Although it is clear that dogs are descended from wolves, scientists disagree on where the domestication process began. A new genetic study published in the journal Heredity indicates that this could have occurred in the Asian region of the Yangtze River, in China.
Peter Savolainen, the lead researcher, used DNA from the Y chromosome to make comparisons between male dogs from around the world. Approximately half of the gene pool was found in all localities, but only in this region of the Yangtze River was the entire range of genetic diversity observed, thus indicating the probable origin of wolf domestication.
The study however contradicts other work recently published in Nature , which suggests that the dogs come from the Middle East. Although Savolainen explained to Science Daily, none of those analyzes included samples from the Yangtze region; the same author admits that other factors must be taken into account, such as the hybridization between dogs and wolves that took place in other regions of the continent, including the Middle East.
