Today, we take the dog for granted, but its origin is controversial. It comes from the wolf all agree, but when the dog was the dog, so to speak, there are divided opinions about.
Most studies point to an origin of about 16 000 years ago. But research now shows at institutions including Stockholm University and the Museum of Natural History that the dog is significantly older than that, between 27 000 and 40 000 years old.
This is thanks to a small piece of bone that Love valley at the Natural History Museum found in an expedition on the Taimyr Peninsula in northern Siberia.
– It seems as if the dog was domesticated much earlier than previously thought, he said.
At first, scientists thought that the piece of bone was not so old . But they sent still on the carbon-14 dating, and it turned out that it was about 35 000 years old.
Genetic analyzes of the genes now show that the bone belonged to a prehistoric wolf that was very closely related to the common predecessor of today’s wolves and dogs.
But even if the dog began to be distinguished from wolves at least 27,000 years ago, researchers believe that it took its time – before the dog became man’s best friend.
– A possible scenario is that it took many thousands of years before they seriously started breed dog similar means, says Love Valley.
One theory is that it all started with that wolves voluntarily started to stick close to people to utilize leftover food.
The analyzes also show that the Greenland dogs and Siberian huskies have a greater affinity with Tajmyrvargen than other dogs have.
– DNA is an incredibly powerful tool that direct way to demonstrate that it siberian husky you see strolling along the street have a genetic relationship to the wolf that lived in northern Siberia 35,000 years ago, a band that other dogs do not have, says Pontus Skoglund at Stockholm University.
The research is published in Current Biology.
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