WHO LET THE DOGS IN?

Indigenous dogs living before human contact have stories to tell, and advanced technology is making it possible for them to speak

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Ancient dogs who never sniffed a human being are reeducating us about the bond between pooches and people. There's plenty of evidence of how domesticated dogs moved across continents with their humans, but we know little about how dogs migrated before we sneaky bipeds showed up.

Luckily, intrepid researchers from Oxford University came together to understand the movement patterns of pups in South America using paleoarchaeology and cutting-edge genomics. They estimated that all Mesoamerican and South American dogs appeared – not brought by people – on the continent between 7,200 years before present (BP) to 5,000 BP. Around 7,000 BP, Mexican farmers brought maize to South America.

The evidence, according to the study, “converges on the movement of people and dogs in association with the spread of agriculture rather than supporting the hypothesis that dogs were introduced during the initial peopling of South America by hunter-gatherers.”

Lead researcher Aurélie Manin and her colleagues found that dogs came with early waves of people who entered North America at least 15,000-16,000 years ago. “Ancient DNA analyses have shown that all dogs preceding contact with European settlers possessed mitochondrial DNA belonging to a lineage that is specific to the Americas.”

Here’s where this story diverges from old canines to the cutting-edge technology the researchers used. So grab the Milk Bones, whistle for your canine crew, and settle in.

FINDING THE DOGGIE IN THE HAYSTAC