the Australian mainland 12,000 YBP, and New Guinea 6,500–8,500 YBP by the inundation of the Sahul Shelf. Fossil remains in Australia date to approximately 3,500 YBP and no dingo remains have been uncovered in Tasmania, therefore the dingo is estimated to have arrived in Australia at a time between 12,000 and 3,500 YBP. To reach Australia through the Malay Archipelago even at the lowest sea level of the Last Glacial Maximum, a journey of at least 50 km over open sea between ancient Sunda and Sahul was necessary, indicating that the dingo arrived by boat. Studies of mtDNA indicate that dingoes are descended from a small founding population through a single founding event or no more than a few founding events either 5,400–4,600 YBP or 10,800–4,600 YBP, or 18,300–4,640 YBP, depending on the mutation rate assumptions used. They remained isolated from other dogs until the arrival of Europeans. However, whole genome sequencing indicates that there was ancient inbreeding in the founding population that first arrived in Australia less than 4,000 YBP. Ancestors In 1995, a researcher compared the skull morphology of the dingo to those of other dogs and wolves and concluded that the dingo was a primitive dog that may have evolved from either the Indian wolf (C. l. pallipes) or the Arabian wolf (C. l. arabs). Based on phenotype, the same researcher proposes that in the past, dingoes were widespread across the planet, but had declined due to admixture with domestic dogs. Dingoes were thought to exist in Australia as wild dogs, rare in New Guinea, but common in Sulawesi and in northern and central Thailand. Relic populations were thought to occur in Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines and Vietnam. However, morphological comparisons (based on skull measurements) had not been undertaken on specimens to provide a better understanding. Later DNA studies indicate this proposed wide distribution to be incorrect. A haplotype is a group of genes in an organism that are inherited together from a single parent. Early DNA studies indicated that the dingo was more closely related to the domestic dog than it was to the wolf or the coyote. In 2004, a study compared the DNA sequences of maternal mtDNA taken from Australian dingoes. All dingo sequences in the study fell under the mtDNA haplotype named A29 or were a single mutation from it. All female dingo sequences since