A study led by Peter Savolainen at the Royal Institute of Technology was conducted in 2002. That study analyzed the mitochondrial DNA of dogs from around the world. That study concluded that dogs evolved from some wolves domesticated in East Asia. More than 95% of the dogs in the sample belonged to five genetic groups, three of which were reportedly descended from three female wolves.

According to modern science, dogs are not direct descendants of today’s gray wolves. Rather, the dog and the gray wolf have a common extinct wolf ancestor. Genetic divergence between the two species occurred between 20,000 and 40,000 years ago.

Genome analysis of 72 ancient wolves in 2022 shows that dogs inherited DNA from at least two different wolf groups. One is from Asia and the other from Europe. This means that dogs were domesticated in different places or interbred with different wolf populations after initial domestication.

Repeated breeding between dogs and wolves messed up the initial mitochondrial DNA results. This is the reason why it became difficult to trace the exact genealogy. For this reason, previous studies had overestimated the role of some female wolves in the global dog population.

Raising dogs was not an ordinary event. It involves many populations, locations and thousands of years of human-animal interaction. Now dogs have gradually adapted to human society.

Early studies were based on limited genetic data and focused only on maternal lineage. For this reason this wrong conclusion was drawn.