[wordup] Origin of dogs traced

[Adam Shand]

Wow, cool.

   In a simple experiment designed to compare their behaviour to those of
   wolves and our closest relative, the chimpanzee, the findings clearly
   showed that dogs - even young puppies - were far better at
   interpreting social cues from humans.

   The dogs had to choose which bucket had food hidden underneath it, and
   the experiment was designed so they could not rely on their superb
   sense of smell. The scientists helped by pointing or looking in the
   direction of the hidden food.

   Researcher Brian Hare said the dogs outperformed even the chimpanzees,
   and the puppies were as good as the older dogs, proving the skill was
   innate and not learned.

From: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2498669.stm

Origin of dogs traced

Friday, 22 November, 2002, 05:03 GMT
By Christine McGourty
BBC science correspondent

Dogs today come in all shapes and sizes, but scientists believe they 
evolved from just a handful of wolves tamed by humans living in or near 
China less than 15,000 years ago.

Three research teams have attempted to solve some long-standing puzzles 
in the evolution and social history of dogs.

Their findings, reported in the journal Science, point to the existence 
of probably three founding females - the so-called "Eves" of the dog world.

They conclude that intensive breeding by humans over the last 500 years 
- not different genetic origins - is responsible for the dramatic 
differences in appearance among modern dogs.

One team studied Old World dogs to try to pin down their origins, 
previously thought to be in the Middle East.

The other team studied dogs of the New World and found they are not New 
World dogs at all, but also have their origins in East Asia.

Carles Vila, of Uppsala University, Sweden, one of the team studying the 
New World dogs, told BBC News Online: "We found that dogs originating in 
the Old World arrived to the New World with immigrating humans.

"Thus, even before the development of trade as we know it now, humans 
had to be exchanging dogs."

He added that exactly how or why humans domesticated dogs was not known, 
but the speed at which they seem to have multiplied and diversified 
indicates they played an important role in human life.

"I can imagine that if dogs were, for example, improving the quality of 
hunting, that would be a very great advantage for humans. It could even 
have made the colonisation of the New World easier.

"There must have been something advantageous about those dogs that made 
them extremely successful and allowed them to spread all over the world."

Peter Savolainen, of the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, led 
the study of Old World dogs, analysing DNA samples taken from dogs in 
Asia, Europe, Africa and arctic America.

'Bit of a surprise'

His team found that, though most dogs shared a common gene pool, genetic 
diversity was highest in East Asia, suggesting that dogs have been 
domesticated there the longest.

"Most earlier guesses have focused on the Middle East as the place of 
origin for dogs, based on the few known facts - a small amount of 
archaeological evidence from the region, and the fact that several other 
animals were domesticated there," he says.

  The researchers studied gene sequences from the dogs' mitochondrial 
DNA, which is inherited directly from the mother. The findings indicated 
that the major present-day dog populations at some point had a common 
origin from a single gene pool.

Matthew Binns, head of genetics at the Animal Health Trust in Newmarket, 
UK, said the findings were significant.

He told BBC News Online: "For the first time, there's relatively 
convincing evidence actually pinpointing the date at which the dog was 
domesticated and also the location of that domestication, which is a bit 
of a surprise.

"People have previously thought that a lot of species were domesticated 
in the Middle East and this data clearly shows domestication took place 
in East Asia."

He added: "It looks as if 95% of current dogs come from just three 
original founding females and I guess these are the Eves of the dog world."

Human evolution

In a separate study, researchers at Harvard University and the Wolf 
Hollow Wolf Sanctuary, both US, studied social cognition in dogs and 
were surprised by the findings.

In a simple experiment designed to compare their behaviour to those of 
wolves and our closest relative, the chimpanzee, the findings clearly 
showed that dogs - even young puppies - were far better at interpreting 
social cues from humans.

The dogs had to choose which bucket had food hidden underneath it, and 
the experiment was designed so they could not rely on their superb sense 
of smell. The scientists helped by pointing or looking in the direction 
of the hidden food.

Researcher Brian Hare said the dogs outperformed even the chimpanzees, 
and the puppies were as good as the older dogs, proving the skill was 
innate and not learned.

"During domestication there was some kind of change in their cognitive 
ability that allowed them to figure out what other individuals wanted 
using social cues. The biggest surprise was the puppies - even as young 
as nine weeks old, they're better than an adult chimpanzee at finding food."

He said the research might ultimately provide some clues as to how 
social skills evolved in humans.
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