They found the remains of America’s oldest dog: he lived over 10 thousand years ago and confirms a theory about human migration

Dogs accompanied the first humans to arrive in North America, say scientists who have discovered the remains of a dog over 10,000 years old, according to a study published Wednesday.

These people are believed they emigrated from Siberia, through what has become current Bering Strait, come in 30,000 and 11,000 years ago.

The history of human beings is closely linked to that of your best friend has been around for a long time, and the study of dog DNA is useful in establishing human settlements.

Researchers once believed that humans initially entered the Americas around 12,000 years ago. It was then that the thick glaciers that covered much of North America began to melt. This opened a corridor, which allowed people to walk from Siberia through lands now submerged in the Bering Sea, and then to North America in search of mammoths and other large animals.

But for the past decade, archaeologists have shown that people could have started settling in North America much earlier. They traveled from Siberia to the Alaskan archipelago about 16,000 years ago, eventually descending the Pacific coast.

The discovery of the shard of dog bones confirms this hypothesis. Scientists from American University of Buffalo analyzed the DNA of a fragment of dog bone found in Southeast Alaska. They initially believed it to be a bear, but further analysis revealed it to be a part of a dog’s femur.

The bone is approximately 10,200 years old, making it the oldest known dog rest in America.

Genetic analysis further revealed that the animal was closely related to the first known dogs, which, according to researchers, were domesticated in Siberia around 23,000 years ago. Based on the number of genetic differences between the Alaskan dog and its Siberian ancestors, the team estimates that the two populations split 16,700 years ago, when scientists believe humans may have taken a coastline to the North American continent from what is now Siberia.

It’s a clue that dogs and their humans left Siberia and entered America thousands of years before North America’s glaciers melted.

The dates also align with DNA-based estimates of when modern Native Americans separated from their ancestors in Siberia, providing another source of evidence to pinpoint the time of the first migrations. “Understanding how dogs move also shows you how humans move”, said Ciencemag Flavio Augusto da Silva Coelho, the scientist who performed the DNA analysis.

“As dogs are linked to the occupation of space by humans, our data allows us to specify not only a date, but also a place of entry for dogs and humans in the Americas”Explain Charlotte Lindqvist, biologist at the universities of Buffalo and South Dakota.

The study, published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, supports the theory that humans populated the North American continent from Siberia, through ato the coastal road.

“We believe that the first human migrations in the region were more important than we think”, He said.

“Coastal dog”

Analysis of the bone fragment showed that the animal followed a “marine” diet, based on the remains of fish, seals and whales.

Then the dogs came in successive waves, according to Charlotte Lindqvist. First from East Asia with the Thule population, then with the Siberian huskies brought to Alaska during the gold rush in the 19th century.

The study contributes to its grain of sand to the old debate on whether, once they have crossed the present-day Bering Strait, the first humans advanced to the continent by a continental corridor or by a coastal road along the Pacific.

The pre-contact dog remains found on the Continental Corridor trail are younger than the one identified by Lindqvist’s team on the coastal road.

This promotes the theory of a coastal route for early arrivals.

The “The coastal dog is a descendant of the dogs which participated in the initial migration”, said the specialist.

(With information from AFP)

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