Dogs were domesticated in two places at the same time, study finds

For years, scientists have wondered just how dogs became Man’s Best Friend and a new study indicates dog domestication may have happened twice, at opposite ends of the Eurasian continent.

Published in the journal Science, the new study is based on the DNA analysis of hundreds of living dogs and dog remains.

“I was like, ‘Holy shit!’” study author Greger Larson, an evolutionary biologist at Oxford, told Science Magazine. “We never saw this split before because we didn’t have enough samples.”

The study scientists discovered a definite genetic divide between dogs from East Asia and Western Eurasia, considered to be modern Europe and the Middle East. This divide doesn’t appear to be caused by one population splitting with time, the study said. Rather, it appears as though East Asian dogs originated from a totally several source and relocated west with time, gradually mixing with and partly replacing a group of established European dogs.

Two locations, one idea– Domestication

Quite simply, the East Asian dogs and the European dogs were domesticated individually, in two several instances, the study said.

While researchers haven’t eliminated this possibility, most theories have said dogs were tamed once. As we understand it right now, dogs likely originated from one group of wolves that started tracking or scavenging from humans, getting to be more gregarious and less dangerous over time. However, no one can agree where or when that occurred.

The study incorporates a distinctive specimen: the 5,00-year-old inner ear bone of a dog unearthed from a site on the east coast of Ireland, built around the same time as Stonehenge. Scientists sequenced this specimen’s DNA and contrasted it to the nuclear DNA of more than 600 modern dogs from around the planet. The team then made a family tree for the animals, which showed a deep split between European dogs and Asian dogs.

A calculation of the genetic mutation rate for canines revealed an East-West split that occurred sometime between 6,400 and 14,000 years ago. The study found a “genetic bottleneck” in Western dogs—a drop in genetic diversity that generally signals a steep drop in the size of a population that then goes on to persist.

The study concluded a small subset of Asian dogs eventually migrated over to Eurasia, likely with migrant peoples. This suggests that all modern dogs can trace their ancestry back to Asia.

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Image credit: Thinkstock

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