2020/06/25 by Mikkel‐Holger S. Sinding, Shyam Gopalakrishnan, Jazmín Ramos‐Madrigal +32 · 4 citations
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Health Professions · Social Sciences · #Human-Animal Interaction Studies #Indigenous Studies and Ecology #Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology #Holocene #Pleistocene #Arctic #Transition (genetics) #The arctic #Geology #Oceanography #Physical geography #Paleontology #Geography #Biology
paper · doi:10.1126/science.aaz8599
openalex publication_date 2020/06/25 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Although sled dogs are one of the most specialized groups of dogs, their origin and evolution has received much less attention than many other dog groups. We applied a genomic approach to investigate their spatiotemporal emergence by sequencing the genomes of 10 modern Greenland sled dogs, an ~9500-year-old Siberian dog associated with archaeological evidence for sled technology, and an ~33,000-year-old Siberian wolf. We found noteworthy genetic similarity between the ancient dog and modern sled dogs. We detected gene flow from Pleistocene Siberian wolves, but not modern American wolves, to present-day sled dogs. The results indicate that the major ancestry of modern sled dogs traces back to Siberia, where sled dog-specific haplotypes of genes that potentially relate to Arctic adaptation were established by 9500 years ago.