The first people to settle in the Americas likely brought their own canine companions with them, according to new research which sheds more light on the origin of dogs.
An international team of researchers led by archaeologist Dr Angela Perri, of Durham University, UK, looked at the archaeological and genetic records of ancient people and dogs.
They found that the first people to cross into the Americas before 15,000 years ago, who were of northeast Asian descent, were accompanied by their dogs.
The researchers say this discovery suggests that dog domestication likely took place in Siberia before 23,000 years ago. People and their dogs then eventually travelled both west into the rest of Eurasia, and east into the Americas.
Credit: Ettore Mazza
The first people to settle in the Americas likely brought their own canine companions with them, according to new research which sheds more light on the origin of dogs.
An international team of researchers led by archaeologist Dr Angela Perri, of Durham University, UK, looked at the archaeological and genetic records of ancient people and dogs.
They found that the first people to cross into the Americas before 15,000 years ago, who were of northeast Asian descent, were accompanied by their dogs.
The researchers say this discovery suggests that dog domestication likely took place in Siberia before 23,000 years ago. People and their dogs then eventually travelled both west into the rest of Eurasia, and east into the Americas.
The first people to settle in the Americas some 15,000 years ago traveled from northeast Asia and were accompanied by canine companions, a new study reveals.
A team of international researchers examined a trove of archaeological and genetic records of ancient people and dogs and found both had traveled together west into the rest of Eurasia and then east into the Americas.
These findings also suggest dog domestication first took place in Siberia at least 23,000 years ago and may have been a result of the region s harsh climatic conditions.
The land connecting Canada and Russia and most of Siberia were extremely cold and may have forced humans and wolves into close proximity due to their attraction to the same prey – thus sparking a relationship between the two.
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Dire Wolves: not just a Game of Thrones’ fantasy – a fearsome distinct, but extinct, canine
Dire wolves not only featured in Game of Thrones, they were also real creatures, and hundreds of thousands roamed the American landscape up until the last ice age. A research project, published today, involving archaeologists from Oxford and around the world, shows though the fearsome dire wolf shared many characteristics with grey wolves, they were an evolutionary distinct species that separated from other canines about five million years ago.
Dire wolves were ubiquitous in America, along with a range of massive creatures, known as megafauna. These included mastodons, six-foot-tall sloths, enormous short-faced bears and beavers the size of compact cars. They disappeared from the continent in a mass extinction during the Pleistocene period – only for some, such as horses, to be reintroduced by Europeans in the last few hundred years.