DNA analysis reveals Asian roots of New Zealand's first dog

New Zealand's first dog, introduced by Polynesian settlers about 700 years ago, appears to have a genetic lineage going back to Southeast Asia and could provide new insights into the first human exploration of the Pacific, New Zealand researchers said Thursday.

Otago University scientists said they had sequenced the complete or near-complete mitochondrial genomes of the now extinct kuri, which were brought to New Zealand from East Polynesia in the colonizing canoes that arrived in the early 14th Century AD.

Kuri were smallish dogs, about the size of cocker spaniels, and were the only domesticated animal successfully introduced by the Polynesian settlers, but they died out as a distinct breed after interbreeding with European dogs.

Researcher Karen Greig used state-of-the-art ancient DNA analysis on the bones of 14 animals recovered from an archaeological site dating back to 1320 to 1350 AD on the Wairau Bar, at the top of the South Island.

From the 14 mitogenomes, which trace the dogs' maternal line of descent, they identified five distinct maternal lineages, known as haplotypes, and discovered that the dogs were genetically most similar to modern dogs from Indonesia, Greig said.

Advances in DNA sequencing technology could also be used in other research to provide deeper insights into ancient origins of Pacific peoples and animals and their migration routes across Oceania, Professor Lisa Matisoo-Smith said.

The analysis had revealed levels of genetic variation that could ultimately track the origin of the New Zealand kuri and its relationship to other dogs found across the Pacific and through island and mainland Southeast Asia, she said. Endi