Posted on 02/06/2015 11:03:34 PM PST by SunkenCiv
When did dogs first become domesticated? A sophisticated new 3D fossil analysis by biologists Abby Grace Drake, visiting assistant professor of biology at Skidmore, and Michael Coquerelle of the University Rey Juan Carlos contradicts the suggested domestication of dogs during the late Paleolithic era (about 30,000 years ago), and reestablishes the date of domestication to around 15,000 years ago...
Whether dogs were domesticated during the Paleolithic era, when humans were hunter-gatherers, or the Neolithic era, when humans began to form permanent settlements and take up farming, is a subject of ongoing scientific debate. Original fossil finds placed dog domestication in the Neolithic, during the time when humans began to form permanent settlements and started to farm. However, genetic analyses have often contradicted this date, claiming that dogs were domesticated much earlier. Recent fossils found in Russia and Belgium have been used as evidence for dogs being domesticated as early as the late Paleolithic, when humans were hunter-gatherers...
Drake and Coquerelle proposed a 3D method for measuring the canid skulls and re-assessed the Paleolithic fossils from Russia and Belgium. When they compared the form of these canids to that of modern and ancient wolves and dogs from North America and Europe, they were surprised to find that these fossils, once presumed to be dogs, were in fact wolves.
(Excerpt) Read more at skidmore.edu ...
Agreed. The wolf-dogs would have been smart enough to recognize that everybody wins when the dangers of the hunt are shared with humans bearing spears & standoff weapons (slings & bows). In turn the humans would benefit from the wolves powerful endurance and seen the value of pushing large game to exhaustion before attempting the kill.
Wolves would not have been domesticated at this point since there would have been no selective breeding taking place. The wolf pack would have been on the periphery of the human encampment, everpresent.
“This finding is based on a false premise, that early dogs have to be phenotypically different than wolves. Dogs are wolves in the first place. There is no reason to assume there should be physical changes unless the dogs method of living changed.”
The Russian experiment involving the domestication of fox suggests that there are rapid physiological changes to canids when domestication begins to take hold. I’ve also read that genetically dogs & wolves are practically indistinguishable. Whatever is going on with the evolution of the dogs body type it is both rapid & genetically subtle.
http://news.discovery.com/animals/pets/dogs-not-as-close-kin-to-wolves-as-thought-140116.htm
http://www.hngn.com/articles/22228/20140117/dogs-did-not-originate-from-wolves.htm
“True. And God made woman because sheep can’t cook.”
Oh. So that’s what the Bible means when it says that Adam didn’t find the sheep as adequate help-mates.
I saw a show on the Discovery Channel that presented the best theory of wolf domestication I have ever heard. As you suggest, it started with wolves standing off waiting to scavenge food from an animal humans had killed. Most wolves naturally kept a certain distance from the human encampment. Some few wolves were not quite as wary, and their stand-off distance was not as great as the other wolves. Those less wary wolves, being closer to the food, got there first when the humans left. They ate first and ate the most. Over only a few generations, this trait reinforced itself. As the wolves became less wary of humans, they ate better and evolved into dogs. Humans too recognized the advantages of having these tolerant wolves around and purposefully began to feed those who were the most domesticated. And so on to poodles ...
BTW the dogs in this article aren't very different from wolves either but they are clearly dogs Large canids at the Gravettian Předmostí site, the Czech Republic
That is charming but heartbreaking as well.
Thanks for posting the link, my friend.
Of all creatures, dog cast his lot with man, for better or worse.
I’ve heard that Muslims consider dogs unclean and won’t keep them. Does anyone know if this is true and why they hold to this belief?
I really love dogs, and would love to have one or more of them,
but fencing a large enough portion of the yard to keep them safe
and with enough space to do some running and playing together
would be a pain for Bryan when he’s trying to mow the lawn. I
suppose we could get around it somehow, and I’m a little leery
about the cats interacting with them, too. Maybe someday...
Buy an obedient breed...:)
Until I got Minny, my first Ibizan Hound, I had no fence at all.
The Dobermans would run up to the property line and then just stop there, and bark.
The Ibizans were responsible for the Supermax fence.
:)
Anybody here ever been raised in the mountains? These wolves will come alone by themselves at night and sit right at the edge of the campfire and just look at you, waiting for something to eat. Up n` here, the wolves are solitary or travel in pairs, not in a pack.
The wolf will know if you have a gun and if you are menacing or not. But experience has been is that they know who you are already by your scent. Thus they ain`t scared of you. They usually travel long distances from the high mountains during droughts down to the mountain farms- So they already know who`s gonna shoot at them or not.
Met my first big wolf on the hill when I was 14 on the farm. I called out to him but he ran away. 4 years later encountered another one about 20 miles away at night. This one walked right up to the campfire which we had made really big to keep bears etc away. He walked right up to the edge of it right next to a tree and just stood there looking at a us. So he knew who we were. Otherwise he wouldn’t have never come that close. Them wolves is smarter than humans is. Yup.
It is absolutely true.
Why do they hold this attitude? Simple.
Dogs are excellent judges of character.
You should hear what dogs think of Muslims.
I probably would have except that the Mohammedan scum never got close enough to any of our Puppies.
It would have been fun to introduce a few of them to Major and Max.
Once in a while I run across them while out with the Dobes.
They always have the same reaction.
Berserker mode.
Gotta be a good reason why.
Thank you for good advice, my dear friend.
That was amazing, Salamander. Thank you!
And the foxes also bark and changed the fur color pattern
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