Modern Dogs May Have Originated From Primitive Canids From Altai - Not From Wolves

A Deviation From Widely Known Information: Probably Primitive Wolves Are Not The Ancestors of Our Modern Dogs

The DNA analysis affirms that the Canidae from Altai was a primitive and one of the oldest ancestor of dogs. DNA was collected from a right lower lateral incisor and a mandibular bone fragment from the dog-like canid

Fact be revealed at the very outset! Clear and unambiguous phylogenetic reconstructions of the evolutionary process of today's dogs cannot be laid with perfection because incidences of hybridization within the genus Canis has disturbed the evolutionary flow to a great extent. This eventually lead to an unresolved trees. Hence, the perfect interpretation of branch support values on phylogenetic trees of the evolution of contemporary dogs may not possible. However, researchers have ascertained that today's dogs had very close relation with a dog-like canids from Altai, contrary to the popular belief that dogs have descended from Pleistocene wolves.

There has been a lot of controversies related to the origin of the modern domestic dogs. Findings from the advanced genetic research indicated that the modern dogs that we domesticate today have no relation with wolves of Late Pleistocene age. Some fossils of ancient creatures somewhat like dog were found even prior to the * Last Glacial Maximum. It was, thereafter globally accepted that the dog domestication had started even prior to agriculture about 10,000 years ago.

While evaluating the genetic relationship of one of the oldest dogs, the researchers have isolated ancient DNA from the recently described putative 33,000-year old dog of Pleistocene age from Altai. They analyzed 413 nucleotides of the mitochondrial control region, and came to a conclusion that the unique haplotype of the Altai dog is more closely related to our modern dogs than it is to contemporary wolves.

In the year 1975 Dr Nikolai D Ovodov conducted the first paleontological survey, when complete skull and mandibles of a dog-like creature were discovered. the fossile was found in a cave called Razboinichya in southern Siberia, Russia. The Razboinichya cave was discovered in the year 1962 in the northwestern zone of the Altai Mountains.

* Note: The Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) was the last period in the history of Earth's climate. This was a period when ice sheets were at their greatest extension and the period was approximately between 26,500 and 19,000–20,000 years ago. This was the peak of the last glacial period.

The discovery of a 33,000-year-old fossil tooth in southern Siberia opened up a new chapter about the age of dog-human relationship. This was the fossil of one of the oldest known ancestor of the dogs that we see today, said the researchers, who named the animal 'Altai Dog' - named after the mountain where the discovery was made. The study was made by a group of scientists led by Anna Druzhkova from the Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Russian Federation.

According to the researchers 'Altai dogs' have been found to have more close resemblance with the contemporary dogs and prehistoric canidae found in the American continents than it has with the wolves. The finding shows that the dog-human relationship could be as old as around 33,000 years, which means human used to domesticate dog even 33,000 years ago.

The skull of a dog-like canid found in a cave in the Altai Mountains of southern Siberia

(Image: © Ovodov ND, Crockford SJ, Kuzmin YV, Higham TFG, Hodgins GWL, et al. (2011) A 33,000-Year-Old Incipient Dog from the Altai Mountains of Siberia: Evidence of the Earliest Domestication Disrupted by the Last Glacial Maximum. PLoS ONE 6(7): e22821. doi:10.137)

Documentations have shown that human and dogs had been buried together in Germany around 14,000 years ago. This has gone a long way to prove that dog-human relationship is quite old. However, advanced genetic studies have shown that the act of domesticating dogs was originated in China and the Middle East, as reported by LiveScience.

The study of Anna Druzhkova and the team was published Jyoti Madhusoodanan in the journal PLOS ONE in 6 March, 2013. The study was made by the critically analyzing of "DNA extracted right lower lateral incisor and a mandibular bone fragment" from the fossil of dog-like animal that used to live in southern Siberia. The genetic sequences of the the Altai specimen was compared with those of 72 modern dogs picked from 70 different canine breeds, 30 wolves, 4 coyotes and 35 prehistoric canid species from the Americas. The study on the new Siberian fossil revealed that it was one of the oldest known domestic dogs that was more related to the the dogs of today that the wolves.

The 'Altai Dog', as the researchers named it, used to be domesticated, which means the origin of the domestication of dogs would be pushed further back and the widely popular belief of domestic dogs evolving from the grey wolf has been seriously debated.

Scientists say, "Pleistocene wolves from the Razboinichya cave are not closely related to the specimen studied here.... more data of prehistoric wolves from the same region are needed to estimate the population diversity and obtain a more comprehensive picture of genetic relationships of Altai canids"

In 1975, the researchers excavated the skull of dog-like canid that existed on the Earth some 33,000 calender years ago. the excavation was carried out in Razboinichya Cave, located in the Altai Mountains of southern Siberia. Dr. N.D. Ovodov, co-author and member of Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography SB RAS, stated that the team had extracted DNA from a right lower lateral incisor and a mandibular bone fragment from the fossils of canid, by rigorously following the all stringent criteria of extraction that are mandatory to prove the authenticity of ancient DNA.

Outcome of the Research:

Dr N.D. Ovodov said, "We obtained mitochondrial DNA control region sequences from both the tooth and mandible of the 33,000 cy old putative dog specimen from Altai and found them to be identical. In order to evaluate the genetic relationship of the Altai specimen to any known dog/wolf specimen, we performed several analyses." Sir Ovodov said that the outcome of their research revealed 99% similarity (but no perfect match) to any dog that we know of today.

The team of scientists also took another step forward and compared the mitochondrial DNA control region sequences of the dog-like canid with those of the Pleistocene wolves from the Razboinichya cave. Dr. Ovodov said, "Pleistocene wolves from the Razboinichya cave are not closely related to the specimen studied here".

Reproduced from the articles written by:

Anna S. Druzhkova, Vladimir A. Trifonov, Nadezhda V. Vorobieva, Alexander S. Graphodatsky

Department of Genomic Diversity and Evolution, Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russia

Olaf Thalmann

Division of Genetics and Physiology, Department of Biology, University of Turku, Turku, Finland

Jennifer A. Leonard

Conservation and Evolutionary Genetics Group, Estación Biológica de Doñana (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas), Seville, Spain

Nikolai D. Ovodov

Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russia

Robert K. Wayne

Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Los Angeles, California, United States of America

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