Where do dogs really come from?

[nkt]

Originally Posted by Zohaar818

Read my post below..if they descended from a common ancestor, the dog-like qualities were there before humans 'domesticated them'...
Now then, do we have a fossil of the ancestor or is that part of the theory..that there 'must have been' one?

Why must there be any other physical evidence? It isn't like those guys had computers to sit behind all day - they had to go out and talk to people if they wanted company, you know, face-to-face, with voices. Writing was not exactly a complex form back then, either. An oral tradition of dog/wolf breeding was probably around the place, but given that it *is* fairly obvious what to do (dogs often get on with it without humans helping) why would anyone have tried to draw a set of pictograms?

The fossil record is massively incomplete, too, and the presence of dogs wouldn't have helped that - think about what happens to the bones left over when you get something like a greyhound. I've seen one destroy a cow knee in under ten minutes, to tiny scraps that no-one would identify later. So where would these fossils come from?

Gnaw marks aren't going to tell much more than the presence of dogs, either.

My vote definately goes towards a common very wolf-like ancestor. From that evolved things like Wild Dogs of Africa, perhaps Dingos and possibly even Jackals, along with all the various types of dog we have. I do recall that the dog was only domesticated once, though, from a wolf-like ancestor, according to genetic studies, and all other breeds world-wide came from that proto-dog. That's probably more amazing than anything else...

[Zohaar818]

Originally Posted by Tormod

Yes and no - the "domestic" qualities would not be there. They were wild animals.

There are also other theories - for example that domesticated dogs evolved from wolves only 14,000 years ago. A lot of fossils seem to show this to be true, so there is a plausible case for this.

More about this in BBC:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2498669.stm



Yes, there are many fossils - which form part of the theory. Google for it if you like.

Here is an interesting comment from Michael Shermer where he actually mentions the alternative theory I noted above.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?art...3983414B7F0000

I have no single answer for you. There are many theories and there are some that are more plausible than others. All scientific theories on the wolf/dog relationship are based on evolution, though.

Thank you for that last response..it gave me something to consider. While googling I came across another site:
http://www.kc.net/~wolf2dog/dnaid.htm with yet more info and adding even to the debate...
"So which breed of dog is closest to the wolf? So far they are all in the same basket, even though Paul's map places the Maremma a little bit outside. Note that some breeds, for example the Doberman Pinscher, appear in two categories. This means they share an ancestral mother with Great Danes and also with Shar Planinetz and Border Collies. That is not hard to imagine, since Herr Doberman created this breed by crossbreeding. The chart also shows Shars and Border Collies sharing a great-grandmother sometime in the past, great Danes and Golden Retrievers with a common mother with other dogs, and all of them with an unrelated mother. Now that is news.


What this all means is that through time there has been an infusion of unrelated genes, a sharing of mothers, so to speak, between species and between breeds. The wild animals we think of as distinct from one another, the purebred dogs we appreciate for their special form and behavior are_not really unrelated. To a geneticist, the lines between the dog (Canis familiaris), the wolf (Cani lupus), or the coyote (Canis latrans) are indistinct because they are not true species, that is not reproductively isolated. "

Note that onse site says wolves and dogs like malamutes and huskies are not related except by a long lost ancestor and are as distinct from each other as chimpansees and humans....the other says they are descendants of wolves which themselves are not purebreeds..I found another site which claims big dogs came from wolves and small ones from jackals and coyotes...all theories based on evolution and human domestication for which only a vague fossil record, and inconclusive DNA tests..can be pointed to as proof.

here's a lucid summation I read on the smithsonian website:
Until recently, scientists believed that domestic dogs originated in the Middle East. But reports suggest that almost all domestic dogs began in East Asia as the offspring of three lineages. Virtually all domesticated dogs in the United States descend from dogs brought over by ancient people that crossed the Bering land bridge from Asia to North America. Although the New World had a healthy wolf population that might have given rise to a New World strain of domesticated dogs, by and large these ancient immigrants stuck with the dogs of Asian origin.

How, you may wonder, have scientists come to these conclusions? The same way forensic specialists increasingly solve crimes--through DNA evidence. Since mitochondria are cellular elements passed from mother to pup, mitochondrial DNA readily reveal genetic footprints stretching back into prehistoric times. Scientists from the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. collected DNA samples from the remains of ancient Old World dogs, ancient New World dogs, and ancient New World wolves. Test showed decisively that the New World dogs were genetically more similar to Old World dogs than to New World wolves, effectively proving that the dogs we save from local shelters originally hail from the far East rather than the woods of North America.'

here are a few more relevant quotes; "Evolution is a change in the genetic composition of populations.".."Domestic dogs that derived from various parts of the world have evolutionary influenced divergence which has emerged over.. OH about 5,000 yrs. Thus, in 5,000 yrs various domestic dogs have through “microevolution” diverged phenotypically into different breeds. These have phenotypic differences arising from selection, environment, large gene pools and all other factors that contribute to evolution over thousands of years. By mixing these highly diverged animals and selecting for specific traits we can thereby define a new breed."
An intriguing book on the subject can be found with review if you go here;
http://www.epinions.com/content_55479930500
And the theory offered makes total sense until you realize we are talking chan ge in shape and genetic code in wolves brought about from scavenging our city dumps around 10-15,000 years ago, or contemporaneous to the rise in agriculture and the establishment of permanent villages. meaning wolf dna transformed itself into dog dna in just a few quick generations and then humans took over the rest of the process..if their theory is true.
And if it is it has to be the fastest case of spontaneous genetic transformation [evolution] of a species ever recorded..and it had to be nearly global, given the thousands of wolves feeding on our ancestors left-overs...
I partly subscribe to some of this in that it makes perfect sense that dogs and the rise of human civilization both trace their roots back to Asia, and at the same time.
But then, the myths of the people in question all point to star gods coming down at about that time and doing fantastic things with dna..

Since there are so many competing and sometimes parallel theories of dog descent I find it perfectly valid that the question was listed on a site called 6 enigmas..because the truth is, all we have is a theory, we really don't KNOW where dogs came from..just making 'educated guesses'.

-Zohaar

[Tormod]

Originally Posted by Zohaar818

Since there are so many competing and sometimes parallel theories of dog descent I find it perfectly valid that the question was listed on a site called 6 enigmas..because the truth is, all we have is a theory, we really don't KNOW where dogs came from..just making 'educated guesses'.

Many theories does not mean many answers. It is merely different attempts to explain what we see, based on the understanding that we may or may not have.

Like I said, all the theories boil down to evolutionary questions. Personally I see no mystery in where dogs came from. Whether they evolved 60 million years ago or 14,000 years ago we are still talking about a branch off an evolutionary path and how recently it happened. That wolves and dogs are related and diverged quite recently in evolutionary terms is what matters.

The interesting question to me is why humans domesticated dogs and how they brought them with them around the globe, making different kinds of dogs interbreed and create new breeds. For that there will be as many answer as there are historians.

[Biochemist]

Originally Posted by Tormod

...The interesting question to me is why humans domesticated dogs and how they brought them with them around the globe...

Well, I think we should all acknowledge the obvious answer: Mankind domesticated dogs so that he would have an assistant to retrieve the newpaper. Do keep in mind that early newpapers were probably stone, and retrieval would have required larger dogs. Wolves would have done nicely.

As newpapers evolved (through natural selection) into more delicate material (like papyrus), dog owners mercilessly beat the dogs that chewed up the papers. Ergo we got smaller dogs (because the ones that were smaller and faster were harder to hit), and retrievers (because they didn't get hit at all).

Retrievers, in turn, drove the evolution of shotguns (again by natural selection in the gun phylum) so that the dogs would have something else to retrieve besides the newspaper.

It is great when science brings it all into focus.

Historical note: If Moses had brought his wolf along with him at Mt. Sinai, we might not have lost the first set of 10 commandments. Er, 15 commandments?

[Zohaar818]

Originally Posted by Tormod

Many theories does not mean many answers. It is merely different attempts to explain what we see, based on the understanding that we may or may not have.

Like I said, all the theories boil down to evolutionary questions. Personally I see no mystery in where dogs came from. Whether they evolved 60 million years ago or 14,000 years ago we are still talking about a branch off an evolutionary path and how recently it happened. That wolves and dogs are related and diverged quite recently in evolutionary terms is what matters.

The interesting question to me is why humans domesticated dogs and how they brought them with them around the globe, making different kinds of dogs interbreed and create new breeds. For that there will be as many answer as there are historians.

Dear Tormod,

So good to be somewhat on the same page with you again..
;-)
I agree that many theories do not mean many answers..that there is only one probable and correct answer.
The dates matter when we discuss ancestors and the common specie from which canids of all types descended, with or without man's help.
in researching the subject both prior to my post and in the ccrrespondence since I've discovered that there is still some controversy about which is a true species of wolf..that grays and reds are not true species any more than mongrel dogs are true species..just variants of the same species. yet there remains steadfast agreement that wolf DNA and dog dna have distinctly different markers and that dogs are certainly no more than 40,000 years old and that the split may be as recent as 14,000 years.
but then agin I have to agree with your last point that it is fascinating how and why humans travelled with their domesticated dogs around the world..whch brings me agin to my first point.
See, I've read on the N.American indian sites about wolves that no dogs came from American wolves, that indians never domesticated or tried to domesticate the indiginous canines when they migrated fro asia.
Instead they brought their dogs with them.
Almost all sources agree the first dogs came from the southern caucasus and the Indo-Turkey [mesopotamic] arc.
You would think that if human settlement and agriculture were the catalysts for wolf to dog transformation that we'd have native dogs from native wolves...or coyotes, especially in central America where there were cities..but alas..the dogs from that region are all imports who can trace their lines back to the first dogs, through asia.
go figure..
;-)

[Harzburgite]

There has been a suggestion (and regretably I do not recall the source) that dogs domesticated themselves. Imagine the opportunistic proto-dog that discovers these odd primates are rather effective hunters, to the point that they do not always eat all of their kills. Following them around can prove more rewarding than pack hunting. Proto-dogs that are more subdued in their behavior will be favoured in this role as the humans will be less concerned with their presence.
Note also, in behavioural terms, dog like behaviour is readily achieved by freezing wolf behaviour at the puppy stage. This would be self-selected in the scenario posited above.

[Zohaar818]

Originally Posted by Harzburgite

There has been a suggestion (and regretably I do not recall the source) that dogs domesticated themselves. Imagine the opportunistic proto-dog that discovers these odd primates are rather effective hunters, to the point that they do not always eat all of their kills. Following them around can prove more rewarding than pack hunting. Proto-dogs that are more subdued in their behavior will be favoured in this role as the humans will be less concerned with their presence.
Note also, in behavioural terms, dog like behaviour is readily achieved by freezing wolf behaviour at the puppy stage. This would be self-selected in the scenario posited above.

You know, in some ways that makes sense to me..coming from a backgrounbd in behavioural science and being a keen observer of dogs...with certain pedigreed exceptions it has always seemed to me that dogs were more descendants of scavengers than hunters..and that they are more omnivore than carnivore...thus my reluctance to take dog from wolf descent at face value....
Thank you for the comment, it has given me something to chew on this weekend.

-Zohaar

[Boerseun]

Originally Posted by Zohaar818

...thus my reluctance to take dog from wolf descent at face value....

Dogs and wolves can interbreed.

Therefore, if dogs did not descend from wolves, then they must have evolved in parallel from common stock - and pretty recently, at that. Although, in the short history of canine domestication, it seems unlikely that wolves would have changed very much, seeing as their evolution is driven by natural selection, which would take longer to achieve results like a chihuahua, for instance, than the time indicated by the archaeological records.

Humans have enforced artificial selection upon the canis family, which will yield enormous changes over a very short time-span. It seems obvious that the domesticated dogs have split off from ancient wolves, and that there's not a big difference between ancient and modern wolves.

I hope this helps.

[Zohaar818]

Originally Posted by Boerseun

Dogs and wolves can interbreed.

Therefore, if dogs did not descend from wolves, then they must have evolved in parallel from common stock - and pretty recently, at that. Although, in the short history of canine domestication, it seems unlikely that wolves would have changed very much, seeing as their evolution is driven by natural selection, which would take longer to achieve results like a chihuahua, for instance, than the time indicated by the archaeological records.

Humans have enforced artificial selection upon the canis family, which will yield enormous changes over a very short time-span. It seems obvious that the domesticated dogs have split off from ancient wolves, and that there's not a big difference between ancient and modern wolves.

I hope this helps.

Thanks for contiributing to the diiscussion but if you've read the thread you will note that we discussed this already and, although maybe sharing a common ancestor. dogs did not descend from wolves..Fact. That they came from proto-dogs or some long lost branch of canis is quite possible..but that long lost canis only died out about 14,000 years ago at the latest, and only 40,000 years ago at the outside limit...which begs the problem of wolves who we know to jhave been here for many thousands of years before dogs arrived on the scene.
If it was all so obvious that dogs came from wolves it would not be listed as one of the great enigmas..
Like I said..please read the thread through..

-Zohaar
;-)

[Boerseun]

Originally Posted by Zohaar818

Thanks for contiributing to the diiscussion but if you've read the thread you will note that we discussed this already and, although maybe sharing a common ancestor. dogs did not descend from wolves..Fact. That they came from proto-dogs or some long lost branch of canis is quite possible..but that long lost canis only died out about 14,000 years ago at the latest, and only 40,000 years ago at the outside limit...which begs the problem of wolves who we know to jhave been here for many thousands of years before dogs arrived on the scene.
If it was all so obvious that dogs came from wolves it would not be listed as one of the great enigmas..
Like I said..please read the thread through..

-Zohaar
;-)

I probably didn't make myself clear there.

What I'm saying is that seeing as dogs and wolves can interbreed, they are related.
Seeing as wolves are subject to natural selection, whereas dogs are subject to artificial selection, wolves will take much, much longer to generate the changes we see in dogs.
Therefore, the "proto-dog" would have been very close to wolves, if not a wolf itself. If they split off from a common ancestor say, 50,000 years ago, wolves, being a parallel development, would still be pretty close to the original - whereas dogs' only reason for change is what humans force upon them. Thus - dogs are wolves in dog's clothes...