Guest Book Table Number

Dogs have originated in the Middle East

Non in Europa o in Cina, come si sospettava. Lo dimostra la più vasta analisi genetica mai condotta sul Dna dei cani e dei lupi

I cani hanno avuto origin in the Middle East and not in Europe or China, as suspected so far. The genetic analysis shows the largest ever conducted on the DNA of dogs and wolves, their closest relatives on the evolutionary ladder. The research, published in Nature, was made by an international team coordinated by the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA).

The area of \u200b\u200borigin is thus the same dogs in which domestic cats are born and many farm animals, as well as agriculture. The discovery was a surprise to researchers because no archaeological find has ever shown that dogs have originated in that area. "Dogs seem to have many more similarities gene in common with the gray wolves of the Middle East with other wolf populations in the rest of the world, "said one of the authors of the research, the evolutionary biologist Robert Wayne, UCLA.

Genetic analysis shows that the is one of the largest ever conducted to date on the DNA of dogs: "We were able to study a number of samples unprecedented," said lead researcher vonHoldt Bridgett, UCLA. The samples on which it based the study were collected from more than 900 dogs from 85 farms and more than 200 gray wolves in the wild populations of North America, Middle East and East Asia. In the genetic makeup of dogs were identified over 48,000 "positions" stored in gene chips: so it was possible to compare all the DNA samples analyzed in the research.

The first archaeological evidence of the presence of dogs in the Middle East date back about 13,000 years ago, when wolves are present in the Old World for hundreds of thousands of years. The earliest archaeological evidence relating to dogs are those found in western Russia, which date to 31,000 years ago, and those found in Belgium, dating back to 15,000 years ago.

source