By Steve Gorman
Los Angeles - From French poodles to German Shepherds, domestic dogs likely trace most of their ancestry to the Middle East, as opposed to East Asian origins suggested by previous research, a genetic study reported on Wednesday.
The findings, published in the online edition of the scientific journal Nature, support an archaeological record that closely links the domestication of dogs in the Middle East with the rise of human civilisation there, scientists said.
"It's significant because this is where civilisation developed, and dogs were part of that," said Robert Wayne, professor of evolutionary biology at the University of California, Los Angeles, and a senior author of the study.
The region, often referred to as the Fertile Crescent, includes much of modern-day Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan - "the same area where domestic cats and many of our livestock originated, and where agriculture first developed", he said.
The study is based on genetic comparisons between more than 900 dogs representing 85 breeds and over 200 wild grey wolves - the closest living wild relative of dogs - from around the globe, including North America, Europe, East Asia and the Middle East.
In the most extensive such analysis to date, scientists used molecular genetic techniques to examine more than 48 000 markers from across the entire genome - or DNA sequence - from each of the animals included in the study.
What they discovered was the vast majority of dogs share more unique genetic markers with grey wolves from the Mideast than with other wolf populations. A kinship to European wolves also was found, but to a lesser extent, Wayne said. - Reuters