Latest Origin of the domestic dog Stories

Brett Smith for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online A recent genetic analysis has shown that a 33,000-year-old canine skull found in Siberia is more closely related to today’s domestic dogs than the wolves of its time, according to a report in the online journal PLOS ONE. The finding could have major implications for understanding how modern day labradoodles and peekapoos were bred from wild dogs over thousands of years. The skull was first found in 1975 by a team of Russian...

Brett Smith for RedOrbit.com The breeding of domestic dogs over thousands of years has made it extremely difficult to trace the genetic roots of man’s best friend, according to a new study led by researchers at Durham University in the U.K. The research team set out to trace the origins of canine domestication, hoping to find a genetic link back to those animals pictured on the walls of Egyptian tombs or Roman ruins. Unfortunately, the genetic pool has been so muddled that they were...

An ancient canine skull unearthed in the mountains of Siberia suggests that modern domesticated dogs may have originated for multiple ancestors in various geographic locations rather than as the result of a single event in a single culture, a new study published in the journal PLoS One claims. According to BBC News Science Reporter Hamish Pritchard, a Russian-led team of archaeologists discovered the 33,000 year old specimen in the Altai Mountains. That fossil, combined with dog remains...

NSF-supported researchers map the genetic origins of "village" dogs on five continentsBy Marlene Cimons, National Science FoundationMost animal lovers can't resist bringing home the occasional stray dog. Imagine, then, having to fight this impulse every day, and on the other side of the world, all while trying to maintain some measure of scientific detachment.Ryan Boyko and his fellow researchers, who spent two years collecting blood samples from more than 1,200 stray dogs in dozens of...

African village dogs' lineage can be traced to an ancestral pool of indigenous dogs, a Cornell University-led genetic analysis suggests. The study of hundreds of semi-feral dogs indicated most village dogs from most African regions were genetically different from non-native breeds and mixed-breed dogs, the university said Tuesday in a news release. The study, published online Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, offered insight into the poorly understood history of...

Researchers are now questioning the idea that the domestic dog originated in East Asia.Scientists have long concluded that domestication of canines began in East Asia, due to the huge genetic diversity of dogs found there. But new research published in the journal PNAS shows the DNA of dogs in African villages is just as varied.Blood samples from dogs in Egypt, Uganda and Namibia were analyzed by an international group of researchers who found that today's dogs are descended from Eurasian...