Rethinking dog domestication by integrating genetics, archeology, and biogeography

Abstract

The dog was the first domesticated animal but it remains uncertain when the domestication process began and whether it occurred just once or multiple times across the Northern Hemisphere. To ascertain the value of modern genetic data to elucidate the origins of dog domestication, we analyzed 49,024 autosomal SNPs in 1,375 dogs (representing 35 breeds) and 19 wolves. After combining our data with previously published data, we contrasted the genetic signatures of 121 breeds with a worldwide archeological assessment of the earliest dog remains. Correlating the earliest archeological dogs with the geographic locations of 14 so-called "ancient" breeds (defined by their genetic differentiation) resulted in a counterintuitive pattern. First, none of the ancient breeds derive from regions where the oldest archeological remains have been found. Second, three of the ancient breeds (Basenjis, Dingoes, and New Guinea Singing Dogs) come from regions outside the natural range of Canis lupus (the dog's wild ancestor) and where dogs were introduced more than 10,000 y after domestication. These results demonstrate that the unifying characteristic among all genetically distinct so-called ancient breeds is a lack of recent admixture with other breeds likely facilitated by geographic and cultural isolation. Furthermore, these genetically distinct ancient breeds only appear so because of their relative isolation, suggesting that studies of modern breeds have yet to shed light on dog origins. We conclude by assessing the limitations of past studies and how next-generation sequencing of modern and ancient individuals may unravel the history of dog domestication.genomics | phylogeography D arwin speculated about the origins of several domestic animals and suggested that, given the vast morphological variation across numerous breeds, dogs must have had more than one wild ancestor (1). Recent genetic studies, however, support the notion that dogs are descended exclusively from the gray wolf (Canis lupus) (2).Beyond questions regarding wild ancestry, geneticists and generations of archeologists have investigated not only how and why dogs were domesticated, but also when, where, and how many times it may have occurred. Unique among all domestic animals, the first unambiguous domestic dogs precede the appearance of settled agriculture in the archeological record by several thousand years. Identifying the earliest dogs is difficult, however, because key morphological characters established by zooarcheologists to differentiate domestic animals from their wild wolf ancestors (e.g., size and position of teeth, dental pathologies, and size and proportion of cranial and postcranial elements) were not yet fixed during the initial phases of the domestication process. Furthermore, the range of natural variation among these characters in ancient wolf populations and the time it took for these traits to appear in dogs are unknown. Free-ranging wolves attracted to the refuse generated by human camps most likely followed a commensal pathway to domestica...

New Perspectives in Southeast Asian and Pacific Prehistory

“…This is because archaeological research has indicated dingoes probably represent the earliest translocation of canids across ISEA and introduction to the Australasian region. This interpretation is supported by the genetic evidence, which places these relatively ancient dog breeds at the base of phylogenetic trees (Larson et al 2012). Salvolainen et al (2004) analysed modern mtDNA from 211 dingoes, 38 Eurasian wolves and 676 dogs from all continents, as well as 19 pre-European archaeological dog samples from Polynesia.…”

Cachorros e humanos: mercado de rações pet em perspectiva sociológica

“…Novas pesquisas mostram que os cães atuais não descendem do lobo cinzento (como se acreditava até muito recentemente), mas sim de um lobo desconhecido e extinto, e também que a domesticação ocorreu enquanto humanos eram caçadores e coletores (Freedman et al, 2014;Larson, 2012). A novidade é que não foram os humanos que domesticaram os cães-lobos, mas estes últimos que se aproximaram dos humanos por conta própria, identificando-os como um novo nicho ecológico que podiam explorar (Larson, 2012). 4…”

Cats and dogs cross the line: domestic breeds follow Rensch’s rule, their wild relatives do not

“…It is generally accepted on the basis of archaeological and genetic findings that the timing of dog domestication dates from 15,000-16,000 BP (Late Upper Palaeolitic) in East Asia (Larson et al, 2012;Perri, 2016). However, a recent molecular study (Skoglund et al, 2015) used genome sequencing of a 35,000 year old Siberian wolf to suggest that the ancestors of dogs were separated from present-day gray wolves before the Last Glacial Maximum.…”