Two recent discoveries were made regarding the date of domestication of the wolf and resulting canine characteristics.
The first paper explored the origins of the dog using methods that examined the genetics and relatedness of dogs and wolves. The authors, Freedman et al, have narrowed domestication of the dog to a period 11-16 thousand years ago. As this time period predates the development of agriculture, it is posited that the first dogs were domesticated alongside hunter-gatherers rather than emerging agriculturalists. Furthermore, it appears that dogs, regardless of geographical origin, are genetically related to each other more than modern wolf species, and that genetic similarities between domestic dogs breeds and extant wolf species may be due to continued interbreeding post-domestication. The original dogs which formed a relationship of symbiotic benefit with our hunter-gather ancestors appear to have descended from an ancient common ancestor of wolf which populated areas in which ancient humans’ dwelt. So it seems the common story of dog domestication is not as simple as once thought.
Below is the abstract –
“To identify genetic changes underlying dog domestication and reconstruct their early evolutionary history, we generated high-quality genome sequences from three gray wolves, one from each of the three putative centers of dog domestication, two basal dog lineages (Basenji and Dingo) and a golden jackal as an outgroup. Analysis of these sequences supports a demographic model in which dogs and wolves diverged through a dynamic process involving population bottlenecks in both lineages and post-divergence gene flow. In dogs, the domestication bottleneck involved at least a 16-fold reduction in population size, a much more severe bottleneck than estimated previously. A sharp bottleneck in wolves occurred soon after their divergence from dogs, implying that the pool of diversity from which dogs arose was substantially larger than represented by modern wolf populations. We narrow the plausible range for the date of initial dog domestication to an interval spanning 11–16 thousand years ago, predating the rise of agriculture. In light of this finding, we expand upon previous work regarding the increase in copy number of the amylase gene (AMY2B) in dogs, which is believed to have aided digestion of starch in agricultural refuse. We find standing variation for amylase copy number variation in wolves and little or no copy number increase in the Dingo and Husky lineages. In conjunction with the estimated timing of dog origins, these results provide additional support to archaeological finds, suggesting the earliest dogs arose alongside hunter-gathers rather than agriculturists. Regarding the geographic origin of dogs, we find that, surprisingly, none of the extant wolf lineages from putative domestication centers is more closely related to dogs, and, instead, the sampled wolves form a sister monophyletic clade. This result, in combination with dog-wolf admixture during the process of domestication, suggests that a re-evaluation of past hypotheses regarding dog origins is necessary.”
See the full open source paper here: http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pgen.1004016
Or there is a summary article available here if the paper is a little heavy going: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/01/140116190137.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily+(Latest+Science+News+–+ScienceDaily)
The second paper has found differences in the cognitive abilities of wolves and dogs. Perhaps not surprisingly, given the long history of environmental separation and complex genetic relationship between dogs and wolves, researchers have found that the species differ in their ability to mimic one another, with wolves out performing dogs in their ability to learn how to solve a puzzle by copying a conspecific.
“Domestication is thought to have influenced the cognitive abilities of dogs underlying their communication with humans, but little is known about its effect on their interactions with conspecifics. Since domestication hypotheses offer limited predictions in regard to wolf-wolf compared to dog-dog interactions, we extend the cooperative breeding hypothesis suggesting that the dependency of wolves on close cooperation with conspecifics, including breeding but also territory defense and hunting, has created selection pressures on motivational and cognitive processes enhancing their propensity to pay close attention to conspecifics’ actions. During domestication, dogs’ dependency on conspecifics has been relaxed, leading to reduced motivational and cognitive abilities to interact with conspecifics. Here we show that 6-month-old wolves outperform same aged dogs in a two-action-imitation task following a conspecific demonstration. While the wolves readily opened the apparatus after a demonstration, the dogs failed to solve the problem. This difference could not be explained by differential motivation, better physical insight of wolves, differential developmental pathways of wolves and dogs or a higher dependency of dogs from humans. Our results are best explained by the hypothesis that higher cooperativeness may come together with a higher propensity to pay close attention to detailed actions of others and offer an alternative perspective to domestication by emphasizing the cooperativeness of wolves as a potential source of dog-human cooperation.”
See the full open source paper here: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0086559
Or there is a summary article available here if the paper is a little heavy going: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/01/140131083410.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily+%28Latest+Science+News+–+ScienceDaily%29
Emma Lethbridge Horsemanship 