Genome Sequencing of Ancient Dogs in the Americas to Understand Their Demographic History

Summary

Several ancient DNA studies have been conducted on dogs in the Americas, yet all have focused on the mitochondrial genome. In this study, we sequenced 79 complete mitochondrial genomes (mitogenomes) and seven nuclear genomes of ancient dogs from more than twenty archaeological sites, ranging in age from 10,000 to 800 years before present (ybp) to gain insight into the population history of dogs in the Americas. We compared the ancient dogs’ mitogenomes and nuclear genomes to those of modern dogs and wolves, and modeled demographic changes in the population over time. We found that all pre-contact dogs share a common ancestor roughly 15,000 ybp, and diverged from a closely-related Siberian dog population 1,000 years prior. Pre-contact dogs also show a closer affinity to modern dogs than to Eurasian or American wolves, further supporting the hypothesis that dogs migrated to the Americas with humans. Only a small number of American and East Asian dogs share mitochondrial haplotypes with the pre-contact dogs, suggesting that the majority of pre-contact dog diversity was lost as a result of European contact and the arrival of European breeds to the Americas.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 20733