Scientists home in on dog’s birthplace and origin

London, September 02: Eastern Asia is believed to be the place where man tamed the wolf into becoming a dog. Now, researchers have succeeded in further narrowing the birthplace of man’s best friend.

“For the first time in history, it is now possible to provide a detailed picture of the dog, including birthplace, point in time and the number of wolves that were tamed,” says Peter Savolainen, a biology researcher at the Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan (KTH) or The Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden.

Savolainen and his Swedish colleagues have made a number of new discoveries concerning canine history. The research result comes from genetical analysis of mitochondrial DNA from 1,500 dogs from all over the world.

These discoveries establish that the dog arrived 16,000 years ago in Asia, south of the Yangtze River in China. This is considerably earlier as concerns time and place than had previously been established.

“Our previous discoveries from 2002 have not been fully accepted. However, with this new data, acceptance will probably be greater. The picture is much more detailed,” Savolainen said.

The point in time when the dog emerged is well in line with the point when the population of this part of the world changed from hunting and gathering to farming as a way of life – 10,000 to 12,000 years ago.

This research indicates that the dog has only one geographical origin, but is descended from a large number of animals. At least several hundred tame wolves, probably even more, Savolainen said.

“Considering that it involved so many wolves, this indicates that this event was important and a major part of the culture,” he asserted, according to a KTH release.

These results have been published in Molecular Biology and Evolution.

—-IANS