Oh God, I remember the first time I read this, way back in 1999, when this was a listserv. I printed it off, so I could show it to people. I have it saved and still laugh uncontrollably when I read it! Thank god there are no elk in Iowa. It's hard enough to wrestle a piece of pizza away from my two, let alone a carcass.
Our Middle Eastern Dogs!
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Article from The NY Times about DNA studies on dogs featuring -- you guessed it -- our favorite African dogs. Only it turns out they are from the Middle East. More interesting is that there wasn't any human migration, though of course you don't need human migration to have dogs pass between human populations.
In any event an interesting piece:
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@donc
That was a really interesting article - thanks for sharing. Have you seen DOG TALES on PBS? (NOVA Season 47, Episode 2, and its 54 minutes long). It’s worth watching - it talks about the domestication of dogs, DNA studies, genetic relationship to wolves (brings up the basenjis). You should be able to find it online to watch. -
There is no indication that Dr. Larson is familiar with the concept that Basenji's were sent to the Pharaoh's as gifts, thereby initiating their DNA into the Middle Eastern Gene Pool. Or are we to assume that this isn't true?
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@kembe said in Our Middle Eastern Dogs!:
@donc
That was a really interesting article - thanks for sharing. Have you seen DOG TALES on PBS? (NOVA Season 47, Episode 2, and its 54 minutes long). It’s worth watching - it talks about the domestication of dogs, DNA studies, genetic relationship to wolves (brings up the basenjis). You should be able to find it online to watch.I believe I have. IIRC was on a streaming service but unsure if it is still available and/or which service it was on.
@elbrant said in Our Middle Eastern Dogs!:
There is no indication that Dr. Larson is familiar with the concept that Basenji's were sent to the Pharaoh's as gifts, thereby initiating their DNA into the Middle Eastern Gene Pool. Or are we to assume that this isn't true?
You can look at the Science article which is linked in the story. It talks about African dogs coming from the Levant 7.2K years ago. Egypt would have shown up much later -- Ramses II was in the Levant 3.2K years ago. On the other hand this doesn't mean this didn't happen, just that the DNA suggests Basenji ancestors were already in Africa. I think it highly unlikely a few dogs would impact an existing dog population in a meaningful way. Also note that Basenjis do have some European dog DNA from the Colonial period.
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This is all fascinating to me. Thanks to all of you for you input. I am looking for the NOVA program.
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@daureen
Here you go:
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/dog-tales/?linkId=81938993If you can view, catch the "not that trainable" B. at 26:16. With that face, he needs not be at all
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@daureen
Also, FYI - there's a chat about Dog Tales earlier this year:
https://basenjiforums.com/topic/15315/dog-tales
