Oldest Known Dog Bone Hints Our Best Friends Were With Us Earlier Than Thought

.sciencealert.com ^ | 30 November 2022 By | MICHELLE STARR

[BenLurkin]

A canine humerus recovered from Erralla cave in the Basque Country, Spain in 1985 has now been dated to between 17,410 and 17,096 years ago. And multiple lines of analysis confirm it's not from a wolf, but a dog: Canis familiaris. This means that old, cracked humerus represents the oldest dog bone to date.

That's an incredible datapoint for contextualizing dog domestication, and opens up new discussions about the timeline and the nature of remains of "dog-like wolves" thought to be an intermediate stage between wolves and dogs.

When and how dogs diverged from their wolf (Canis lupus) ancestors, and when they became domesticated, are subjects of some debate.

Although some believe that the two species started to diverge over 100,000 years ago, it's far more generally accepted that dog domestication began sometime between 40,000 and 20,000 years ago. And it's even possible that the process began with the wolves self-domesticating as they grew attached to human settlements.

Biological remains, however, are challenging to identify. Time works its ravages on DNA, leaving identification usually down to bone shape. This isn't necessarily reliable, since wolves may have had a greater variety of body shapes in the past, or may have had regional variations. Thus we get the dog-like wolves, from bones that have dog-like and wolf-like traits, from between 15,000 and 40,000 years ago.

[Red Badger]

Spain?

Not Korea?.......................

[teeman8r]

or the obama tribe thought they were mighty good eatin.

[Mr. Blond]

I guess that’s why we call them doggos.

[READINABLUESTATE]

I was wondering if it was found near the remains of a camp fire.

[moovova]

What flavor was it? Chicken? Beef? Mailman?

[Waverunner]

The Korean ones showed traces of a vinegar/garlic/pepper substance on them.

[C19fan]

There was a movie called “Alpha” about how a wolf became man’s best friend. A linguist wrote the script in Proto-Siberian.

[C19fan]

There is a hilarious meme about a wolf deciding to hang out with humans for a free meal wondering what could go wrong...then an imagine of some frou frou dog in a costume.

[Red Badger]

😜👍👌😁........................

[chief lee runamok]

Most certainly the pack here favorite bone.

[SaveFerris]

(Mailman?)

Newman!!!

[gundog]

[gundog]

[gundog]

[Diana in Wisconsin]

[cld51860]

Thanks, I needed a great laugh today!!

[Vaduz]

LOL

[Vaduz]

Not so sure about friends but take along lunch fit too.

[SunkenCiv]

The information was fetched from a 17K year old humerus.