Science & technology

Study: Dog Breeds Emerged 11K Years Ago

Published NOV 14 2025

Story

Above: A dog at a UNESCO World Heritage site in Petra, Jordan on Jan. 30, 2023. Image credit: Dominika Zarzycka/LightRocket/Getty Image

The Facts

A study published in Science on Thursday analyzed 643 skulls of modern and ancient dogs and wolves spanning 50,000 years to track the emergence of domestic dog diversity. It found that distinctive dog skull shapes first appeared around 11,000 years ago at the Russian site of Veretye.
Daily Mail
Scientific American
Independent
Science
Early Holocene dogs exhibited approximately half the cranial variation observed in modern breeds, yet by the Mesolithic and Neolithic periods, they displayed diverse skull sizes and shapes. This variation emerged thousands of years before Victorian breeding programs began.
Interesting Engineering
Newsweek
Science
The earliest specimens with definitive domestic dog traits date back nearly 11,000 years, aligning with DNA estimates of canine evolution from wolves. Ancient dogs from America appeared around 8,500 years ago, and from Asia around 7,500 years ago.
Interesting Engineering
Scientific American
The Conversation
Ancient DNA analysis of 73 dog genomes revealed that canines followed human migrations across Eurasia for nearly 10,000 years. The research showed that both Northeast Asian ancestry in Chinese dogs and Western ancestry in steppe dogs mirror human migration patterns.
Somerville College Oxford
XINHUA
Nature
During China's Bronze Age, approximately 4,000 years ago, people from the Eurasian Steppe introduced metalworking technology and brought their dogs with them. This pattern of humans and dogs moving together extends back at least 11,000 years across northern Eurasia.
Time
Somerville College Oxford
ZME Science
While extreme skull shapes like those of modern pugs and bulldogs do not appear in archaeological records, some early dog skull forms found in ancient specimens are absent from modern breeds. This suggests certain dog types may have disappeared over time.
BBC News
The New York Times
The Associated Press on X

Sources Split

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The Spin

Narrative A

Dog breeds developed their distinct characteristics through rapid natural evolution 11,000 years ago, not through human manipulation. Scientific analysis of ancient skulls shows that dogs naturally diversified into hunting, guarding and herding roles without the use of selective breeding programs. This morphological transformation occurred organically as dogs adapted to different environments and served different functions in early human societies.

CNRS

Nick Jikomes on X

Narrative B

While the study finds notable skull diversity among early dogs, human intervention drove dog breed diversity from the very beginning of domestication over time. Environmental pressures and human needs for specific traits, such as hunting and guarding, shaped early dog evolution through selective processes. The remarkable variation found 11,000 years ago resulted from humans actively choosing dogs with desired characteristics for different roles.