Ancient Dog of the Russian science - BBC

Scientists from Siberia, together with foreign colleagues have identified a person domesticated dog. One of the authors of the study said “the Newspaper” details of the work, published in Science, and explained its inability to continue in Russia.

Domesticated thousands of years ago, the wolf turned into a true friend of modern man – a dog. In the process of domestication of wolves have changed, have lost some of their physiological and morphological features were devoted companions of people. In ancient times, dogs help their owners to hunt, performed security functions.

Wag the Dog

dogs, wagging his tail, as able to express their emotions, and interpret these signals correctly from their relatives, and in accordance with … ?

question of when and where wolves were domesticated, a long time remained a subject of debate for scientists . Doctor of Geographical Sciences Yaroslav Kuzmin last year told «Gazeta.ru” about scientific disputes.

Among the possible locations of domestication of wolves, the researchers called Europe, East Asia and South Asia. The problem of determining the date of domestication also did not have the final decision.

Until 2008, it was thought that the oldest copy of the remains of the ancient dogs has about 17 thousand years (the remains were found in a parking lot in Russia Eliseevich in the Bryansk region).

In 2008, it became possible to radiocarbon dog skull found in the Altai (Cave Robber) Nicholas Ovodova , paleontologist at the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography. Pre-existing technology did not permit a similar analysis, as this would seriously hurt the cranium.

Research in 2008 showed: age ancient dog is about 34 thousand years.

Man’s best friend

ancestors of modern dogs were adapted to domestication due to mutations in several genes responsible for the digestion of starch and … ?

year later Journal of Archaeological Science has published an article about the remains of dogs found in Belgium (Goyet Cave). Their age totaled 36.5 thousand years.

Thus, the researchers got a question: is it possible that the domestication of dogs occurred so early? A large group of scientists led by Olaf Talmanna ( University of Turku ), and Mr Nicholas Ovodova studied mitochondrial genomes of ancient dogs, including dogs from the caves of Plunder and Goya, and compared the data with the genomes of modern dogs and wolves. With the results of the work of scientists can be found in the journal Science .

researchers extracted mitochondrial genomes from the remains of the ancient wolves and 18 ancient dogs and compared them with 148 modern genomes of animals, among which there were 49 wolves, 77 dogs of different breeds, including the dingo and the Basenji (African Nela dog), as well as four coyote .

Genetic analysis has shown that the birthplace of the modern domestic dog is very likely to Europe, not the Middle East or East Asia.

Dogs do not like metal

facilitate the difficult life of dogs in shelters help classical music. This is the conclusion Lori Kogan – Associate Professor College of Veterinary Medicine and … ?

This proves the genetic similarity of modern dogs with old dogs and wolves, whose remains were found on the territory of Europe. Estimated date of the domestication of dogs ranges from 18.8 to 32.1 million years ago. The researchers believe that more ancient representatives of domestic dogs, such as dogs from the caves of Plunder and Goya, may constitute “samples” of single, older episodes of domestication of wolves.

Alexander Graphodatsky , Head of the Department of diversity and evolution of the genomes of the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology of the Russian Academy of Sciences and colleague Nicholas Ovodova, said “the Newspaper”: “From the results of our new article shows that the dog is accompanied person as it moves northward, following the departing glacier. The next of kin of our “predatory” dog we find among some European wolves, and two exotic breeds of northern Scandinavia ».

scientist said the next step in the study of ancient dogs is a full transcript of the nuclear genome, which can be read endlessly, comparing different genes or other components and discovering more and more new facts.

However

professor said: “Despite the fact that such surveys can be directly in the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Novosibirsk, in the near future it is impracticable.” The reason for this – the reform of the RAS. “Science in Russia got a crowbar on his legs, and plan something reasonable was impossible,” – said Graphodatsky.