The remains were found to be the oldest known domesticated dog

The remains were found to be the oldest known domesticated dog

15,800-year-old DNA from Turkey provides the oldest genetic evidence of domesticated dogs and confirms that domestication occurred thousands of years before agriculture.

An international research team found that dogs were domesticated more than 14,000 years ago and that dogs living in pre-agricultural Europe significantly contributed to the genetics of post-agricultural and modern dogs. The findings were published in the journal Nature.

Dogs were domesticated from gray wolves towards the end of the last ice age. They were among the first animals to form domesticated relationships with humans, even before the advent of agriculture. Researchers are unsure where and how dogs were first domesticated, and to date, the oldest direct genetic evidence of dogs dates back only 10,900 years. Analyzing the DNA of older canine remains is often difficult, and examining the appearance of bones doesn’t always allow for reliably distinguishing dogs from wolves.
In a new study, an international research team used advanced genetic techniques in a major project aimed at identifying Europe’s oldest dogs.

They analyzed the DNA of a total of 216 canine skeletal remains, including 181 samples dating back to before the Neolithic period (approximately 10,000 years ago), that is, before the invention of agriculture. These samples came from areas across and around Europe, including Switzerland, Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Turkey, Sweden, Denmark, and Scotland. To increase the amount of usable DNA, the researchers used a technique called hybridization capture. They designed probes to capture canine DNA from large amounts of DNA from microbes, such as bacteria, which tend to contaminate very ancient remains.