“Siberia: 18,000-year-old frozen 'dog' stumps scientists” https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50586508
Amy Woodyatt “Is it a dog or is it a wolf? 18,000-year-old frozen puppy leaves scientists baffled” https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/frozen-puppy-intl-scli-scn/index.html
シベリアの永久凍土で見つかった1万8000年前の、享年2ヶ月2歳と推定される雄の「イヌ科動物(canine)」の遺体。研究者たちが直面しているのは、それは「狼」なのか「犬」なのかという問題。それは、DNA配列からは決定不能であるという。
「狼」と「犬」の共通祖先の可能性。BBC曰く、
Researcher Dave Stanton at the Centre for Palaeogenetics in Sweden told CNN the DNA sequencing issue meant the animal could come from a population that is a common ancestor of both dogs and wolves."We have a lot of data from it already, and with that amount of data, you'd expect to tell if it was one or the other," he said.
因みに、彼はDogorと名付けられている。ヤクート語で「友人」を意味する。また、「犬、あるいは」。
We now have some news on the 18,000 year old #wolf or #dog puppy.
— Centre for Palaeogenetics (@CpgSthlm) 2019年11月25日
Genome analyses shows it's a male. So we asked our Russian colleagues to name it...
Thus, the name of the puppy is Dogor!
Dogor is a Yakutian word for "friend", which seems very suitable. pic.twitter.com/epIz8mEpVW
なお、2017年に公刊されたLaura R. Botiguéらの研究は、犬の家畜化が2万~4万年前に始まった可能性を示唆している;
Laura R. Botigué, Shiya Song, Amelie Scheu, Shyamalika Gopalan, Amanda L. Pendleton, Matthew Oetjens, Angela M. Taravella, Timo Seregély, Andrea Zeeb-Lanz, Rose-Marie Arbogast, Dean Bobo, Kevin Daly, Martina Unterländer, Joachim Burger, Jeffrey M. Kidd & Krishna R. Veeramah “Ancient European dog genomes reveal continuity since the Early Neolithic” https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms16082