Ancient Dog Skull Study Reveals Early Canine Diversity 11,000 Years Ago

Two research teams published in Science new evidence that the physical diversity of domestic dogs began long before modern breeding. An anatomical analysis of 643 dog and wolf skulls spanning 50,000 years shows that the distinctive "canine" skull shape first appeared about 11,000 years ago in the early Holocene, shortly after the last Ice Age. The fossils already display considerable variation, indicating that size and shape differences were emerging millennia ago.

A complementary genetic study examined 73 ancient dog genomes from eastern Eurasia, dating to the past 10,000 years. The DNA results link shifts in dog ancestry to specific human migrations, including hunter‑gatherers, early farmers and pastoralists, suggesting that dogs moved alongside people across the continent and that their evolutionary history is tightly intertwined with human population movements.