The Kuri-an extinct dog breed...Maori in recent attribution...Polynesian in semi-recent attribution. Indonesian? Yes. It seems so.

Dr. Karen Greig completed an extensive DNA study of these fabulously interesting (& extinct) NZ dogs. All were closely related. I'm quoting from her article herein:  "Two dogs tested from the Cook Islands showed more genetic diversity between them than did all 35 dogs from New Zealand. Two-thirds of the New Zealand dogs shared exactly the same haplotype (a set of markers usually inherited as a group from a parent), while most of the others differed by only one or two mutations. Additionally, the study found that there was no geographic patterning to the New Zealand dogs; dogs from two different sites were as likely to be related as two dogs from the same site. This discovery means that early New Zealand dogs were all descendants of a small group of very similar dogs, which were equally and quickly distributed around the whole country." 

Excerpted from a 6/22/2018 Otago Daily Times article (of which the author is not noted) "One of the strategies people used was to take their domesticated plants and animals on voyages with them, to assist with establishing their communities on new islands.

While it was known dogs were part of these migrations - archaeological evidence suggests dogs were introduced to Australasia and the Pacific via maritime Southeast Asia around 3500 years ago - that evidence had been patchy in places, and the origins and dispersal routes for dogs still weren't clear.
The new study, led by the University of Otago's Dr Karen Greig, aimed to investigate how dogs ultimately fitted into the picture of human settlement - and how their genetic traces linked up with current human migration models.
They drew on molecular genetic analysis of DNA extracted from dog bones and teeth that had been excavated from archaeological sites across Southeast Asia and the Pacific islands.
The team specifically targeted the mitochondrial genome, because its high copy number in each cell meant there was a better chance of it surviving in archaeological samples.
They also sequenced the mitogenomes of dingoes from Wellington Zoo.
"Dingoes are descended from dogs introduced to Australia several thousand years ago, and are currently one of the earliest known dog introductions to the region," Dr Greig said.
"We used next-generation sequencing technology to generate the ancient and modern genetic sequences, and this technology enabled us to obtain far more data for each archaeological dog specimen than had been possible previously."
That meant they could pick out particular similarities and differences between the genetic lineages of the archaeological samples, the dingoes and also some mitogenomes from modern village dogs published from a previous study.
The data revealed there were at least three different dog introductions into the Pacific region - and in addition to the dingo introduction, each had a different time-frame and dispersal pattern.
"This suggests perhaps that people faced some challenges moving, establishing and sustaining viable dog populations on newly colonised islands."
They also found some evidence for dogs being associated with the Lapita peoples, who were the first groups to colonise islands beyond the Solomon Islands.
"But we also found evidence for a later and much more successful introduction, with dogs sharing the same genetic lineage being found in archaeological sites across the Pacific, including New Zealand," Dr Greig said.


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