Origins and genetic legacy of prehistoric dogs
Anders Bergström, Laurent Frantz, Ryan Schmidt, Erik Ersmark, Ophélie Lebrasseur, Linus Girdland-Flink, Audrey T. Lin, Jan Storå, Karl-Göran Sjögren, David W. Anthony, Ekaterina Antipina, Sarieh Amiri, Guy Bar‐Oz, Vladimir I. Bazaliiskii, Jelena Bulatović, Dorcas Brown, Alberto Carmagnini, Tom Davy, Sergey Fedorov, Ivana Fiore, Deirdre N. Fulton, Mietje Germonpré, James Haile, Evan K. Irving-Pease, Alexandra Jamieson, Luc Janssens, Irina Kirillova, Liora Kolska Horwitz, Julka Kuzmanovic-Cvetković, Yaroslav V. Kuzmin, Robert J. Losey, Daria Ložnjak Dizdar, Marjan Mashkour, Mario Novak, Vedat Onar, David Orton, Maja Pasarić, Miljana Radivojević, Dragana Rajković, Benjamin W. Roberts, Hannah Ryan, Mikhail Sablin, Fedor K. Shidlovskiy, Ivana Stojanović, Antonio Tagliacozzo, Katerina Trantalidou, Inga Ullén, Aritza Villaluenga, Paula Wapnish, Keith Dobney, Anders Götherström, Anna Linderholm, Love Dalén, Ron Pinhasi, Greger Larson, Pontus Skoglund
Abstract
Dogs were the first domestic animal, but little is known about their population history and to what extent it was linked to humans. We sequenced 27 ancient dog genomes and found that all dogs share a common ancestry distinct from present-day wolves, with limited gene flow from wolves since domestication but substantial dog-to-wolf gene flow. By 11,000 years ago, at least five major ancestry lineages had diversified, demonstrating a deep genetic history of dogs during the Paleolithic. Coanalysis with human genomes reveals aspects of dog population history that mirror humans, including Levant-related ancestry in Africa and early agricultural Europe. Other aspects differ, including the impacts of steppe pastoralist expansions in West and East Eurasia and a near-complete turnover of Neolithic European dog ancestry.