Archaeology by ZACH ZORICH Dec 2018
The fate of the indigenous dogs of the New World in the wake of European colonization has long fascinated both scholars and dog lovers. Some modern breeds, such as Catahoulas and Mexican and Peruvian hairless, are popularly thought to trace their roots to ancestors who were present before Columbus’ arrival. In recent years, geneticists have looked into how much ancient DNA these and other breeds actually carry. Now, a widely reported, large-scale study by an international multidisciplinary team suggests that they do not have much—if any—indigenous American ancestry. According to this analysis, modern American dogs are almost entirely descended from European dogs that began arriving 500 years ago. “The indigenous American dogs seem to have been almost completely wiped out,†says Angela Perri, a zooarchaeologist from Durham University in England who participated in the study. This new finding contradicts other genetic studies that suggest some dogs living today still carry some indigenous DNA.
Perri and her colleagues analyzed complete genomes retrieved from the remains of seven ancient dogs that lived in Siberia and North America, and those of more than 5,000 modern dogs. They also studied 71 samples of ancient dog mitochondrial DNA. Mitochondria are the organs that create energy inside living cells. They have their own genomes that are inherited from the mother’s side. The team’s analysis suggests that dogs were brought to the Americas in four migrations. The first dogs would have arrived from Asia 9,900 years ago, several thousand years after the first humans arrived. A second group of dogs may have been brought to the Arctic by the Thule people, the ancestors of the Inuit, about 1,000 years ago. The third migration began with the settlement of European colonies 500 years ago, and the last took place around 1900 when huskies were brought to Alaska from Siberia during the Gold Rush. Those last two migrations, the team believes, led to the almost total disappearance of the Americas’ indigenous dogs.
More:
https://www.archaeology.org/issues/317-1811/trenches/7063-trenches-american-canine-genetics
