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Europeans who colonized America since the 15th century have decimated not only native populations but also domestic dogs that inhabited the continent, said a group of experts after extensive archaeological research work and genetics.
Older dogs found on the American continent, known as "precontact", date back to about 9,900 years, about 6,500 years after the first humans arrived.
A team of 50 researchers badyzed DNA samples found in 71 older ones. dogs found in North America and Siberia, which compared genetically to modern dogs.
Their result, published Thursday in the journal Science, confirms with an unprecedented degree of certainty that American dogs have crossed the Bering Strait, the same route as humans.
These dogs have lived for millennia with their owners, until they are eradicated in a few centuries. The arrival of Europeans
The DNA of modern American dogs has nothing in common with the elders, who descend dogs from eastern Siberia.
"It is fascinating to see that a population of dogs that have lived in many parts of the Americas for thousands of years, and which were integral to Native American cultures, may have disappeared so quickly ", Says Lawrence Frantz, lead author of the study, a former DNA expert at Queen Mary University in London
Possible reasons include illnesses, cultural persecution or the desire of Europeans to breed their own dogs But the speed of disappearance has surprised researchers
Modern farmers and modern Chihuahuas descend from Eurasian breeds introduced to America between the 15th and 20th centuries, writes Archaeologist Angela Perri of the University of Durham in England
.] And in fact, there is still a genetic trace of old American dogs, but it is peculiar: it is found in a cancerous tumor. reuse called CTVT, which is still manifested and transmitted by badual contact between dogs
The cancer has mutated over the years, much like the DNA of this first founding dog there are several thousand of them. years, "says Mayor Ni Leathlobhair, Department of Veterinary Medicine, University of Cambridge.
This study is an important but not final step in the understanding of canine evolution.
"The history of pre-contact American dogs is just beginning to be written," said Linda Goo. dman, Stanford, and Elinor Karlsson, of the University of Mbadachusetts, in a separate article in Science. This story can only be written with future discoveries, and in particular with the study of more complete genomes than those badyzed up to now.
(With information from the AFP).
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