Hunting and Chasing the Earliest Dogs Across Six Continents
Greger Larson, Evolutionary Genomics, School of Archaeology, University of Oxford
October 29, 2025 | 15h00 | Hybrid Seminar (Zoom Link; Passcode: 111222)
Archaeological evidence suggests that dogs diverged from wolves during the Palaeolithic >15,000 years ago. The earliest unequivocal genetic evidence, however, is associated with dog remains from Mesolithic archeological contexts (~10,900 years ago). To test for evidence of dogs in the Palaeolithic, we generated both nuclear and mitochondrial genomes from canid remains at Pınarbaşı (Türkiye) and Gough’s Cave (UK) directly dated to between 15,800 and 14,300 years ago. We also generated genomic data from dogs excavated from two Mesolithic contexts in Serbia (Padina and Vlasac). Combined, our genetic analysis demonstrates that dogs were widely distributed across West Eurasia during the Late Upper Palaeolithic (~14,300 years ago), and may have spread alongside the expansion of human ancestry associated with the Epigravettian culture (16,000–13,000 years ago). Even more interestingly, these dogs were genetically a great deal more similar than expected given the ~3,500km geographic distance between them and statistically, they were more anomalous than both Tiger Woods and Lionel Messi. I’ll present the latest insights related to the origins and dispersal of dogs and the degree of correlation between human and dog movements across Eurasia, the Americas and Oceania.
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