All articles tagged with #dog domestication
Two 3,000–5,000-year-old wolves found in a Baltic Sea cave on Sweden’s Stora Karlsö island were genetically wolves with a marine diet, suggesting they reached the island with human help—likely by boat—and lived alongside people, a finding that adds nuance to our understanding of human–wolf relationships before dog domestication.
Two Nature studies of ancient dog and wolf DNA reveal the oldest dog remains come from a 15,800–16,000-year-old skull in Pınarbaşı, Turkey, pushing dog domestication back by about 5,000 years. The research shows dogs spread across Europe by around 14,300 years ago, were kept by hunter‑gatherers before the Neolithic farmers’ arrival, and include evidence of puppies buried near human graves, indicating a close human–dog relationship. While dogs clearly split from wolves long before farming, the exact domestication path remains unresolved due to a persistent genetic gap between dogs and wolves.
New research suggests that 14,000-year-old mummified 'puppies' found in Siberia were actually wolf pups, not early domesticated dogs, providing insights into ancient wolf behavior and challenging assumptions about dog domestication timelines.
Scientists initially thought two Ice-Age puppies found in Siberia were early domesticated dogs, but genetic testing revealed they were ancient wolves, providing new insights into wolf evolution, hunting behaviors, and the complex history of dog domestication.