Mark Derr, who has been covering sled dogs for decades, has posted an analysis of two papers that have examined the genetics of racing sled dogs.
There are very real methodological problems with how these studies choose to group these dogs. There has been a tendency to group any breeds that don’t have a lot of Western influence as “Ancient/Asian,” because at the time of these initial studies the dominant paradigm was that dog originated from single domestication event in East Asia. These particular studies have tended to group any dogs that are not derived from Western breed dogs or Anatolian shepherds in this group.
Because much the evidence behind the East Asian origins hypothesis has been called into question– especially in light of very good genome-wide analyses– the grouping of these dogs needs to change.
Instead of calling them “Asian/Ancient,” Derr thinks it might be better to think of these animals as “breeds formed in isolation.”
Even without all of that residual baggage, there are problems with the “ancient” designation since virtually all dogs are of ancient origin by virtue of their membership in the guild of dogs. That’s because in terms of antiquity, it matters little whether your lineage has multiple branches to unrelated families of great and noble history in several different parts of the world or hews closer to home, straight and branchless, except that you are probably healthier with the former. On the other hand, all officially recognized kennel club breeds, which is what the geneticists examine, are of relatively recent origin—within the past 200 years. The question is how they were formed, and that divide would seem the more accurate one than a vague chronological designation.
I think it better to call the Ancient/Asian groups, breeds formed through isolation. I suspect that the high level of inbreeding involved in breed formation [in modern Western dogs] serves to eradicate many minor introgressions from another breed. By my analysis, any breed derived from an existing landrace or group of village dogs that has not been extensively admixed since the end of Empire or when Colonialism yielded to Post Colonialism should show up on these surveys as Ancient. I suggested some time ago that the Anatolian and Canaan dogs should do so, and they have. Similarly any Asian breed recognized by the AKC and created from a small number of the same type of dogs would also fall into Ancient/Asian.
Indeed, many of the “ancient” breeds are not Asian at all—Basenji, Anatolian shepherd, various sight hounds and Arctic dogs, which one could call Asian but usually does not. Other groups in this analysis are Mastiff/Terrier, Herding/Sighthounds, Mountain, and Hunting. The breeds examined are all recognized by the AKC except the Alaskan husky.
These sled dogs have changed very much over the past hundred or so years.
Prior to the development of the dog racing circuit, the majority of these dogs were local sled dog landraces. They were “pure” in that the didn’t have a lot of Western dog ancestry.
When sprint and endurance racing became more and more popular, racers would cross in some Western dog that had the desired traits.
Because of this crossbreeding, there may not be any “pure” Alaskan sled dogs around anymore. In fact, their purity likely started to go downhill during the Gold Rush, when all sorts of Western dogs were brought to Alaska to augment sled dog teams.
Derr doesn’t think any of the “pure dogs” exist anymore, and he offers at least some skeptical that these animals automatically became Alaskan malamutes. It is true that Alaskans originally preferred freighting dogs that could haul heavy loads at relatively low speeds, but when the Siberian huskies were brought over, they found themselves the preferred racing dog.
At least for a time.
It is possible that the modern show husky and malamute might have even been selected from the same interbreeding landrace. The malamute was just selected for greater size and brute strength, while the husky was selected for greater speed.
To answer, all of these questions, Derr thinks these studies need to include dogs from those two kennel club breeds, as well as sled dogs from Alaskan villages, which might contain dogs that have some of the “original” ancestry.
There might be a trend back toward the larger freighting dog in certain races, which now favor dogs that can go long and hard at relatively low speeds.
Which means that malamutes could be crossed back into these lines again. I think that’s why the Anatolian shepherd has become so prominent in recent years.
The truth is that these Alaskan husky sled dogs confound methodologies. They are performance bred mongrels that include dogs from Western breed dogs and from indigenous and imported working dogs that we used to think of as “ancient.”
Maybe the landrace that gave us the malamute is extinct. Or maybe it’s just split apart.
These studies don’t answer these questions.
Instead, they raise a whole series of questions that cannot be answered so long as the current methodological distinctions are used.
Respectfully, what are you talking about?
How we have severely messed up ways of grouping the genetics of dogs when we examine racing sled dogs and then compare them to other breeds, especially those from Western breed dogs. We assume that any indigenous dogs in the arctic are Asian or Ancient.
However, they may have evolved in total isolation from extant strains, so it may simply be an methodological error.
Like for some reason cynologists believe Chinese dogs are completely untouched for thousands of years completely ignoring the history of the Silk Road, and the history of Spanish, Portuguese and Dutch traders.
Holy cow! Pleas’d to meetcha!
I’ll bet if you shaved a chow chow you’d find a shar-pei. And the shar-pei with fewer wrinkles looks like a Thai Ridgeback sans ridge. (Somewhere, there’s a picture if the “old-style or traditional” shar-pei).
And what do you get if you move the ferocious but biddable mastiff down the silk road and cross it with an independent minded spitz type? A chow, maybe?
And where did the ridge come from? And the blue tongue?
A little progress has been made. The dingo has been shown not to be Austronesian, but Chinese, in origin. Hooray!
But, do you know how to use genetic data-bases or anatomical features to support theories of origins? I don’t; I’m pretty confused, but I’d like to demonstrate that there were 2, possibly 3, populations of ancient dogs. Dingo, Native American (ancestry in Asia, but details unknown), and Mastiff.
Oh Chows are not spitz/mastiff crosses. Their phenotype as it exists in the West is much more exaggerated. The original ones looked more like Keeshond.
You can’t really use anatomical features to determine which breeds are related to which ones. Retrievers aren’t closely related to spaniels, even though they look and act very similar to them.
Actually, there was a ton of trade back and forth. Between Europe and the Middle East to China there was an unbelievable amount of movement of people and dogs.
OK, but are the Asian dogs and European dogs different populations, genetically speaking? What I’m driving at, I think, is this notion of purity. The concept of race, for humans, was demolished by the idea that variation within populations exceeded variation between them. “Race” became nothing but a social construct. Then “race” was reinstated by way of the idea that a population will have a cluster of inherited traits that distinguish it from another population. It’s the combination of traits that define a race.
So, my question is, are there races of dogs or are they all just one big homogeneous population maximally out-crossed except for the recently created breeds.
Actually… No.
What I am referring to is this case example by John Gallant:
However sometimes there are still lingering signature. For example, in humans, most Germans have African ancestry in their genome from when the Roman Legion marched through Germania.
Thank you. I am too dumb for this. I don’t understand the logic of Admixture and all the other genetic programs from which all these conclusions are drawn.
What concerns me, though, is that we will lose the very old landraces, because we will define them out of existence. Genetics is sort of digital. I think in terms of type and race. If the genes were evenly distributed across the landscape it would amount to the same thing. But they are not. They cluster for all kinds of reasons, such as LD and selection and genetic drift, etc. The phenotypic results of the clustering is what I call race.
I guess the indigenous strains that aren’t “ancient/Asian”, whatever that is, would be the malemute. Is that what you are saying? Because methinks the malemute looks pretty Asian. We have to remember that Asian dogs have been developed into numerous breeds. That the malemute and Sib Husky have a recent common ancestor is not much of a stretch. The fact that both were developed by coastal people lends credence.
But, if you look at Mr. Kim LaFlamme’s website, there’s a nice assortment of North American indigenous dogs, including some he got from north of the great lakes!! Also, the native american retriever you pictured some time ago and the tahl tan. Given, also that Native Americans live inland in Alaska. These, to my eye are not Asian dogs. The way I visualize it, the Native Americans were here with their dogs, when along came the Eskimos and their dogs (the Asian dogs). If this indigenous dog you are talking about is the Native American dog then, Wow, even if mixed with the Asians, this is a whole different dog from the Siberian Husky and the malemute. And quite the hypothesis! Can you get the geneticists to prove it?
That LaFlamme site is next to useless for anything.
I mean it doesn’t comport with anything I’ve read about indigenous dogs.
Your better source is Glover Allen’s work, which you can access very easily through Google books.
LaFlamme`s dogs are nothing more than reserve-dogs. Reserve-dogs are typically basically reject-musher dogs and reject-shepherds from the classifieds.
Nothing wrong with reserve-dogs since they are dogs kept by the aboriginals of North America; but it is a bit facetious to say they are derived from the original types 200-some years ago. The fact that LaFlamme is claiming he is able to recover purity indicates he knows very little about demographic shifts.