(Newser)
– Researchers have stumbled upon the oldest remains of domesticated dogs found in America, suggesting that man’s best friend may have accompanied the first humans in the “New World.” Mitochondrial DNA from the canine femur fragment found along the southeast coast of Alaska shows that its owner lived about 10,150 years ago, according to a new study. This makes the dog a little older than a canine group that discovered that it roamed what is now Illinois about 9,910 years ago. National Geographic. That begs the question: when did the first dogs arrive in America? There is no clear answer, but this bone tells us a lot. It comes from a descendant of Siberian canines – believed to have been domesticated about 23,000 years ago on CNN – sometime after 16,700 years ago, when humans moved from Siberia. on the North American coast.
This raises the possibility that dogs will accompany humans as the coastal ice recedes at the end of the last ice age, before other dogs arrive via continental migrations. “The shoreline of the ice sheet began to melt at least 17,000 years ago, while the inner corridor was not viable until about 13,000 years ago,” says Charlotte Lindqvist, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Buffalo. according to CBS News. “And genetic evidence that a coastal route for the first Americans 16,000 years ago seems most likely. Our study claims that our coastal dog is a descendant of the dogs that participated in this initial migration.” National Geographic he noticed that dogs could have served humans as hunters, protectors, carriers, and friends, but also as a source of fur and food when times became difficult. The Alaska dog probably ate fish, whale and seal meat, suggesting that he also benefited from the partnership. (Arctic dogs can also be seen in Siberia.)