American Dog Breeds Hail From Pre-Columbian Times
Researchers find limited European influence on dog breeds native to America.
Native breeds include the Canadian Eskimo dog, the Inuit sled dog, the Greenland dog, the Chihuahua, the Xoloitzcuintli (Mexican hairless dog), and the Peruvian Perro Sín Pelo (Peruvian hairless dog).
It was already known that many dog breeds are descended from canines living in the Americas during pre-Columbian times—or the period before European colonization and influence.
When humans crossed the Bering Land Bridge, the strip of land connecting Alaska and Russia, about 15,000 to 10,000 years ago, they brought their dogs with them.
"Dogs have been here pretty much since humans have been here," said Adam Boyko, an evolutionary geneticist at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, who was not involved in the study.
But a mystery remained
