Bergström et al. (2019) Ancient genomic structure of domestic dogs (original) (raw)

AI-generated Abstract

The dog was the first animal to be domesticated, and has accompanied humans through major lifestyle changes and population movements. Yet very little is known about the population history of dogs and to what extent it reflects that of associated human populations. We sequenced 27 ancient dog genomes from the last 10,000 years to a median depth of 1.5-fold, including samples from the Near East, Siberia and across Europe. We find that the major lineages of dog ancestry cannot be related without invoking admixture events. Ancient West Eurasian dog genomes display a cline of dual affinities to early Near Eastern dogs and early Siberian dogs. Present-day African dogs share the majority of their ancestry with early Neolithic Near Eastern dogs. Modern European breeds display a remarkably uniform ancestry with structure among breeds uncorrelated to early European population structure, suggesting that they derive from a single, homogeneous source population. By co-analysing the dog genomes with ancient human genomes matched in time and space, we uncover several features of dog ancestry relationships that mirror known human population history, but also features where dogs display opposing trends. Overall, our ancient genomic data reveals that the divergent ancestries observed in European, Near Eastern, African, Siberian, East Asian, Oceanian, and American dog populations must have diversified already by 10,000 years ago.