New Clues on How and When Wolves Became Dogs
Their work, published December 15 in Cell Research, revealed two phases of dog domestication: An initial phase that began in China around 33,000 years ago, and a second phase 18,000 years later in which the dog spread around the world and cemented its place as one of humanity’s best friends. (See “Opinion: We Didn’t Domesticate Dogs. They Domesticated Us.”)
Out of Asia
Savolainen had long had a hunch that humans first domesticated the gray wolf in Southeast Asia, thanks to some of his early studies looking at mitochondrial DNA.
Later studies contradicted this, but Savolainen noticed that none of these studies included wolves or dogs from China or elsewhere in Southeast Asia.