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Dingo

9 April 2016
Archaeology

Staying with Australia, at http://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/dna-study-suggests-… … which is another effort to understand the origin of the dingo, a dog that some people see as bearing similarities with Indian village dogs, and others trace only to south east Asia. Its appearance in Australia is dated to around 5000 years ago – and assumes new migrants arrived at that time (but from where). The interesting observation in the latest research is that dingoes do not have a gene to digest starch and they go on to say this means it is unlikely they were brought by farmers. They say it is more likely they arrived with a hunter gatherer group.

At http://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/stone-age-humans-br… … here we are presented with the idea that Neolithic people were responsible for populating Scottish islands with red deer, crossing large distances in boats. The article was published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B journal – but the region from which the deer originated is said to be unknown (rather spoiling the theory). Some odd results seem to be emerging from DNA analysis the last few months. For instance a report that Y chromosomes of Neadnerthals are absent from the DNA of modern Europeans (see http://phys.org/print379243536.html)

The same story (deer being managed by humans) is at http://phys.org/print379130395.html … when humans migrating with deer is said to go back to the Ice Age (and hunter gatherer Mesolithic people). So, who transported the deer – farmers of their predecessors (or Mesolithic people influenced by the recently arrived farmers).

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