They found the remains of the oldest dog in America: it lived more than 10 thousand years ago and confirms a theory of human migration

Dogs accompanied the first humans to arrive in North America, scientists who discovered the remains of a dog over 10,000 years old say. according to a study published Wednesday.

These people are believed they emigrated from Siberia, by what has become the current one Bering Strait, does in between 30,000 and 11,000 years.

Human history is closely linked to that of your best friend has been around for a long time, and studying the DNA of dogs is helpful in establishing human settlements.

Researchers once thought that humans initially entered America about 12,000 years ago. It was then that the thick glaciers that covered much of North America began to melt. This opened a corridor, allowing people from Siberia to walk through lands now submerged in the Bering Sea, and then to North America in search of mammoths and other large animals.

But the past decade archaeologists have shown that humans could have moved to North America much earlier They traveled from Siberia through the Alaska Archipelago about 16,000 years ago and eventually came along the Pacific coast.

The discovery of the dog bone splinter supports this hypothesis. Scientists of the American University in Buffalo analyzed DNA from a dog bone fragment found in Southeast Alaska. At first they thought it belonged to a bear, but an in-depth analysis revealed it was a part of a dog’s femur.

The bone is approximately 10,200 years old, making it the oldest known dog support in America.

The genetic analysis further revealed that the animal was closely related to the earliest known dogs, which researchers believe were domesticated in Siberia about 23,000 years ago. Based on the number of genetic differences between the Alaska dog and its Siberian ancestors, the team estimates that the two populations were divided 16,700 years ago, when scientists believe it is possible that humans chose a coastline to move from present-day Siberia to the North American continent.

That’s an indication dogs, and their people, left Siberia and entered America thousands of years before the glaciers of North America melted

The data also agrees with DNA-based estimates of when modern Indians separated from their Siberian ancestors, providing new evidence to determine when the first migrations took place. “If you understand how dogs move, you also see how people move”, said to Ciencemag Flavio Augusto da Silva Coelho, the scientist who conducted the DNA analysis.

“Since dogs are related to human occupation of space, our data helps specify not only a date, but also a place for dogs and humans to enter America”explained Charlotte Lindqvist, biologist at the universities of Buffalo and South Dakota.

The study, published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, supports the theory that humans populated the North American continent from Siberia, via ato coast road.

“We believe the first human migrations in the region were more important than we think”, He said.

“Coast dog”

An analysis of the bone fragment showed this the animal was on a “marine” diet, based on the remains of fish, seals and whales.

Then the dogs came in consecutive waves, said Charlotte Lindqvist. First from East Asia with the Thule people, then with the Siberian huskies brought to Alaska during the gold rush of the 19th century.

The study carries his grain of sand to the old debate about whether, once they crossed today’s Bering Strait, the first humans advanced to the continent via a continental corridor or a coastal road along the Pacific Ocean.

The pre-contact dog remains found on the trail of the continental corridor are younger than the ones identified by Lindqvist’s team on the coastal route.

This favors the theory of a coastal route for early arrivals.

The “Coastal dog is a descendant of the dogs that took part in the first migration”, explained the specialist.

(With information from AFP)

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