Submitted by [deleted] t3_yctcrl in askscience
Comments
MrReyneCloud t1_itoybfp wrote
Some clues from wikipedia:
“The earliest known dingo fossil, found in Western Australia, dates to 3,450 years ago. However, genomic analysis indicates that the dingo reached Australia 8,300 years ago but the human population which brought them remains unknown. Dingo morphology has not changed over the past 3,500 years: this suggests that no artificial selection has been applied over this period.”
“The dingo is closely related to the New Guinea singing dog”
Apprehensive_Age_384 t1_itoye7e wrote
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-21016700
Apparently when a wave of people from the Indian subcontinent arrived!
Part of the Aboriginal genepool is Indian, according to the study. 4000 years ago Indian people seem to have arrived in Australia, and they brought dingos with them apparently.
pickleer t1_itoyprv wrote
A recent theory proposes that lots of Humans and dingos came from India 4,000 years ago and intermingled with the folks already there. This from a post around here from a day or few ago. Kinda freaky but not too much, considering Polynesians likely colonized S. America before Siberians made it down through N. America and that the Chinese were on the US West coast about 2,000 years ago (look for the story about the spherical stone anchors also from a few days ago). We can pretty much assume vikings made it over here before Columbus and it now looks like the Clovis People weren't the first ones here, either. N & S American history is a changin'!
Edited for clarity.
[deleted] OP t1_itp8wcb wrote
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Aspy343 t1_itpe4iw wrote
The islands above Australia (Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, etc.) were all connected to Australia recently enough that humans and dogs could just walk there.
Indians may have arrived 4000 years ago but other people arrived WAY before that. At the very minimum 50,000 years ago, but that's just the oldest we know about, so probably much longer than that.
Genetic studies show that Dingos arrived around 10,000 years ago, so a long time after humans.
BadlyGeneratedHuman t1_itpubdm wrote
Around 80,000 to 100,000 years ago, humans made a giant migration between continents. This is mainly how humans discovered land, and how the aboriginals came to be in Australia. It's possible, and even probable, that, since all of these people were travelling by boat from mostly Africa (to my knowledge), that they stopped at papa new guinea, and other places like that, for extended periods of time. This type of behaviour is called 'island hopping' and it's believed to be the way that humans travelled thousands of years ago, across thousands of miles, long before the Vikings and Romans.
Probable, also, that island hopping would result in humans starting to domesticate animals like wolves, and animals similar to dogs and cats, for convenient hunting.
If I'm wrong about anything I said here, feel free to correct me
[deleted] OP t1_itpwqih wrote
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Rather_Dashing t1_itpzh6p wrote
The stuff on Indians mixing with Aboriginal Australians is interesting, the stuff on dingos doesnt seem at all conclusive though, wonder what other dingo researchers would say on those points. Seems more likely that the dingo came from Indonesia/PNG.
This is the extent of the evidence on dingos in that paper btw
>However, the dingo also first appears in the fossil record at this time and must have come from outside Australia (46). Although dingo mtDNA appears to have a SE Asian origin (47), morphologically, the dingo most closely resembles Indian dogs (46).
Genetics trumps morphology every time. Morphologically dingos are more similar to Tasmanian tigers than anything else on Australia, but origin wise that means nothing at all.
Downhome27 t1_itqiv0y wrote
Does that mean they have found dingo fossil outside of Australia? Seems to me if they have only found remains in Australia you could assume the dingo originated there? It brings about all kinds of weird creatures. I don’t know if it would be a stretch to say a species could change drastically over there in a relatively short period; especially if it’s ancestor came from that part of Asia.
[deleted] OP t1_itqolmf wrote
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[deleted] OP t1_itscfrk wrote
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[deleted] OP t1_itsmc3k wrote
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ZekeDarwin t1_itsmibh wrote
The dingo is genetically an offshoot of the domestic dog. Populations became wild again after being domesticated.
ZekeDarwin t1_itsmnno wrote
Evidence suggests closer to 60k-45kya and they didn’t sail from Africa, they travelled to se Asia and down into sundaland which made the actual sailing much easier.
ZekeDarwin t1_itsmsri wrote
We’ve known Clovis people weren’t first for decades.
Genetic evidence still suggests the first people in the Americas came from Siberia.
Genetic evidence contradicts the claim that South America was first populated by Polynesians.
[deleted] OP t1_itsmvpc wrote
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[deleted] OP t1_itso57w wrote
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Inu-shonen t1_itt4uqz wrote
Oh dear. I hope you didn't spend too long thinking up that feeble attempt at trolling.
[deleted] OP t1_itt52s0 wrote
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[deleted] OP t1_itthapm wrote
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Jusfiq t1_itzjpm4 wrote
> That's why tigers lived free in Sumatra, but not in Australia.
Sumatra and Australia have indeed never been connected since before the Ice Age. Sumatra is part of Sunda Shelf and Australia is part of Sahul Shelf. As part of Sahul Shelf however, Australia and the island of New Guinea was connected. Part of New Guinea today is territory of Indonesia.
Jusfiq t1_itzjts3 wrote
>...you couldn’t walk to Australia, it remained isolated.
Australia was connected to New Guinea, part of the island is territory of Indonesia.
ZekeDarwin t1_itzti95 wrote
New Guinea was not connected to the mainland, so you couldn’t walk to Australia (or New Guinea)
[deleted] OP t1_itoy5q5 wrote
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