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Researchers have stumbled upon the oldest domesticated dog remains found in America, suggesting that man’s best friend accompanied the first humans to the “New World.” Mitochondrial DNA from the dog femur fragment found along the southeastern coast of Alaska shows the owner lived about 10,150 years ago, according to a new study. That makes the dog slightly older than a group of dogs that roamed what is now Illinois about 9,910 years ago, per National GeographicThat begs the question: When did the first dogs arrive in America? There is no clear answer, but this bot tells us a lot. It comes from a lineage broken down from Siberian canines – believed to be domesticated about 23,000 years ago, per CNN – sometime after 16,700 years ago, around the time humans moved from Siberia to the North American coast.
This increases the possibility that dogs accompanied humans as the coastal ice receded at the end of the last Ice Age, before other dogs arrived via continental migrations. “The coastal edge of the ice sheet started to melt at least about 17,000 years ago, while the inland corridor was not viable until about 13,000 years ago,” said Charlotte Lindqvist, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Buffalo, per CBS News. “And genetic evidence that a coastal route for the first Americans more than 16,000 years ago seems most likely. Our study supports that our coast dog is a descendant of dogs that participated in this initial migration.” National Geographic notes that dogs may have served humans as hunters, protectors, carriers and friends, as well as fur and food sources during troubled times. The Alaskan dog likely ate fish, whale, and seal meat, suggesting he benefited from the partnership, too. (Arctic dogs can also be traced to Siberia.)