Dogs First Appeared In Central Asia, DNA Tests Suggest

A new study suggests that dogs were first domesticated in Central Asia. The findings are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

During the study, researchers from Cornell University analyzed DNA from 549 "village dogs" in 38 countries across six continents--including three types of DNA from 161 breeds of 4,500 dogs. This also included a total of 185,805 genetic markers that researchers were able to trace back to the animal.

While previous studies have proposed that dogs originated in Europe, Siberia, the Middle East and southern China, researchers determined that domesticated dogs originated somewhere near Mongolia or Nepal, developing into the canines they are today over the course of 15,000 years.

"The fact that we looked at so many village dogs from so many different regions, meant we were able to narrow in on the patterns of diversity in these indigenous dogs," Dr. Adam Boyko, from Cornell University, said via BBC News. "We looked exclusively to see if there was evidence of multiple domestication events. And like every other group that's looked for that, we found no evidence of it."

Boyko added that the study is unlikely to settle discussions once and for all on the origins' of dogs. However, including both village and feral dogs in the study, as well as the large population size used, may help represent a clearer image of the past. 

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