growth, mutation rate range of 10-8 to 10-6 and effective population size range between 50 to 1500. Genetic continuity between Barcın 1-2 and Tepecik Çiftlik - Barcın1 could not be rejected. However, continuity was rejected for Tepecik Çiftlik - Yeşilova for low mutations rates and/or low population sizes. Our preliminary results suggest that West-central Anatolian sheep originates from another gene pool than the Central and North-west Anatolian sheep
