With one of the most thorough genetic studies published to date, researchers were able to trace dogs' origins back to Central Asia.
Published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study examined DNA from 4,676 purebred dogs with an identifiable breed, as well as the DNA of 549 feral dogs, BBC News reported.
But given how diverse dogs have grown and how long they have been domesticated by humans, the new study may not even convince everyone of the animal's origin.
"I'm not pretending my study alone is enough to rally the community together," study co-author Adam Boyko, of Cornell University, told The Associated Press.
Greger Larson, a researcher at Oxford University who was not involved in the study, hailed the research, but pointed out that some may take exception to the use of modern-day DNA.
"Everyone with a favorite region can point to at least one paper that supports their suspicions," he told the AP.
What may set this study apart from others that came before is the attention paid to the 549 "village dogs," which are not domesticated - or may have been once - and still live near human communities.
"The fact that we looked at so many village dogs from so many different regions, we were able to narrow in on the patterns of diversity in these indigenous dogs," Boyko told BBC News. "We looked exclusively to see if there was evidence of multiple domestication events. And like every other group that's looked for that, we found no evidence of it.
"It looks like there's a single origin, although there are clearly situations where there has been... a little bit of gene flow between wolves and dogs post-domestication."
