Posted on 01/08/2015 3:52:23 PM PST by SunkenCiv
A new study suggests that dogs may have first successfully migrated to the Americas only about 10,000 years ago, thousands of years after the first human migrants crossed a land bridge from Siberia to North America.
The study, which looked at the genetic characteristics of 84 individual dogs from more than a dozen sites in North and South America, is the largest analysis so far of ancient dogs in the Americas. The findings appear in the Journal of Human Evolution.
Unlike their wild wolf predecessors, ancient dogs learned to tolerate human company and generally benefitted from the association: They gained access to new food sources, enjoyed the safety of human encampments and, eventually, traveled the world with their two-legged masters. Dogs also were pressed into service as beasts of burden, and sometimes were served as food, particularly on special occasions.
Their 11,000- to 16,000-year association with humans makes dogs a promising subject for the study of ancient human behavior, including migratory behavior, said University of Illinois graduate student Kelsey Witt, who led the new analysis with anthropology professor Ripan Malhi...
Analysis of ancient dog remains is often permitted when analysis of human remains is not, she said.
Previous studies of ancient dogs in the Americas focused on the dogs' mitochondrial DNA, which is easier to obtain from ancient remains than nuclear DNA and, unlike nuclear DNA, is inherited only from the mother. This means mitochondrial DNA offers researchers "an unbroken line of inheritance back to the past," Witt said...
Dozens of dogs were ceremonially buried at Janey B. Goode, suggesting that people there had a special reverence for dogs. While most of the dogs were buried individually, some were placed back-to-back in pairs (see photo).
(Excerpt) Read more at news.illinois.edu ...
A new study analyzed DNA from ancient dog remains from more than a dozen sites in North and South America. | Photo courtesy Angus McNab, Graphic credit Julie McMahon
Of course they did. They came across the Strait, following Man.
As an aside, there is a strain of Asian/Chinese/Japanese(etc) that can be seen in the faces of today's 'native' Man from Southern Chile all the way up the Eskimos of Canada.
At least the article refers to the people as human immigrants instead of “native Americans.” Just because they immigrated first does not make them native.
Then you must believe there are no native Europeans. Humans migrated there too.
Looks like it didn’t take long to get to Peru and Argentina...
Mark for later read.
And then about 9000 years ago, the pit bulls followed, tired of biting themselves.
Aussie wild dog shown in the smaller image, yours the larger. We call them dingoes.
Indonesian wild dogs
New Guinea native 'singing dog'
Wild dogs of India. I think the Aussie dog came from the sub-continent along with one of the aboriginal tribes.
A dingo ate my baby.
And tragically, it did.
Interesting.
I read something a while back that involved a study that had been performed, where they put special sensors on people that could record the motion of their eyes over time, and found that when two people meet face to face, the eyes imperceptibly look at one eye very quickly, then the other. To fast to notice. (I can’t remember which eye we look at first, but it is specific)
Then they got interested and began looking at other creatures to see if other animals did it.
None did except for one, and it wasn’t primates.
It was dogs.
They found dogs do it when they see peoples faces, and do the same imperceptible eye movements.
Speaks to the nature of the relationship between man and canines.
apparently you’re not a mother.
The incident has now been so Hollywood-ized that wise guys such as I forget that the incident was real, the mother, who in addition to losing a child, was harassed by the authorities, is still living.
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