An international group of geneticists and archaeologists has discovered that the ancestry of dogs can be traced to at least two populations of ancient wolves. The research moves us a step closer to uncovering the mystery of where dogs underwent domestication, one of the biggest outstanding mysteries
Dogs are known to have descended from the gray wolf, with this domestication occurring at least 15,000 years ago during the Ice Age. However, it is still unknown where this happened, and whether it occurred in one single location or in multiple places.of dogs and modern wolves has not found the answer.
By analyzing the genomes, the scientists found that both early and modern dogs are more genetically similar to ancient wolves in Asia than those in Europe, suggesting domestication occurred somewhere in the east. One possible explanation for this dual ancestry is that wolves underwent domestication more than once, with the different populations eventually mingling together. Another possibility is that domestication happened just once, and that the observed dual ancestry is due to these early dogs then mixing with wild wolves. It is not currently possible to determine which of these two scenarios actually occurred.
‘Dogor’, an 18,000 year-old wolf puppy from Yakutia, which was included in the study. Credit: Sergey Fedorov For example, they observed that over a period of around 10,000 years, one gene variant went from being very rare to being present in every wolf, and is still present in all wolves and dogs today. The variant affects a gene,, which is involved in the development of bones in the skull and jaw.
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