Prehistoric fossils suggest modern dogs evolved from a single population of wolves
The dogs of ancient Europe probably looked a lot like the mutts roaming Europe today, new DNA discoveries from dog fossils suggest. In the ongoing debate over how many times dogs were domesticated from wolves, this new study suggests it happened just once.
Dogs are the very first species that humans tamed, but the details surrounding dogs’ origins are a little fuzzy. Now, ancient DNA extracted from two 7,000-year-old and 4,700-year-old dog fossils discovered in Germany offer scientists a glimpse at dog evolution. Modern dogs probably descended from just one population that lived continuously in Europe for millennia, according to the research led by Krishna Veeramah at Stony Brook University.