Study: Modern dogs emerged through single domestication process 

Challenging previous research that suggested two domestication processes led to the modern dog, a new study led by an Indian-origin scientist says that all contemporary dogs have a common origin and emerged through a single domestication process of wolves 20,000 to 40,000 years ago.

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Nature Communications:

• The findings, published in the journal Nature Communications.
• That are based on an analysis of the DNA of two prehistoric dogs from Germany.
• The researchers determined that their genomes were the probable ancestors of modern European dogs.
• Only last year were researchers able to sequence the genome of a 5,000-year-old dog using the latest paleogenomic techniques.
• The results of the study led the research team at the University of Oxford to suggest dogs were domesticated not once but twice.
• The research team also hypothesised.
• That an indigenous dogs stock domesticated in Europe was replaced by incoming migrants independently.
• Krishna Veeramah, Assistant Professor at the Stony Brook University, New York.
• Contrary to the results of this previous analysis.
• We found that our ancient dogs from the same time period were very similar to modern European dogs, including the majority of breed dogs people keep as pets.
• “This suggests that there was no mass Neolithic replacement that occurred on the continent and that there was likely only a single domestication process for the dogs observed in the fossil record from the Stone Age and that we also see and live with today.”
• Veeramah and his colleagues used the older 7,000-year-old dog.
• To narrow the timing of dog domestication to the 20,000 to 40,000 years ago range.
• They found evidence that the younger 4,700-year-old dog represents a mixture of European dogs.
• Also, a stock that resembles current Central Asian/Indian dogs.

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