Yahoo – AFP,
22 May 2015
A woman
holds a Husky puppy during an exhibition in Kyrgyzstan's capital
Bishkek (AFP
Photo/Vyacheslav Oseledko)
|
Washington
(AFP) - Man's best friend may have been his companion for far longer than
believed, scientists have reported, publishing an analysis that dates
domesticated dogs to more than 27,000 years ago.
Humans
possibly domesticated the animals between 27,000 and 40,000 years ago,
according to Swedish researchers whose work was published Thursday in the
journal Current Biology.
The
scientists based their analysis on an ancient Siberian jaw fragment. Previous
estimates said modern dogs diverged from their wolf ancestors 16,000 years ago
after the last ice age.
The
"Taimyr" wolf bone in the study, dated to 35,000 years ago, shows
that the animal was the most recent ancestor of wolves and modern dogs.
"Dogs
may have been domesticated much earlier than is generally believed," said
Love Dalen from the Swedish Museum of Natural History.
Curt Willis
(L) kisses one of his Treeing Walker Coonhounds during a press conference
by
The Westminster Kennel Club on January 28, 2013 (AFP Photo/Stan Honda)
|
Dalen said
the only other explanation for the unusual bone was the less likely possibility
that a major divergence between wolf populations took place at that time that
gave birth to modern wolves while the wolf population became extinct.
The Taimyr
wolf lived a few thousand years after Neanderthals disappeared and modern
humans spread throughout Asia and Europe, the study said.
DNA
analysis also showed modern Siberian Huskies and Greenland sled dogs have an
"unusually large" number of gene in common with the Taimyr wolf.
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