WASHINGTON, March 25 (Reuters) – Dogs have been loyal companions to people since we made them our first domesticated animals, descending long ago from gray wolves – though precisely when, where and why have remained unanswered. New genetic research now is offering valuable insight, including identifying the earliest-known dog, dating to 15,800 years ago.This dog, known from bones found at the Pinarbasi rock shelter site in Turkey used by ancient human hunter-gatherers, is about 5,000 years older than the previous earliest-known, genetically confirmed canine, the researchers said.The date of the Pinarbasi dog and several others almost as old identified at other sites in Europe shows that dogs already were widely distributed and an integral part of human culture millennia before the advent of agriculture, they said.AdvertisementAdvertisementThe new findings were presented in two scientific papers published on Wednesday in the journal Nature.William Marsh, a postdoctoral researcher in the Ancient Genomics Laboratory at the Francis Crick Institute in London who was co-lead author of one of the studies, said the DNA evidence suggests dogs were present in various locales in western Eurasia by 18,000 years ago and already were quite different genetically from wolves.”We putatively predict that dog and wolf populations diverged a lot earlier, likely before the last glacial maximum (of the Ice Age), so before 24,000 years ago. Although saying that, there is still a great degree of uncertainty,” Marsh said.The dog, descended from an ancient wolf population separate from modern wolves, was the first animal dom …
