New Delhi, June 20 -- Prior to the arrival of Europeans, native dogs slowly spread southward across the Americas alongside early farming societies, mirroring the rhythms of human migration, agriculture and cultural change, a new study by the University of Oxford has shown.

All pre-(European) contact dogs in Central and South America descended from a single maternal lineage that diverged from North American dogs after humans first arrived on the continent, the study added.

An international team of scientists sequenced 70 complete mitochondrial genomes from archaeological and modern dogs, collected from Central Mexico to Central Chile and Argentina, to reach the conclusion.

A statement by Oxford quoted Aurelie Manin from the School of Ar...