Another Try On Canine Ancestry

Canine scientists have had a hard time getting everyone to accept their hypothesis about when and where our beloved dogs actually came from. I admit to being a bit sceptical when part of the evidence submitted was a Boxer looking dog with a bobbed tail. I will stay on board so long as they do not tell me long tails evolved later during the British Aristocracy era. Anyway, they have narrowed it down to a location in China some 16,000 years ago:

“For the first time ... it is possible to provide a detailed picture of the dog, with its birthplace, point in time, and how many wolves were tamed,” says Peter Savolainen, a biology researcher at KTH. Together with Swedish colleagues and a Chinese research team, he has made a number of new discoveries about the history of the dog. These discoveries are presented in an article in the scientific journal Molecular Biology and Evolution, where it is claimed that the dog appeared 16,000 years ago, in Asia, south of the Yangtze River in China. This is a considerably more specific date and birthplace than had previously been put forward. “Our earlier findings from 2002 have not been fully accepted, but with our new data there will be greater acceptance. The picture provides much more detail,” says Peter Savolainen.

(Science Daily). With cats it is much easier to pinpoint the date. It was shortly after curtains evolved, because we all know that cats can't survive for very long without curtains to claw up and chew on.