Verginelli Fabio, Capelli Cristian, Coia Valentina, Musiani Marco, Falchetti Mario, Ottini Laura, Palmirotta Raffaele, Tagliacozzo Antonio, Mazzorin Iacopo de Grossi, Mariani-Costantini Renato
Dipartimento di Oncologia e Neuroscienze, Università G. d'Annunzio, e Centro di Scienze dell'Invecchiamento, Fondazione Università G. d'Annunzio, Chieti.
Med Secoli. 2006;18(3):741-54.
The domestication of the dog from the wolf was a key step in the pathway that led to the Neolithic revolution. The earliest fossil dogs, dated to the end of the last glacial period (17,000 to 12,000 years ago), have been found in Russia, Germany and the Middle East. No dogs are represented in the naturalistic art of the European Upper Palaeolithic, suggesting that dogs were introduced at a later date. Genetic studies of extant dog and wolf mitochondrial DNA sequences were interpreted in favour of multiple dog founding events as early as 135-76,000 years ago, or of a single origin in East Asia, 40,000 or 15,000 years ago. Our study included mitochondrial DNA sequences from Italian fossil bones attributed to three Late Pleistocene-Early Holocene wolves (dated from a15,000 to a10,000 14C years ago) and two dogs, dated to a4000 and a3000 14C years ago respectively. Taking paleogeography into account, our phylogenetic data point to a contribution of European wolves to the three major dog clades, in agreement with archaeozoological data. Our phylogeographic studies also suggest genetic differentiation of dogs and wolves related to isolation by geographic distance, supporting multicentric origins of dogs from wolves throughout their vast range of sympatry.
狗从狼驯化而来是通向新石器时代革命道路上的关键一步。最早的化石狗可追溯到上一个冰川期末期（17000至12000年前），已在俄罗斯、德国和中东地区被发现。欧洲旧石器时代晚期的自然主义艺术作品中没有描绘狗，这表明狗是在较晚时期被引入的。对现存狗和狼的线粒体DNA序列的基因研究结果表明，狗最早可能在135000至76000年前经历了多次起源事件，或者在40000年前或15000年前起源于东亚。我们的研究纳入了来自意大利化石骨骼的线粒体DNA序列，这些化石骨骼分别属于三只晚更新世-早全新世的狼（碳-14年代测定为距今15000至10000年）和两只狗，碳-14年代测定分别为距今4000年和3000年。考虑到古地理学因素，我们的系统发育数据表明欧洲狼对狗的三大主要分支有贡献，这与考古动物学数据一致。我们的系统地理学研究还表明，狗和狼的基因分化与地理距离隔离有关，支持了狗在其广泛的同域分布范围内多中心起源于狼的观点。
