A new study is challenging the theory that domestic dog has East Asian origins.
Remember that oft-cited study that claims domestic dogs originated in East Asia?
Well, it turns out that the domestic dog’s origins might not be so clear as we once thought.
Peter Savolainen led that study, which compared the genetic diversity of dog populations throughout the world. It turned out in that study that East Asian dogs were more genetically diverse than other populations, and greater genetic diversity is generally associated at the point of origin.
I admit that I always had one reservation about that study. It included our Western breeds, which we all know aren’t that genetically diverse at all. But then I assumed from my reading of the methodology that African and indigenous American dog populations were also not as genetically diverse as the Asian populations.
Well, my assumptions were wrong.
A new study is underway that is challenging Savolainen’s findings.
Dr. Adam Boyko of the Department of Biological Statistics and Computational Biology at Cornell University is leading a new study of dog genetic diversity to see if the origin might be somewhere else. This new study is going to exclude European and Western purebred dogs. This will be a study of the genetic diversity of street dogs.
The early findings showed that African dog populations in Egypt, Uganda, and Namibia were just as genetically diverse as the populations of East Asia.
Now, that blows a hole in the theory that dogs come from East Asian wolves. Why? Because there are no C. lupus wolves in Africa, although there may have been a population of these animals in Libya and Egypt, which may have been absorbed into the golden jackal population. The Ethiopian wolf (C. simensis) is not an ancestor of the domestic dog, although it’s much more closely related to wolves than any species of jackal.
Further, we know that dogs are descended from some sort of Eurasian wolf. We just don’t know which subspecies. So dogs had to have come from Eurasia to Africa. But if they are as genetically diverse in Africa as they are in East Asia, then we simply don’t know where their exact origin is.
The clarity that came from Savolainen’s findings is now muddled. Boyko’s team will continue to analyze the genetic diversity of dog populations to see if they can find the origin of domestic dogs.
All we know now is that it happened somewhere in Eurasia 15,000 to 40,000 years ago, and that dogs are conspecific with C. lupus.
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As you might imagine, I’m excited by this finding, because I found this particular study very interesting. Using archeological and paleontological methodology in concert with the DNA analysis, this study found that wolves and dogs were from a very genetically diverse species– I call them ancient wolves to differentiate between modern wolves and domestic dogs– and that the first anatomically modern dogs were more than 30,000 years old. And what’s more their point of origin was in Europe.
Now, that finding did not square well with the Savolainen study’s findings, but I had not seen any other studies that could point to other origins of the domestic dog. I accepted Savolainen’s study as definitive.
This new Boyko study might be what is necessary to finally figure out where these animals were originally domesticated. And maybe those findings will fit better with what was found from the study remains of dogs and wolves from those European caves.
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Some of the preliminary findings in the Boyko study are that Rhodesian ridgebacks and Pharaoh hounds are not Africa. The Pharaoh hound finding isn’t new. The historical record and subsequent genetic studies showed a more recent origin for this breed in Malta, where it has been used to hunt rabbits. Now, we know it’s definitely not an African breed. And I could have told you the Rhodesian ridgeback is not an indigenous African breed. First of all it is mostly comprised European mastiff breeds and sight and scent hounds. The ridge come from pariah dogs that were thought to be indigenous African dogs. However, they were most likely dogs of the Thai ridgeback type that were imported to South Africa by the Portuguese.
Another interesting finding in that Salukis and Afghan hounds share their DNA with Egyptian village dogs. That doesn’t surprise me. Basenjis, which we know are of definite recent African origin, are very closely related to Namibian and Ugandan village dogs.
After all, it was just a few decades ago that the basenji club went to the Congo in search of new blood. In 1990, the AKC even opened up the registry to allow this new African blood into the stud book. It is from this expedition that the brindle basenjis were introduced the bloodline.
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I can’t wait to see the results of the study.
All we know now is that domestic dogs are derived from some Eurasian wolf population. The finding that all dogs descend from a East Asian wolf ancestor appears to be, if not falsified, at least muddled considerably. And that’s a fascinating preliminary finding.
The big issue with this study is the presumption that street dogs and indigenous dogs are representative of the gene pools that were historically native to various continents.
Thanks to Roman Imperialism, European expansionism and colonialism, and the fact that US and European military operations and exploration often drug along families and pets, not to mention trade throughout the past several thousand years, dogs, from hunting to lap dogs, have been introduced everywhere.
One intact male or a bitch who produced a few litters a hundred years ago means his/her genes widely splashed throughout street and native populations now. No matter what the cross, in a few generations the dogs will be back to pariah and wild type.
How will this be taken under consideration in these samplings?
Well, that’s news to me.
That’s actually the best they can do.
It also assumes that street dogs are not “contaminated” with purebred and pet dog genes, which they obviously are in Latin America, Native Communities in North America, and Eastern Europe.
Dogs may have been too mobile to actually get a good handle on where they came from.
But at least we have the fossils in Belgium, the Ukraine, and Russia. Those may be our best guess.
It’s so nice to read your writings. I have always been very suspicious about the East-Asian origin (Savolainen et al 2002), because I have not fully (=at all!) understood their methods. I have always think that they should concentrate on DNA from feral and ancient dogs, instead of pure-bred or western dogs. These new results about African dogs are much more convinsing and challenge the earlier study. Or not challenge – knock out!
It is very important to notice that there are no C. lupus in Africa. In fact, the authors of the new study (published in PNAS) do not mention this fact at all. But they have focused on the genetic diversity, not on the place of origin. They do not say that dog was born in Africa, they only say that there are no proper reason to assume it was born in East-Asia either.
I apologize my terrible english, it is not my native language.
Well, actually, thank you for letting me see that study. I had missed it.
Your English is better than my Finnish?
You should demonstrate your Finnish.
I know some phrases in Hungarian/Magyar (don’t ask me how), but that’s as close as I get to Finnish.
It’s very practical to know some Hungarian. You never know when you will need it.
What direction the breeding of domestic dogs follows in future selective breeding choices has no connection to the genesis point of the first domesticated dogs. Let’s not contaminate the two totally different subjects. It’s beyond possible to believe this statement was made for any reasons apart from either implying selective breeding will be stopped or as covert discouragement of any future selective breeding of domestic dogs. That future dogs will solely be “wild or pariah” types is no more than an unproven personal assumption. 30,000 years of dog history in selective breeding alone says–quite the opposite. All who own any domestic animal are aware of the recent contemporary rise of radical through terrorist groups united in their agendas to end humans from owning any animal and out to globally eradicate all domestic (pet and farm) animals. Animals mankind does will always need. These radical groups with their destructive divisive agendas, insane propaganda ravings, and globally disastrous intents, we and animals need–eradicated.
Ummm, no. I breed purebred dogs and am no affiliate of any radical animal rights group.
But when selective breeding is removed from the picture, dogs will tend towards wild/pariah type. While the introduction of a new breed will cause some possibly wild variation in type for a few generations, over time they will self select a medium sized dog, with a moderate amount of coat, straight legs, a medium length muzzle and mostly erect ears.
I cannot believe that dogs taken all over the world never got loose, were allowed to run loose or were lost or abandoned. And then the will breed with the native populations.
I am not advocating for the return of all dogs to street type, only pointing out that for urban, rural and suburban street, feral or pariah type dogs there is a definite look and style that seems to be most suitable for surviving and thriving in the lifestyle. So my question was simply how can researchers select dogs to sample which have no cross contamination from other regions of the world? Perhaps there are certain genes they are looking for? or a study of mitochondrial DNA specifically to look for divergence?
I am not trying to cast aspersions on the study. I would like to know more about the origins of dogs. But my point is that looking at pariah and street dogs rather than purebreds does not mean that those dogs represent unique, pure and uncontaminated samples of the dogs who were the indigenous dogs Africa or Asia or anywhere ten, five or one thousand years ago.
I would imagine that the researchers are well aware of this and am simply curious as to how this will be taken into account. If they are looking for a greater diversity of genes overall, a greater diversity of genetic variance in the population etc….
I wondered about that, too; I can’t imagine getting an ‘unbiased’ gene pool anywhere within North America or Europe (or, indeed, anywhere with a significant European colonial presence).
I recently met a lady at the dog park who recently moved here from Puerto Rico; she mentioned that some years ago, there was a large influx of Huskies and Malemutes as status symbols for the wealthy. It was a way of distinguishing their dogs from satos (street dogs); since these dogs were clearly non-native, and could obviously only have arrived by being imported at great expense.
Sure enough, within a few years, these northern breeds started making their way to the streets and interbreeding with the satos (who themselves were largely descended from dogs imported from every corner of the globe by European sailors).
I think your main lines would remain distinct as they have in Africa, though.
You might be able to trace it a bit. But European dogs really do mess up the study.
Isn’t it possible the progenitors of street dogs were following and eating pre-human and human garbage as far back as hominids left garbage, say 250,000 years ago, maybe even millions? The little I know of the original prototype of the “street” dog means this possibility shouldn’t be overlooked.
I also agree with others who say that the dogs from the north are more likely to have relatively recent wolf genes. All other dogs maybe from a close relative of the wolf (say son?) that branched off a long time ago, and differentiated because they followed a different life style (eating hominid garbage in the tropics and temperate regions) Though they always stayed closer to the wolf than any other species and always retained the possibility of breeding to wolves, the original street dogs were always selected for meekness and a toleration of human presence. Thus destructive dogs or threatening dogs, were soon eliminated, which explains the temperament differences between wolves and dogs.
I am glad you said that once one a purebred hits the streets, it is actually “selecting” for the average street type, which comes back after just a few generations. That is an easily observable process and has some documentation.
You agree that the world population of street dogs has used whatever genes they have, to get back to “type”. Thus even if there are more inbred dogs in a given population, the genes will still disperse quickly.
So, If an individuals from say, 10 registered breedsd were each bred to a different 10 registered breed to produce the 1st generation, and all the following generations can breed freely, they will soon average out into street dogs. I wonder how many breeds will need to be involved to do this quickly?
I eagerly await more of the Boyco’s work.
I addressed my previous reply to Jennifer’s post, however it showed up on the next post below, twice. So I hope you can fix it. Thanks
Some Ridgeback arcana:
Regarding the theory that the ridge on the Rhodesian Ridgeback derives from ridged Asian dogs hitching a ride with Portuguese merchants ships: Recent analysis of mitochondrial DNA of Rhodesian and Thai ridgebacks does NOT show a close genetic relationship between the two, leading researchers to conclude that the ridge mutation is an ancient one, and if there was a common ancestor between the two breeds, it certainly predated 16th Century South Africa by millennia.
See “The Source of the Ridge and Associated Anomalies in Rhodesian Ridgebacks” by Nicolette Salmon Hillbertz; diss-epsilon.slu.se/archive/00001669/01/Salmon_Hillbertz.pdf
Also, regarding the breeds that comprised the Ridgeback, scenthounds and mastiffs were almost certainly not used in the early crosses by Rhodesian big-game hunter Cornelius van Rooyen in creating the Ridgeback. Instead, pointers, Airedales, bulldogs, Irish terriers, collies and of course greyhounds were the most likely candidates.
If Mastiffs were added, it was much later, when the breed’s guarding function over its hunting one was emphasized, in particular in South Africa. (There is documentation of de Beers, of diamond fame, crossing Rhodesian Lion Dogs with Danes for this very purpose.)
An excellent pictorial source for this early history is Linda Costa’s incomparable “Rhodesian Ridgeback Pioneers” (www.kantara.com.au/pioneers/), which contains (to my knowledge) the only published photograph of van Rooyen with the last lion he shot, and his lion dog. It looks for all the world like a glorified whippet. And that is not a bad way to think of the Ridgeback, as a highly evolved African lurcher: Based on greyhound (and, some might argue, deerhound) blood, crossed with terriers and collies to give it a nose and more biddability at the expense of sheer speed.
I always enjoy your posts.
Denise Flaim
revodana.com
They aren’t an Native African breed, though, and I don’t know a European breed that has the ridge.
So it is a mystery.
[…] a few weeks ago, I received word of another study that was based on African dogs. It turns out that Savolainen’s study may have been flawed. It […]
Madagascar-just off the coast of Africa-was settled by SE Asians about 2,000 years ago. Possible explanation for an ancient link between the two ridgebacks?
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Back to the old subject: I am a follower of human genetics and the human genome, which has indicated where our genes were at various times. One missing piece of the puzzle is the ancient Sahara. There could have been c lupus or even dogs in that area when it was the bread basket of Africa, supporting an enormous population. But the weather changed and people fled.
Now, the place has been covered up by sands and we can’t test that hypothesis at this time. It appears there was a huge migration out of Africa. It was in Eurasia, that a big concentration of genes collected before spitting in groups going to Asia and America, groups going to Europe and groups going to India living in the area, which has the most genetic variety of people who left Africa. Each sub-group took only some of the genes with them in their new directions. They probably all took dogs or were followed by their village wolves who now looked quite different than wild wolves.
Anyway, dogs follow people and there is a gigantic area under the Sahara we haven’t probed much at this time.Depending on the ancient weather, it is possible to believe there were ancient wolves there.
So I always look at dogs or village wolves as following humans. So much genetic variety is in the dogs of Eurasia, I see it as a piece with the human genetic diversity. I see the logic in projecting dogs have followed humans before they became homo erectus and certainly after. The question is “Where could that happen?” One hypothesis is the Sahara was temperate for eons, and could have been the actual birth place of all dogs. But it is one place where we will have to dig deep to find clues.
What’s interesting is that there is a wolf native to the Sahara or just south of it. The current consensus is that dogs are most closely related to Middle Eastern wolves, but these newly discovered wolves in Africa haven’t been included in the studies.
http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0016385
No one has included these wolves in any genomic studies (yet), but I bet they are very closely related to those of the Middle East and to dogs. The unique mtDNA lineage in Indian wolves is interesting– these wolves also have a unique mtDNA sequence. However, when Indian wolves are put into a genome-wide analysis, they come out as being closely related to dogs, too.
So I think there is something to it.
The problem is determining whether we’re looking at a golden jackal or an African wolf, because these wolves have been found as far south as Ethiopian (and are not Ethiopian wolves or what used to be called the Simien Jackal).
[…] In 2009, it was discovered that Sub-Saharan African village dogs also had very similar levels of genetic diversity to East Asia. Dogs are not derived from an population of African wolf, either of the lupaster subspecies or the Ethiopian wolf, and this evidence strongly suggested that the origins of dogs were elsewhere. […]