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- May 27, 2009
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This is the first I've heard of this. Looks like folks loved and cared for dogs in America 10,000 years ago.
America’s first dogs vanished after Europeans arrived, study finds
A dog buried nearly 10,000 years ago in western Illinois, at what is known as the Koster site. The site contains the earliest dog remains found in the Americas. (Del Baston, courtesy of the Center for American Archaeology)
For thousands of years, dogs lived alongside early Americans. This human-canine partnership has been gleaned through bones: The earliest dog remains found in North America were buried nearly 10,000 years ago in what is now Illinois. By 7,000 years ago, other bones show that “we have lots of dogs all over the place,” said Angela Perri, a zooarchaeologist at Durham University in England.
But then, sometime after the 15th century, these ancient dogs disappeared. European colonists — and the canines they brought with them — all but wiped the early dogs’ genetic signature from Earth, according to the largest-ever study of ancient and modern dog DNA in North America and Siberia.
“This paper makes really clear that the ancient American dog appears to have almost entirely vanished, though nobody seems to have any good explanations for why,” said Elinor Karlsson, a University of Massachusetts professor who studies dog genetics and was not involved in the research, which was published Thursday in Science. “It’s almost like a huge chunk of history that’s been kind of lost.”
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America’s first dogs vanished after Europeans arrived, study finds
A dog buried nearly 10,000 years ago in western Illinois, at what is known as the Koster site. The site contains the earliest dog remains found in the Americas. (Del Baston, courtesy of the Center for American Archaeology)
For thousands of years, dogs lived alongside early Americans. This human-canine partnership has been gleaned through bones: The earliest dog remains found in North America were buried nearly 10,000 years ago in what is now Illinois. By 7,000 years ago, other bones show that “we have lots of dogs all over the place,” said Angela Perri, a zooarchaeologist at Durham University in England.
But then, sometime after the 15th century, these ancient dogs disappeared. European colonists — and the canines they brought with them — all but wiped the early dogs’ genetic signature from Earth, according to the largest-ever study of ancient and modern dog DNA in North America and Siberia.
“This paper makes really clear that the ancient American dog appears to have almost entirely vanished, though nobody seems to have any good explanations for why,” said Elinor Karlsson, a University of Massachusetts professor who studies dog genetics and was not involved in the research, which was published Thursday in Science. “It’s almost like a huge chunk of history that’s been kind of lost.”
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