The Domestication of Dogs

boloboffin

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The hypothesis ran that modern dogs were domesticated from wolves in East Asia, but evidence is not supporting this idea.

Ryan and Corin Boyko collected 223 samples of village dog blood from Egypt, Uganda and Namibia. The small gene question has not yet been assessed, but their samples, reported in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, have called into question a finding on the origin of dog domestication from wolves.

The origin is thought to be East Asia, based on a 2002 survey of both village dogs and breed dogs. But most of the village dogs in that survey came from East Asia, which could have tilted the outcome. The African village dogs turn out to have much the same amount of genetic diversity as those of East Asia. This is puzzling because the origin of a species is usually also the source of greatest genetic diversity.

The Boykos and Dr. Bustamente do not think dogs were domesticated in Africa — there are no wolves in Africa now, apart from the Ethiopian wolf — but they say the origin may not be East Asia. The issue is better addressed by looking just at village dogs, they think, and by excluding European breeds, which are mostly of recent origin.
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They are thinking that dogs were domesticated in the Caucasus region now, which really caught my eye. Recent evidence suggests that horses were domesticated there, and now there's reason to start looking at the same area for dogs as well.

I guess there's not a lot more to do up in that area of the world.
 
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I've read that the American natives had the Carolina Yellow Dog when the white man got here. Plus several other breeds, frinstance 'bear dogs' which were a mini, carried by hunters. The Lab and Newfie are both decendents of natiave American breeds.

Anyways, the Yellow Dog, the Dingo, and the South East Asian yellow dog are genetically the same.

Possibly Jackals and Foxes in the line as much as wolves.
 
Casebro...do you have any links to your info or any links to research on Carolina dogs and such?
 
If dogs were domesticated from wolves, does it follow that wild dogs were once domesticated?
 
No, he's talking about truly wild dogs, whose ancestors have lived in the wild for generations.

It's a good question. IIRC they are thought to be descended from domesticated dogs that went feral, but it's quite possible I'm remembering wrong.
 
I have now like, bothered to look up stuff myself. Wow! ThanksWiki! It seems that my original question was wee bit overly simplistic.

Regarding the OP, I'm now wondering if the goal of "finding out where dogs were domesticated" is a little simplistic too. I'm wondering how easy/likely it is to domesticate a gray wolf. How many generations would it take? They can still breed with dogs as far as I'm aware so probably not that many... so maybe several separate domestications happened in different places. Possible?
 
There's a paper somewhere about selection for docility in, I think, silver foxes. In the USSR, possibly.

The researchers had a captive but untamed population. They merely selected for docility and lack of fear/aggression to man, without making any attempt to train the animals. The results were extremely interesting. But I forgot where to find the publication.

ETA: Google is your friend. Can't find the long article I read several years ago, but Wiki has an entry on it.

Rolfe.
 
Yes, very interesting. So it took them about 50 years - not long at all really - probably about 30 generations?

This Wiki article on domestication is interesting, particularly the huge list of domesticated animals at the end, with the possible dates and places. This seems to imply that humans have had a tendency to domesticate animals wherever and whenever they have settled. If the population of the gray wolf / dog ancestor was as widespread as the wiki articles say, and as 'easy' to domesticate as the silver foxes mentioned in the paper, then I wouldn't think it unlikely to have several totally separate domestication events??
 
dogjones said:
If dogs were domesticated from wolves, does it follow that wild dogs were once domesticated?
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Depends on which dogs you are talking about, I don't think anyone thinks that the African Wild Dog was ever a domestic dog, but the Dingo certainly was.
 
Wouldn't a Mitochondrial DNA study answer the question?

It worked to define 'Eve' in humans.
 
If dogs were domesticated in the last ~15,000 years there may not be a huge amount of drift in the mitochondrial DNA. And given the mixing by humans during more recent imes, it might be a real blend.

Take the feral dogs in many towns, they may have been escaped or abandoned by travellers.
 
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