Anomalies in genetic clocks

[Guest guest]

"The story of dogs is written both in bones and in genes;

and, unfortunately, they disagree. Fossils prove that wolf

and dog split some ten thousand years ago and that the paths

of wolf and coyote diverged a million years earlier."

 

"Mitochondrial DNA, though, hints at an earlier domestication.

To put the mitochondria of wolf and dog into coyote context

puts their division at a hundred thousand years before the

present, which -- given that the first modern humans appeared

at about that time -- makes little sense. Fossils may be

rare, but they are not ambiguous; and the tale plainly told

by dog bones is more convincing than that hinted at by their

genes"

 

Steve Jones, Darwin's Ghost : The Origin of Species Updated

Doubleday, 1999, 2000.

 

Also see

http://www.idir.net/~wolf2dog/wayne1.htm

Multiple and Ancient Origins of the Domestic Dog

 

"Mitochondrial DNA control region sequences were analyzed from 162

wolves at 27 localities worldwide and from 140 domestic dogs

representing 67 breeds. Sequences from both dogs and wolves showed

considerable diversity and supported the hypothesis that wolves

were the ancestors of dogs. Most dog sequences belonged to a

divergent monophyletic clade sharing no sequences with wolves.

The sequence divergence within this clade suggested that dogs

originated more than 100,000 years before the present.

Associations of dog haplotypes with other wolf lineages indicated

episodes of admixture between wolves and dogs. Repeated genetic

exchange between dog and wolf populations may have been an important

source of variation for artificial selection.

 

and

http://www.idir.net/~wolf2dog/wayne2.htm

 

-Arun Gupta