Paleogenomics: humans and dogs spread across Eurasia together

A genomic study shows that over the last 10,000 years, diverse Eurasian cultures kept and spread genetically distinct dog populations.

Dogs have been part of human societies across Eurasia for at least 20,000 years, accompanying us through many social and cultural upheavals. A new study by an international team, published in the journal Science, and led by Laurent Frantz, paleogeneticist at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU) and Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) shows that the spread of new cultures across Eurasia, with different lifeways, was often associated with the spread of specific dog populations.

Scientists from LMU, QMUL, the Kunming Institute of Zoology and Lanzhou University in China, and the University of Oxford, sequenced and analyzed the genomes of 17 ancient dogs from Siberia, East Asia, and the Central Asian Steppe – including, for the first time, specimens from China. Important cultural changes occurred in these regions over the past 10,000 years, driven by the dispersal of hunter-gatherers, farmers, and pastoralists. The specimens came from archaeological sites between 9,700 and 870 years old. In addition, the researchers included publicly available genomes from 57 ancient and 160 modern dogs in their analyses.

Dogs followed metalworkers across the Eurasian Steppe over 4,000 years ago

A comparison of ancient dog and human genomes reveals a striking concordance between genetic shifts in both species across time and space, most notably during periods of population turnover. This link is especially evident during China's transformative Early Bronze Age (~4,000 years ago), which saw the introduction of metalworking. The research shows that the expansion of people from the Eurasian Steppe, who first introduced this transformative technology to Western China, also brought their dogs with them.

This pattern of human-dog co-movement extends back far beyond the Bronze Age. The research traces signals of co-disperal back at least 11,000 years, when hunter-gatherers in northern Eurasia were exchanging dogs closely related to today's Siberian Huskies.

“Traces of these major cultural shifts can be teased out of the genomes of ancient dogs,” says Dr. Lachie Scarsbrook (LMU/Oxford), one of the lead authors of the study. “Our results highlight the deeply rooted cultural importance of dogs. Instead of just adopting local populations, people have maintained a distinct sense of ownership towards their own dogs for at least the past 11,000 years.”

“This tight link between human and dog genetics shows that dogs were an integral part of society, whether you were a hunter-gatherer in the Arctic Circle 10,000 years ago or a metalworker in an early Chinese city,” says Prof. Laurent Frantz. “It’s an amazing, enduring partnership and shows the sheer flexibility of the role dogs can play in our societies, far more than with any other domestic species.”