FLICKR, CHUCKA_NC
The DNA of a wolf rib fragment collected in the Taimyr Peninsula in northern Siberia is posing a challenge to the current timeline of mankind’s relationship with dogs. Previous work placed the domestication of canines only as far back as 16,000 years ago. But the 35,000 year-old Taimyr wolf genome, published in Current Biology last week (May 21), tells a different story.
When researchers in Sweden and the U.S. compared the newly assembled genome to those of modern wolves and dogs, they found the Taimyr wolf equally related to both, and that it likely split off from its modern counterparts around the same time. The researchers’ analysis and the age of the rib fragment places that divergence well before the commonly accepted timeframe for the ...
