Grey wolf genomic history reveals a dual ancestry of dogs:
The grey wolf (Canis lupus) was the first species to give rise to a domestic population, and they remained widespread throughout the last Ice Age when many other large mammal species went extinct. Little is known, however, about the history and possible extinction of past wolf populations or when and where the wolf progenitors of the present-day dog lineage (Canis familiaris) lived1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8. Here we analysed 72 ancient wolf genomes spanning the last 100,000 years from Europe, Siberia and North America. We found that wolf populations were highly connected throughout the Late Pleistocene, with levels of differentiation an order of magnitude lower than they are today. This population connectivity allowed us to detect natural selection across the time series, including rapid fixation of mutations in the gene IFT88 40,000–30,000 years ago. We show that dogs are overall more closely related to ancient wolves from eastern Eurasia than to those from western Eurasia, suggesting a domestication process in the east. However, we also found that dogs in the Near East and Africa derive up to half of their ancestry from a distinct population related to modern southwest Eurasian wolves, reflecting either an independent domestication process or admixture from local wolves. None of the analysed ancient wolf genomes is a direct match for either of these dog ancestries, meaning that the exact progenitor populations remain to be located.
Dog stuff makes the headlines, but I think the wolf stuff is the most interesting in this paper.
“Fossils in the Cradle of Humankind site reignite debate over origins of humans” • June 29, 2022 By Rhoda Kwan
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna35867
Fossils of early human ancestors found in a South African cave system may be 1 million years older than first thought, according to a study published Monday. The findings published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal suggest that they are between 3.4 million to 3.6 million years old — older than Ethiopia’s renowned Lucy or Dinkinesh fossil that was discovered in 1974 and dated back to 3.2 million years. The ancient hominin fossils were discovered in the Sterkfontein Caves, 30 miles northwest of Johannesburg, that form part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site known as the Cradle of Humankind. Hominins include humans and our ancestral relatives, but not the other great apes.
“Cosmogenic nuclide dating of Australopithecus at Sterkfontein, South Africa” by Darryl E. Granger, Dominic Stratford, Laurent Bruxelles, Ryan J. Gibbon, Ronald J. Clarke, and Kathleen Kuman
June 27, 2022
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2123516119
More:
Significance
Australopithecus fossils from the richest hominin-bearing deposit (Member 4) at Sterkfontein in South Africa are considerably older than previously argued by some and are contemporary with Australopithecus afarensis in East Africa. Our dates demonstrate the limitations of the widely accepted concept that Australopithecus africanus, which is well represented at Sterkfontein, descended from A. afarensis. The contemporaneity of the two species now suggests that a more complex family tree prevailed early in the human evolutionary process. The dates highlight the limitations of faunal age estimates previously relied upon for the South African sites. They further demonstrate the importance of detailed stratigraphic analysis in assessments of accurate dating of the karst cave sites in South Africa, which are stratigraphically highly complex.
Abstract
Sterkfontein is the most prolific single source of Australopithecus fossils, the vast majority of which were recovered from Member 4, a cave breccia now exposed by erosion and weathering at the landscape surface. A few other Australopithecus fossils, including the StW 573 skeleton, come from subterranean deposits … Here, we report a cosmogenic nuclide isochron burial date of 3.41 ± 0.11 million years (My) within the lower middle part of Member 4, and simple burial dates of 3.49 ± 0.19 My in the upper middle part of Member 4 and 3.61 ± 0.09 My in Jacovec Cavern. Together with a previously published isochron burial date of 3.67 ± 0.16 My for StW 573 [D. E. Granger et al., Nature 522, 85–88 (2015)], these results place nearly the entire Australopithecus assemblage at Sterkfontein in the mid-Pliocene, contemporaneous with Australopithecus afarensis in East Africa. Our ages for the fossil-bearing breccia in Member 4 are considerably older than the previous ages of ca. 2.1 to 2.6 My interpreted from flowstones associated with the same deposit. We show that these previously dated flowstones are stratigraphically intrusive within Member 4 and that they therefore underestimate the true age of the fossils.