Oldest known dog breed reveals hidden human history
The Iditarod is the longest annual sled dog race– covering over 1,500 miles across Alaska. But there’s another impressive, long-distance sled dog journey worth considering: their slow motion race through time. A close look into canine genetics reveals sled dogs have been around and on the move for thousands of years. Specifically, the Greenland sled dog–called Qimmeq (singular), or Qimmit (plural) in Greenlandic–has a history traceable all the way back 9,500 years to Zhokhov Island in Eastern Siberia. And they’ve been a distinct, isolated group for about 1,000 years of that time. They are among the oldest (and possibly the oldest) dog breed on Earth. In a new study published July 10 in the journal Science, paleogeneticists mapped the path of these culturally important canines from their ancient origin up to the present day. The findings reveal new insights into Greenland sled dogs’ spread and movement over millennia and also the accompanying...