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Dog bone fossil found in Alaska

ByWesley Coburn|
NEW YORK, NEW YORK - SEPTEMBER 17: A detail of a Tyrannosaurus Rex dinosaur fossil skeleton is displayed in a gallery at Christie’s auction house on September 17, 2020 in New York City. Owned by the Black Hills Institute of Geological Research in South Dakota, the skeleton is known as “Stan” for the amateur paleontologist Stan Sacrison who found the initial bones in 1987. The bones were discovered in a remote area that spans North and South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana. Stan, with an estimated value between $6 million and $8 million, is considered one of the largest and most complete examples of a T-Rex, with 188 original bones. The skeleton will be auctioned as part of Christie’s 20th Century evening auction on Oct. 6 in New York. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
NEW YORK, NEW YORK - SEPTEMBER 17: A detail of a Tyrannosaurus Rex dinosaur fossil skeleton is displayed in a gallery at Christie’s auction house on September 17, 2020 in New York City. Owned by the Black Hills Institute of Geological Research in South Dakota, the skeleton is known as “Stan” for the amateur paleontologist Stan Sacrison who found the initial bones in 1987. The bones were discovered in a remote area that spans North and South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana. Stan, with an estimated value between $6 million and $8 million, is considered one of the largest and most complete examples of a T-Rex, with 188 original bones. The skeleton will be auctioned as part of Christie’s 20th Century evening auction on Oct. 6 in New York. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

A dog bone fossil was recently uncovered in Alaska, adding further proof that domesticated canines have been a part of human’s lives for quite some time.

This news was originally reported by People Magazine, and was discovered by researchers from the University of Buffalo (technically the State University of New York at Buffalo).

According to a press release from the university, the team found a fragment of a femur from Southeast Alaska that they estimate to be around 10,150 years old based on mitochondrial DNA, which is the oldest evidence of domestic dogs in North America.

The study these results came from were published earlier this week in a scientific journal called Proceedings of the Royal Society B, coming from a joint research project between UB researchers and those from the University of South Dakota.

A dog bone fossil could offer clues about early North American history.

“We now have genetic evidence from an ancient dog found along the Alaskan coast,” Charlotte Lindqvist, UB associate professor of biological sciences, said in the press release. “Because dogs are a proxy for human occupation, our data help provide not only a timing but also a location for the entry of dogs and people into the Americas.”

DNA tracking suggests that this dog was different enough from remains of Siberian dogs about 6,000 years earlier to possibly be considered its own breed.

This dog bone fossil was originally thought to possibly belong to a bear, and was part of a much larger collection of miscellaneous bones that were earlier excavated by South Dakota researchers, so the dog science part of this story was a happy accident.

This dog probably ate mostly seafood for protein, likely fish and seals, which seems likely as most of Southeast Alaska is composed of various islands.

This dog history discovery adds to the theory that early North American settlers used a land bridge from Russia into what is now Alaska and British Columbia.

While it isn’t relevant to the scientific element of this story, it’s worth noting that South Dakota’s sports teams, which play in the Summit League, are known as the Coyotes.

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