We May Have Been Domesticating Dogs for Tens of Thousands of Years!

A study published in 2020 revealed that our best friend dogs began to diversify and domesticate 11,000 years ago. While it is known that all domestic dogs are descended from the same ancestors as modern-day gray wolves, it was speculated that our friendship did not actually begin so ‘early’. Those predictions have been confirmed by a new study published.

Genome samples from a total of 72 ancient wolves, 66 of whom had just been scanned, showed that both ancient and modern dog breeds were close to ancient wolves in Asia. The ancient wolves from which the genomes were taken belonged to wolves that lived about 100,000 years ago.

Diversity in dogs began longer than previously thought:

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• 18,000-year-old puppy Dogor

One of the results of the new research sheds light on the evolutionary process of wolves, which is still not fully understood. In particular, scientists who tracked down a gene variant saw that this gene had an adventure ranging from very rare to almost ubiquitous in a time period of about 10 thousand years. The mutation that caused this affected a gene called IFT88, which is also found in modern-day dogs and affects the development of the skull and jaw bones.

Scientists have yet to explain how or why the mutation has become so common in dogs and wolves. But the estimates are based on the diversity of the prey the species feed on. However, the gene in question is also thought to have an undiscovered task.

However, the research revealed that the first dogs in Northeastern Europe, Siberia and the Americas got their entire DNA from the eastern wolf population. The first dogs from the Middle East, Africa and Southern Europe were discovered to carry fragments of the DNA of modern populations in Southeast Eurasia.

The most important result of the research was about when dogs were first domesticated. The research, which covers a period of 100 thousand years, pointed out that dogs may have taken a place in people’s lives during this time. In addition, the other result of the research, which indicates the diversity, also showed that the first domestications may have taken place in various parts of the world, tens of thousands of years ago.