Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – @BednarChuck
Dogs are known as man’s best friend, and according to a new study published Thursday in the journal Current Biology, the close-knit relationships between human and canine may date back much further than experts had previously realized.
Previous genome-based estimates had indicated that the ancestors of modern dogs diverged from wolves no earlier than 16,000 years ago, but new analysis of an ancient Taimyr wolf bone DNA dated back to 35,000 years ago has revealed that this creature is actually the most recent common ancestor of modern wolves and dogs.
“Researchers have previously assumed that the split between the dog and wolf lineages represents the point in time when domestication took place, and they have estimated the timing of this split to have happened 10,000-15,000 years ago,” Dr. Love Dalén, an associate professor at the Swedish Museum of Natural History, told redOrbit via email.
“Our analyses show that this split most likely took place between 27,000 and 40,000 years ago. So this would imply that domestication started much earlier than previously thought,” he added. “However, as we stress in the study… there is an alternative explanation for what the split between dogs and wolves represents.”
Tracing the genetic history of domesticated canines
For instance, Dr. Dalén told redOrbit, this split could have originally been between two different populations of wild wolves, where one eventually went on to give rise to dogs and became extinct in the wild, while all living wolves are derived from the other population. This version seems “less likely,” he said, since it “requires a much more complicated population history.”
The genome from the Taimyr wolf specimen has been radiocarbon dated to 35,000 years ago, indicating that it does represent the most recent common ancestor of modern wolves and dogs. Furthermore, the DNA evidence indicates that modern-day Siberian Huskies and Greenland sled dogs share an unusually large number of genes with this ancient canine predecessor.
The findings, first author Pontus Skoglund from Harvard Medical School and the Broad Institute told redOrbit in an email, “pushes back the genetic signal that has previously been interpreted as dog domestication from 11,000-16,000 thousand years ago to more than 27,000 years ago. However, this genetic signal only shows when the ancestors of domestic dogs got separated from the main ancestral gray wolf population.”
“Importantly, these ancestors might still have remained wild for thousands of years, and so dog domestication might have occurred later,” he added. “We still know very little about the origin of domestic dogs, so what we need is more ancient genomes such as this. This is the first ancient canid genome, which adds to a club of ancient humans, which I normally work on: Neandertals, mammoths, and horses. We are just getting started!”
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