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Science 22 November 2002:
Vol. 298. no. 5598, p. 1511
DOI: 10.1126/science.298.5598.1511e
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This Week in Science
The origins of how humans and dogs developed their association, and when and where this occurred, is the subject of three reports (see the news story by Pennisi). Dogs and wolves (and some primates) are social animals that must comprehend and respond to their own species. Hare et al. (p. 1634) compared the performance of wolves and dogs in interpreting human signals (such as looking, pointing, and tapping) that relate to food location. Unlike wolves, dogs exhibit this skill that helped them interpret human communication. Some studies argue that the domestication of dogs from wolves occurred as a single event, and others favor multiple events and distinct Old and New World origins. The fossil record offers evidence that domestication occurred about 13,000 years ago in the Near East, whereas molecular clock data imply an earlier date. Leonard et al. (p. 1613) analyzed mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from ancient aboriginal North and South American dog remains and argue for an single Asian origin for dogs. Dogs migrated to the Americas with their human companions via the Bering Strait about 12,000 to 14,000 years ago, but these indigenous breeds appear to have been replaced by larger European breeds during the colonial period. Savolainen et al. (p. 1610; see the cover) collected mtDNA sequences from 38 Eurasian wolves and 654 domestic dogs sampled across Asia, Europe, Africa, and the Arctic America to assess the number and location of dog domestications. The higher genetic diversity in dogs from East Asia compared to Southwest Asia and Europe suggests that dogs originated in East Asia. This phylogenetic analysis, when interpreted in light of archaeological data, suggests that domestic dogs originated around 15,000 years ago, with several origins from wolves.
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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)
