Chris Widga, head curator at the East Tennessee State University Museum of Natural History, will be discussing the history of dogs in America in his lecture, “More than Mutts: The History of America’s Earliest Dogs.”

Widga’s lecture will be at 8:15 p.m. Wednesday in the Great Hall of the Memorial Union and is free. 

According to the Lectures Program website, Widga is involved with an international team that researches the history of early dogs. The team also studies dog domestication.

“[The team’s] research examining DNA recovered from several ancient animals, published in Science, has revealed the unique genetic signature of America’s first dogs, where they came from, and offered insight into their complex evolutionary history of our canine companions,” according to the Lectures Program Website. 

The event is cosponsored by a variety of departments on campus, including anthropology, biomedical sciences, ecology, evolution and organismal biology, geological and atompheric sciences, office of the Senior Vice President and Provost, World Languages and Cultures, and the Committee on Lectures, funded by Student Government.