For 10,000 years dogs have been man’s best companions. But the journey of this very special relationship was not an entirely easy road to tackle. Modern dogs’ ancestors are believed to have come from the Americas, which, in turn, hailed from Siberia. It was not easy for these early Siberian canines to survive. In fact, they had almost nearly disappeared.
They might have suffered from near extinction but these Siberian dogs still managed to pass on to their modern counterparts’ genes a cancerous tumor. This is the major finding published in the recent issue of Science magazine, derived from a research financially supported by the UK’s National Environmental Research CFor 10,000 years, dogs have been man’s best companions. But the journey of this extraordinary relationship was not entirely straightforward. Modern dogs’ ancestors are believed to have come from the Americas, which, in turn, hailed from Siberia. It was not easy for these early Siberian canines to survive. They had almost nearly disappeared.
They might have suffered from near extinction, but these Siberian dogs still managed to pass on a cancerous tumor to their modern counterparts’ genes.
This is the central finding published in the recent issue of Science magazine, derived from research financially supported by the UK’s National Environmental Research Council
and conducted by a group of international scholars, including a Texas A&M University assistant anthropology professor, Anna Linderholm.
Anna Linderholm’s team employed a research methodology of collecting 71 ancient dog remains from which they derived genetic information. The team discovered that early dogs in the Americas arrived alongside the first settlers in North, South, and Central America.
Closer inspection of the genomes of these ancient canines revealed that they had almost totally disappeared at some point, leaving very few traces of their genetic makeup in present-day dogs on the continent. This disappearance coincided with the arrival of European settlers in the region.
If there is one thing these ancient dogs left to their modern counterparts, by way of genetic connection, it is a cancerous precondition.
Anna Linderholm’s team has pondered how this strange phenomenon, wherein an entire population of dogs has rapidly disappeared after inhabiting the American continent for thousands of years, could have happened. The team theorizes that there was most likely some catastrophic incident that resulted in the near-total extinction of this canine population. However, airtight evidence for this assumption has yet to be found.
Anna Linderholm, who directs Texas A&M University’s Bioarchaeology and Genomics Lab (BIG) and is responsible for the bulk of the genome above work, has expressed another conjecture relating the disappearance of these ancient dogs to European colonization. But she asks readers to take this assumption with a grain of salt, for no details have been provided to support it fully.
Also, the fact that a particular cancer tumor present in modern dogs has been traced to these ancient canines that roamed the Americas gives the whole situation a shroud of enigma. It is almost ironic, and a tad bit sinister, for an entire population of canines to be wiped out while also leaving behind some sort of illness for their descendants to suffer from.
If there is one safe conjecture we can make from the findings of this research, it has to be this: the relationship between men and canines goes way back. And just like it is now, men from ancient times would go out of their way to take their beloved canines on journeys worldwide to avoid sad separation.
