A 33,000-Year-Old Incipient Dog from the Altai Mountains of Siberia.

A 33,000 year-old incipient dog from the Altai Mountains of Siberia : evidence of the earliest domestication disrupted by the last glacial maximum.

ARTICLE SUR plosone.org

Extrait : © 2011 Ovodov et al.

"The dog is the oldest domesticated animal, and patterns of its earliest occurrence are of great importance in current zoology, anthropology, and archaeology. Although the presence of domesticated dogs is established for about the last 14,000 calendar years (cal BP), the existence of dogs prior to the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), ca. 26,500–19,000 cal BP, is unresolved. A dog-like canid skull, recently reported from the Upper Paleolithic site of Goyet (Belgium) (50°24′N, 05°04′E) with a direct age of ca. 36,000 cal BP, raises questions about the time and place of the earliest domestication of the dog. The large size of the Goyet skull and other very early canid material, hampers the determination of whether these earliest remains represent domesticated dogs rather than wolves with a few cranial features typical of dogs.

Morphological characteristics remain the most reliable criterion for separation of domesticated dogs from wolves . The results of DNA analyses of modern dogs and wolves are contradictory, with China, and the Middle East suggested as the exclusive setting for initial domestication of dog. Direct age determination of putative early dogs (rather than assumed dates of associated other bones or charcoal) is crucial and Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) radiocarbon dating is the best available method for establishing the antiquity of early dogs."

© 2011 Ovodov et al., The Razboinichya canid.