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| CAROLINA DOGS,
DISCOVERED IN THE SOUTHEAST WOODS, MAY PROVIDE CLUES TO THE PRIMITIVE DOGS THAT ARRIVED WITH THE FIRST HUMANS IN AMERICA |
It's not often that a registered breed of dog
starts with a castoff that even the pound didn't want and a stray plucked
out of the woods. But it is even less likely that such animals would
provide one of those rare "Eureka!" moments in science, drawing back the
curtain on both evolution and human culture, and providing clues to the
mysterious origins of the long, fruitful partnership that exists between
humans and canines.
And yet, that's exactly what happened with the shy enigma of a creature known as the Carolina dog, which just may be a remnant of the first animals to accompany numans across the Bering land bridge to North America thousands of years ago. Then again, it may be nothing more than a modern mutt; no one is exactly sure, and the genetic evidence, while suggestive, is thus far inconclusive. Regardless, the Carolina dog, and several other demonstrably primitive canids, some nearing extinction, are part of a controversial reexamination of how modern dogs arose, and even more fundamental questions about the process of domestication itself. If you passed a Carolina dog on a back road in humid South Carolina Low Country, where stands of tall longleaf pine alternate with crop fields and cypress swamps, chances are you wouldn't spare it a glance-- it would seem to be just a scrawny, medium-sized mongrel with a reddish-yellow coat, upright ears and a whiplash tail curling up over its back, what rural Southerners have long called a "yaller" dog. And for years, that's all I. Lehr Brisbin, Jr., thought they were, too Brisbin-- "Bris" to his colleagues at the Savannah River Ecology Lab (SREL) in Aiken, South Carolina-- saw these skittish feral dogs from time to time. |
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The Carolina Dog AssociationJane Gunnel, JD, President -- jane@gforcecable.com NEW E-MAIL ADDRESSThe College of Science and Mathematics at the University of South Carolina Having Problems? Click Here To Report. |