A small animal, resembling a weasel, lived in the area around what are now parts of Asia around 60 million years ago, according to paleontologists and archaeologists. It is known as Miacis, and it is the genus that gave rise to the canids, which include dogs, wolves, jackals, and foxes. Canids that resembled dogs originated from Miacis, which did not leave any immediate progeny. Cynodictis, the first real dog, had evolved from Miacis by the time it lived 30 to 40 million years ago. A medium-sized mammal with a long tail and a moderately brushy coat, it was longer than it was tall. Cynodictis produced two branches throughout the centuries, one in Africa and the other in Eurasia. Tomarctus, the name of the Eurasian branch, is the ancestor of wolves, dogs, and foxes.
Genetic evidence reveals that dogs are direct descendants of wolves (Canis), and that between 27,000 and 40,000 years ago, the extinct wolf lines that gave rise to dogs split off from the line that gave rise to present wolves. There is disagreement over the place and when dogs first became domesticated. However, there is compelling genetic evidence to suggest that between 14,000 and 29,000 years ago, the first domestication events took place in northern Eurasia. By following nomads in northern Eurasia and eating the game animal carcasses that hunters left behind, wolves in this area probably assisted in their own domestication.
The majority of studies concur that domestication was not one distinct occurrence. It was a process that probably took thousands of years to complete, with early dog populations being replaced by later ones as dogs and wild wolves continued to interbreed. Dog populations that first arose in various regions of Eurasia at various times were also likely involved. Early domestication events in particular places are attested to by genetic investigations. According to one study, wolves were domesticated 16,300 years ago to be used as livestock in China. However, according to another, the ancestors of the first dogs, which date to between 12,000 and 14,000 years ago, were a small strain of gray wolves that lived in India. Genetic evidence also suggests that dogs did not migrate to the Americas with the first humans more than 15,000 years ago, but rather did so only around 10,000 years ago. According to one study, some dogs may have actually descended from jackals rather than wolves. Some of the current native African breeds may have sprung from these dogs that were discovered in Africa.
No matter where they came from, all canids share a few traits. They are mammals that produce living offspring. The females nurse their young by using their mammary glands. Early breeds were comparable to modern northern breeds in having upright ears and pointed or wedge-shaped muzzles. Since most carnivores have similar dental features, paleontologists have been able to distinguish between them. They grow two sets of deciduous teeth “permanent teeth and temporary teeth.
In contrast to animals like bears, who have flat feet and walk on their heels, canids walk on their toes. Dogs have body hair, like most mammals do, and they are homeothermic, which means they have a thermostat inside of them that allows them to keep their body temperature constant no matter the outside temperature.
Point Nemo in the Pacific Ocean is the world’s most remote location, distant from human civilization, and there are massive “When space debris reenters Earth’s atmosphere, it is intended to crash.
What kind of dog lived on Earth first?
A huge, toothy canine that lived 31,700 years ago and survived on a diet of horse, musk ox, and reindeer has just been discovered by an international team of scientists, who consider it to be the world’s first known dog.
Given that the second-oldest canine was discovered in Russia and dates to 14,000 years ago, the discovery may move the earliest dog’s age back 17,700 years.
Researchers believe that the Aurignacian inhabitants of Europe domesticated dogs for the first time during the Upper Paleolithic period based on remains from the older prehistoric dog discovered in Goyet Cave in Belgium. This culture is characterized by fine jewelry and implements that are frequently inlaid with pictures of great game animals.
Paleolithic canines would undoubtedly win best in show awards for their power and biting prowess if they were still recognized as a breed today.
Paleontologist Germonpr of the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences continued, “In shape, the Paleolithic dogs most resemble the Siberian husky, but in size, they were somewhat larger, possibly comparable to giant shepherd dogs.
The researchers examined 117 skulls of contemporary and fossil big members of the Canidae family, which includes dogs, wolves, and foxes, for the study, which has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Archaeological Science.
According to a skeleton examination, “the Paleolithic dogs had wider and shorter snouts and substantially wider brain cases than fossil and modern wolves,” observed Germonpr, who also noted that their skulls were slightly smaller than wolves’.
According to DNA analyses, all canids possessed “a significant level of genetic variety,” indicating that historical wolf populations were substantially larger than they are now.
The oldest canines didn’t eat fish or seafood, but they did eat horse, musk ox, and reindeer, according to an isotopic analysis of the animals’ bones. The researchers hypothesize that the dogs may have appreciated meaty treats during specific seasons because the Aurignacians are thought to have engaged in big game hunting and fishing at various times of the year.
Germonpr speculates that the domestication of dogs may have started when early hunters killed a female wolf and took her young home with them. Recent research on silver foxes suggests that morphological changes can occur during just 10 generations of mating when the most docile pups are cared for.
She speculated that the dogs might have been utilized for tracking, hunting, and transporting game. “The dogs could have served as pack animals during transportation. The dogs may have also been maintained as pets, as a source of meat or fur, or as an animal used in rituals.”
The pet theory is supported by 26,000-year-old footprints left by a youngster and a dog in France’s Chauvet Cave. The prints and torch wipes suggest the child was escorted by a dog through the dim hallways while holding a torch.
This is an important paper, according to Susan Crockford, an evolutionary biologist at Pacific Identifications, Inc. in Canada and an anthropology from the University of Victoria.
But Crockford is not persuaded that the Aurignacians domesticated dogs. Instead, she hypothesizes that dogs may have repeatedly “self-domesticated” from wolves throughout history, which may account for why the creatures resurface in the archaeological record before appearing to vanish.
In her book, Rhythms of Life: Thyroid Hormone and the Origin of Species, Crockford describes the conceivable procedure. According to her theory, the genes that regulate thyroid cycles, which help people adapt to shifting environmental conditions, may eventually help the evolution of new species.
“I think the process got started and then ended for these Paleolithic-age canids, leaving some individual wolves with some of the traits of early dogs, but not all of them,” she added.
Crockford’s theory is not rejected by Germonpr; in fact, she called it “a really fascinating model.” She hopes that in the future, additional details regarding these pup canines will become available. On their teeth and jaws, a thorough investigation is already underway.
How long have dogs been around?
Before your dog became your best buddy and learned how to retrieve tennis balls or watch football from the couch, his predecessors were purely wild animals who frequently engaged in lethal competition with us. What changed in this relationship, then? How did dogs change from being our fierce competitors to our cuddly, fluffy canine friends?
The brand-new drama Alpha provides a Hollywood “tale” of the very first human/dog relationship as a response to that query.
When the movie’s hero, a teenage hunter named Keda, is hurt and left for dead 20,000 years ago in Europe, it is a chilly and perilous place. Fighting for his life, he decides against killing a wounded wolf and instead befriends it, creating an odd alliance that, according to the movie, starts our long and close relationship with dogs.
How many tidbits of reality could be woven into this ancient fiction?
The specifics of how humans and dogs first interacted will never be revealed to us. But outside of the theater, the full narrative is slowly coming to light as researchers look into the history of our oldest domestic partnership and discover how both species have evolved since wolves turned into dogs.
When and where were dogs domesticated?
Even though pugs and poodles may not look the part, all dogs may be traced back to wolves if you go far enough in the past. About 15,000 to 40,000 years ago, gray wolves and dogs split off from a wolf species that is now extinct. On that point, as well as with evolutionary anthropologist Brian Hare’s description of what transpired afterwards, there is broad scientific agreement. According to Hare, “the domestication of dogs was one of the most remarkable developments in human history.”
However, there is much debate over how a once-hated animal grew to be our closest domestic partner. Genetic research has identified regions in Mongolia, southern China, and Europe.
On the timing, scientists also differ. The estimated dates for domestication were pushed back further into the past this summer by study published in Nature Communications, which suggested that dogs were domesticated just once, at least 20,000 years ago but probably closer to 40,000. Stony Brook University evolutionary ecologist Krishna R. Veeramah and colleagues took DNA samples from two fossilized Neolithic German dogs that are 4,700 and 7,000 years old, respectively. The latest date estimates were obtained by tracking the rates of genetic mutation in these genomes.
In a press release that accompanied the study, Dr. Veeramah stated, “We observed that our ancient dogs from the same time period were quite similar to modern European dogs, including the majority of breed dogs people keep as pets. According to him, this indicates that “there was probably only one domestication event for the dogs recorded in the Stone Age fossil record and that we also see and live with today.
Dogs may have been domesticated more than once, according to at least one research. Researchers examined the mitochondrial DNA sequences from 59 European dog remains that ranged in age from 3,000 to 14,000 years old as well as the entire genome of a dog that was buried at Newgrange in Ireland 4,800 years ago.
Dogs were domesticated in Asia at least 14,000 years ago, and their lineages separated between 14,000 and 6,400 years ago into East Asian and Western Eurasian dog breeds, according to a comparison of these genomes with several wolves and contemporary dog breeds.
The authors hypothesize that wolves may have been domesticated twice, however the European branch did not live to make a significant contribution to modern dogs. This is because dog fossils that appear to predate these dates have been discovered in Europe. Greger Larson, director of the Oxford University-based Wellcome Trust Palaeogenomics & Bio-Archaeology Research Network, contends that the absence of dogs older than 8,000 years ago between Europe and Asia and the existence of earlier fossils in each of those locations corroborate this theory.
We need to reevaluate how many times dogs were separately domesticated, according to our ancient DNA evidence and the archaeological evidence of early dogs. According to Larson in a statement that accompanied the study, it’s possible that everyone has been somewhat correct, which is why there hasn’t been a consensus regarding where dogs were domesticated.
Of course, the numerous dog-wolf hybridizations have also clouded the genetic picture. Even now, when the dogs in question are meant to be deterring wolves from consuming livestock, such incidents still occur.
How did dogs become man’s best friend?
The topic of how dogs were domesticated may be more intriguing than the precise moment or location at which it happened. Was it really the outcome of a lone hunter making friends with a hurt wolf? There isn’t much scientific evidence to back such theory.
Similar theories contend that wolf pups were abducted by early humans, kept as pets, and eventually domesticated. Around 10,000 years ago, at the height of agriculture, this may have taken place. The earliest fossils widely accepted as domestic dogs date to around 14,000 years ago, however other disputed fossils more than twice as old may also represent dogs or at least their forebears who were no longer exclusively wolves.
The date of domestication may have happened far earlier than previously thought, according to more recent genetic analyses, which has led many experts to propose an alternative theory. According to the theory of “survival of the friendliest,” wolves largely domesticated themselves among hunter-gatherers.
Anyone who has spent time with wild wolves would understand how unlikely it was that we somehow tamed them in a way that led to domestication, says Brian Hare, director of the Duke University Canine Cognition Center. “That the first domesticated animal was a large carnivore, who would have been a competitor for food,” he adds.
However, Hare points out that the physical alterations that occurred in dogs throughout time, such as their patchy coats, curled tails, and floppy ears, are a result of a procedure called self-domestication. It’s what happens when a species’ friendliest members somehow obtain an edge. These morphological changes, which can start to show as observable results of this selection in just a few generations, are in some way motivated by friendliness.
“Another domestication process, one involving the well-known case of tamed foxes in Russia, provides evidence for this. According to Laurie Santos, director of the Yale University Canine Cognition Center, this experiment produced foxes that were at ease approaching people up close. However, researchers also discovered that these foxes were adept at detecting social cues from people. The choice of social foxes also had the unexpected effect of making them look more and more like cute canine breeds.
According to Hare, most wolves would have been terrified of people and hostile toward them because that is how most wolves act. However, some might have been kinder, giving them perhaps access to goods used by humans who hunt and gather.
The high selection pressure on friendliness had a number of byproducts, such the physical variations we see in dogs, he claims, and these wolves would have had an edge over other wolves. “This is domesticating oneself. Dogs were not domesticated by us. The domestication of dogs.
This notion may have some genetic validity, according to a study from the previous year. The Princeton University evolutionary biologist Bridgette von Holdt and colleagues hypothesize that hypersocial behavior may have connected our two species and focus on a few genes that may be responsible for such behavior.
“In general, dogs show a higher level of drive to seek out lengthy relationships with humans than wolves. I’m intrigued in this behavior, she claims.
According to Von Holdt’s findings, a genetic region that is intact in more aloof wolves has been disrupted in the social pups she investigated. It’s interesting to note that Williams-Beuren syndrome, which is characterized by abnormally friendly and trusting tendencies in humans, is caused by genetic variation in the same stretch of DNA. Previous research have found that alterations to these genes result in mice becoming more sociable.
The findings imply that random alterations to these genes, along with potential others, may have contributed to certain dogs’ early affinity for humans.
She continues, “We were able to pinpoint one of the numerous chemical characteristics that probably influence behavior.
How have dogs changed since becoming our best friends?
Even if the relationship between humans and dogs has a mysterious history, it is becoming more and more obvious how much each species has evolved throughout the course of our lengthy association. The physical distinctions between a wolf and a basset hound are clear, but dogs have undergone other, deeper changes.
One new study demonstrates how dogs may have actually become poorer at cooperating as a species by associating with us and learning to work with humans. Even among wild dogs, the pack mentality and lifestyle are much less pronounced than they are among wolves.
Dogs may have made up for it in other fascinating ways, however, according to Laurie Santos of Yale. They’ve figured out how to leverage people to solve issues.
Santos explains that a number of studies have tested dogs and wolves with impossible problems (such as a puzzle box that is difficult to open or a pulling tool that breaks) to see how these various species respond.
Researchers have discovered that wolves employ a variety of trial-and-error strategies to address physical challenges. However, when crisis arises, dogs react differently. They turn to ask for assistance from their human companion. This experiment raises the possibility that some of the physical problem-solving skills that dogs once possessed may have been lost in favor of more social techniques that rely on the special kind of cooperation that domesticated dogs have with humans. This is consistent with research that demonstrates how adept dogs are at reading social signs from people.
Even our brains are in sync because of how intimate the relationship has grown. The maternal bonding system in the human brain is hijacked by dogs, according to a study. Oxytocin, a hormone associated with maternal bonding and trust, is released by each of the brains of humans and dogs when they look lovingly into one another’s eyes. Oxytocin, bonding is present in other mammal interactions, such as that between mom and kid or partners, but it has only ever been seen in action in the relationship between a human and a dog.
Due to the closeness of this relationship, studying dogs can teach us a lot about human cognition.
Overall, Santos claims that the story of canine cognitive evolution appears to be one of cognitive abilities designed for a close cooperative interaction with humans. “Our lab utilizes dogs as a reference group to assess what is particular to human social learning because dogs were formed to pick up on human cues. Dogs, on the other hand, were shown to be better at deciding which activities were strictly required to solve a problem, like fetching food from a container, and disregarding unnecessary “poor counsel,” according to a recent Yale study. Children and dogs, for instance, respond to the same social cues. Children tend to imitate all of their elders’ behaviors, which indicates that their learning objectives differ from those of their canine companions.
Even while we may never fully understand the origins of the first canine-human alliance, canines have unquestionably aided us in countless ways over the years. However, it may only be now that we are beginning to comprehend how learning about them might improve our understanding of ourselves.
