DNA of 33,000 year old domesticated dog revealed

A remarkable find from 2011 of 33,000 year old dog from a cave in the Siberian Altai mountains showed evidence of dog domestication, the earliest ever found.

DNA and morphological analysis

The extraordinary preservation of the dog from the Razboinichya Cave, including skull, mandibles and teeth, allowed a Russian-led international team of archaeologists to conduct a complete morphological examination.

Now, using the latest DNA analysis of material extracted from a fossil tooth recovered in southern Siberia confirms that the tooth belonged to one of the oldest known ancestors of the modern dog, and is described in research published March 6 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Anna Druzhkova from the Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Russian Federation, and colleagues from other institutions.

The domestication of dogs from the grey wolf is well accepted, however, the timing, location and number of domestication events is still hotly debated with the archaeological record providing unequivocal domesticated dog remains beginning about 14,000 years ago from Natufian levels in the southern Levant.

A full mitochondrial genome analysis of modern dogs suggests an origin in southern China approximately 16,000 years ago, but the case for it taking place much earlier received a boost from sites across Eurasia.

The Razboinichya canid profile. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0022821.g001

 A growing number of early dog remains

Mietje Germonpré, of Belgium’s Museum of Natural History, and a team of researchers published a paper describing three canid skulls that had many of the distinctive traits that separate domesticated dogs from their wolf ancestors, including a shorter, broader snout and a wider brain case.

The skulls, which date to roughly 31,500 years ago, were part of a collection from the site of Předmostí, in Czech Republic. Then, this separate research at Razboinichya Cave in Siberiaalso found a dog skull that was dated to 33,000 years ago.

Both finds support a 2009 research paper published by Germonpré and her colleagues describing a 36,000-year-old dog skull found at Goyet in Belgium.

Human domestication of dogs and when modern dogs emerged as a species distinct from wolves is still unclear. Although some previous studies have suggested that this separation of domestic dogs and wolves occurred over 100,000 years ago, the oldest known fossils of modern dogs are only about 36,000 years old at the site in Belgium.

Relationship of Siberian fossil to modern dogs

The new published research evaluates the relationship of a 33,000 year old Siberian fossil to modern dogs and wolves based on DNA sequence. The researchers found that this fossil, named the ‘Altai dog’ after the mountains where it was recovered, is more closely related to modern dogs and prehistoric canids found on the American continents than it is to wolves.

The two earliest incipient dogs from Western Europe (Goyet, Belguim) and Siberia (Razboinichya) are separated by thousands of kilometres, show that dog domestication was multi-regional, and thus had no single place of origin (as some DNA data had previously suggested).

The closest modern dog to this early wolf/dog is the Siberian Samoyed, bred to herd and guard reindeer.

The researchers conclude that , “These results suggest a more ancient history of the dog outside the Middle East or East Asia, previously suggested as centres of dog origin. Additional discoveries of ancient dog-like remains are essential for further narrowing the time and region of origin for the domestic dog”

Source: PLoS One

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