CNN News:科學(xué)家尋找最古老犬種

Which of these dog breeds is believed to be the oldest? Afghan Hound, Alaskan Malamute, Border Collie or Chihuahua. Many scientists believe the Afghan Hound originated in Afghanistan in around 6.000 B.C. making it the oldest breed on this list.

下列哪個犬種被認(rèn)為是最古老的?阿富汗獵犬、阿拉斯加雪橇犬、邊境牧羊犬還是吉娃娃?許多科學(xué)家認(rèn)為，阿富汗獵犬起源于大約公元前6000年的阿富汗，是上述名單上最古老的犬種。

There's widespread disagreement over what the oldest breed in the world is. Some scientists say it's the Akita Inu, the Basenji or the Chinese Saluki. And while the relationship between people and dogs is known to go back thousands of years, researchers don't know exactly when or why dogs became domesticated as man's best friend. But there are some new theories about this and a related study was just published in the "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences".

對于世界上最古老的犬種是什么，存在著廣泛的分歧。一些科學(xué)家認(rèn)為是秋田犬，巴仙吉犬或薩路基獵犬。人類和犬類之間的關(guān)系可追溯至幾千年前，但研究人員尚不清楚犬類在何時或為何會被馴化成為人類最好的朋友。但關(guān)于這個問題有一些新的理論，一項相關(guān)研究剛剛發(fā)表在《美國國家科學(xué)院院刊》上。

What researchers did was compare genetic information gathered from ancient human remains with the info gathered from ancient dog remains. They say that some of the dogs found in the Americas have lineage that could be traced back to ancient Siberian dogs.

研究人員將從古代人類遺骸中收集到的基因信息與從古代狗遺骸中收集的信息進行比較。他們表示，在美洲發(fā)現(xiàn)的一些狗的血統(tǒng)可以追溯到古代西伯利亞狗。

So from that, they concluded that when people migrated from Northeast Asia to the Americas, the dogs came with them. Scientists believe this happened more than 15.000 years ago over the Bering Land Bridge which no longer exists. The study lead author theorized that the dogs could have helped the people carry their goods faster and she suggested that people and dogs might have gotten together in the first place when humans allowed wolves to eat whatever food people threw away.

因此，他們由此得出結(jié)論，當(dāng)人們從東北亞遷徙到美洲時，狗狗也隨之而來?？茖W(xué)家認(rèn)為這發(fā)生在15000多年前的白令陸橋上，這座橋已經(jīng)不復(fù)存在。這項研究的首席作者推論，狗可以幫助人們更快地搬運貨物，她認(rèn)為當(dāng)人類允許狼吃人們?nèi)拥舻娜魏问澄飼r，人和狗可能就聯(lián)系在一起了。

There's no definitive proof of this but researchers are hoping the search for older dog bones in the region of Siberia to get more evidence. So I guess you could say that some scientific studies have gone to the dogs.

目前尚確切證據(jù)證明這一點，但研究人員希望在西伯利亞地區(qū)尋找更古老的狗骨頭來獲得更多證據(jù)。我想你可能會說，一些科學(xué)研究已經(jīng)開始研究犬類了。