The dog was the first domesticated animal but it remains uncertain when the domestication process began and whether it occurred just once or multiple times across the Northern Hemisphere. To ascertain the value of modern genetic data to elucidate the origins of dog domestication, we analyzed 49,024 autosomal SNPs in 1,375 dogs (representing 35 breeds) and 19 wolves. After combining our data with previously published data, we contrasted the genetic signatures of 121 breeds with a worldwide archeological assessment of the earliest dog remains. Correlating the earliest archeological dogs with the geographic locations of 14 so-called "ancient" breeds (defined by their genetic differentiation) resulted in a counterintuitive pattern. First, none of the ancient breeds derive from regions where the oldest archeological remains have been found. Second, three of the ancient breeds (Basenjis, Dingoes, and New Guinea Singing Dogs) come from regions outside the natural range of Canis lupus (the dog's wild ancestor) and where dogs were introduced more than 10,000 y after domestication. These results demonstrate that the unifying characteristic among all genetically distinct so-called ancient breeds is a lack of recent admixture with other breeds likely facilitated by geographic and cultural isolation. Furthermore, these genetically distinct ancient breeds only appear so because of their relative isolation, suggesting that studies of modern breeds have yet to shed light on dog origins. We conclude by assessing the limitations of past studies and how next-generation sequencing of modern and ancient individuals may unravel the history of dog domestication.genomics | phylogeography D arwin speculated about the origins of several domestic animals and suggested that, given the vast morphological variation across numerous breeds, dogs must have had more than one wild ancestor (1). Recent genetic studies, however, support the notion that dogs are descended exclusively from the gray wolf (Canis lupus) (2).Beyond questions regarding wild ancestry, geneticists and generations of archeologists have investigated not only how and why dogs were domesticated, but also when, where, and how many times it may have occurred. Unique among all domestic animals, the first unambiguous domestic dogs precede the appearance of settled agriculture in the archeological record by several thousand years. Identifying the earliest dogs is difficult, however, because key morphological characters established by zooarcheologists to differentiate domestic animals from their wild wolf ancestors (e.g., size and position of teeth, dental pathologies, and size and proportion of cranial and postcranial elements) were not yet fixed during the initial phases of the domestication process. Furthermore, the range of natural variation among these characters in ancient wolf populations and the time it took for these traits to appear in dogs are unknown. Free-ranging wolves attracted to the refuse generated by human camps most likely followed a commensal pathway to domestica...

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Human settlement of Oceania marked the culmination of a global colonization process that began when humans first left Africa at least 90,000 years ago. The precise origins and dispersal routes of the Austronesian peoples and the associated Lapita culture remain contentious, and numerous disparate models of dispersal (based primarily on linguistic, genetic, and archeological data) have been proposed. Here, through the use of mtDNA from 781 modern and ancient Sus specimens, we provide evidence for an early humanmediated translocation of the Sulawesi warty pig (Sus celebensis) to Flores and Timor and two later separate human-mediated dispersals of domestic pig (Sus scrofa) through Island Southeast Asia into Oceania. Of the later dispersal routes, one is unequivocally associated with the Neolithic (Lapita) and later Polynesian migrations and links modern and archeological Javan, Sumatran, Wallacean, and Oceanic pigs with mainland Southeast Asian S. scrofa. Archeological and genetic evidence shows these pigs were certainly introduced to islands east of the Wallace Line, including New Guinea, and that so-called ''wild'' pigs within this region are most likely feral descendants of domestic pigs introduced by early agriculturalists. The other later pig dispersal links mainland East Asian pigs to western Micronesia, Taiwan, and the Philippines. These results provide important data with which to test current models for human dispersal in the region.domestication ͉ mtDNA ͉ Pacific colonization ͉ phylogeography

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The authors compare pottery assemblages in the Marianas and the Philippines to claim endorsement for a first human expansion into the open Pacific around 1500 BC. The Marianas are separated from the Philippines by 2300km of open sea, so they are proposing an epic pioneering voyage of men and women, with presumably some cultivated plants but apparently no animals. How did they manage this unprecedented journey?