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WHAT HAPPENED TO NATIVE AMERICAN DOGS?

Native American dog breeds were almost completely wiped out by the arrival of Europeans, according to research led by the University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, Queen Mary University of London, and Durham University.

The oldest dog remains in the Americas date to about 9,000 years ago, many thousands of years after people began migrating over a land bridge across the Bering Straits.

The results showed the ancient dogs dispersed to every part of the Americas, migrating with their human counterparts.

But the arrival of Europeans and their pets in the beginning of the 15th century all but wiped out ancient native or 'pre-contact' dogs.

Dogs that we think of as American - such as the Labrador and Chihuahuas - are in fact descended from dogs from the Old World, researchers found.

Their near-total disappearance was probably due to the combined effects of disease, cultural persecution and biological changes.

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Native American dog breeds were almost completely wiped out by the arrival of Europeans, new research shows

Dogs that we think of as American - such as the Labrador and Chihuahuas - are in fact descended from dogs from the Old World, research led...

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