Why it's impossible to trace dogs' origin

Their complicated history involves being interbred, as well as transported around the world, according to researchers from the University of Durham in the UK.

"There's a central irony here which is that because we love them so much, we've completely obliterated their early history and made it more difficult to understand their origins," lead study author Greger Larson, an evolutionary biologist at Durham, was quoted as saying by LiveScience.

Dogs were the first domesticated animal; however, many major questions about their domestication remain. For example, it's still not clear how many times they were domesticated, where in the Old World this happened, and how many different wolf populations contributed to the modern global population of dogs, the researchers said.

Using genetic data taken from modern breeds so far, it's not yet possible to look back more than about 150 years ago, past the time when Victorians began establishing the tightly defined breeds we know today, Larson said.

For the previous 15,000 years or so, the genetic history of dogs is a "big blurred mess," Larson said, explaining that while some selective breeding occurred since dogs were defined by their jobs, dogs also breed on their own.

In addition, humans transported them around the world and certain varieties even disappeared, he said.

Although some breeds of modern dogs, including Akitas, Afghan hounds, Chinese Shar-Peis, Basenjis, and Salukis seem to have deeper genetic roots, the recent analysis indicated that even these "ancient dog breeds" don't trace back more than a couple thousand years and are no closer to the first domesticated dogs than are more modern breeds.

For their study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the team analysed genetic material from 1,375 dogs representing 35 breeds, including six of the "ancient" breeds. They also mapped out the locations of these breeds in relation to archaeological evidence of ancient domesticated dogs, as well as the ranges of wolves. (More)