Bond between dogs and humans dates back more than 15,000 years, study finds | Animal behaviour

They are humanity’s best friend, and now ancient DNA analysis has revealed that the enduring bond between dogs and humans dates back more than 15,000 years.

The groundbreaking research, published in the journal Nature, pushes the earliest genetic evidence for domestic dogs back by 5,000 years and reveals that hunter-gatherers were raising animals and giving them ritual burials long before the advent of agriculture.

The oldest specimen, 15,800 years old, was buried next to human remains in Anatolia. The second oldest recorded jawbone, a 14,300-year-old jawbone, was unearthed at Gough’s Cave in Somerset, where a tribe known for cannibalistic rituals lived.

from Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. Lachie Scarsbrook and co-first author of the book studyHe said: “This means that by 15,000 years ago, dogs with very different ancestors already existed in Eurasia, from Somerset to Siberia. This raises the possibility that domestication may have occurred during the last ice age, 10,000 years before other domesticated plants or animals appeared.”

Previously, archaeological evidence strongly suggested that dogs were domesticated from gray wolves about 12,000 years ago, before the end of the last ice age. But until now, the oldest direct genetic evidence for dogs dated back only 10,900 years; This was because DNA from ancient bones was too fragmented to reliably distinguish between dogs and wolves. Therefore, the exact date, place and conditions of domestication remained a mystery.

Dr. D., lecturer at the University of East Anglia and formerly of the Francis Crick Institute. “For a long time, the only way we could tell whether something was a dog or a wolf was to look at the bones, which may not be that reliable,” said Anders Bergström. He was also the first author of a book. second study He analyzed more than 200 ancient dog and wolf samples. “Someone would say, ‘It’s a dog,’ and someone else would say, ‘No, it’s a little wolf.'”

The latest findings, published by two international teams, offer unprecedented detail on how our ancient partnership with dogs took root and show that modern European dog breeds, from bulldogs to labradors, share much of their ancestry with those who lived alongside ancient hunter-gatherers in Europe. The dogs probably had the appearance of small wolves, with shorter muzzles and less powerful jaws.

“We don’t expect them to look like a chihuahua,” Scarsbrook said.

The first paper, involving scientists at Scarsbrook and London’s Natural History Museum, analyzed DNA from bones found at two sites in Gough’s Cave in England, Pınarbaşı in Türkiye and Serbia. Advanced sequencing techniques allowed small pieces of ancient DNA to be pieced together to reconstruct the entire genome, allowing a clear species identification for the first time.

The findings revealed that dogs were already common in Europe and western Asia at least 14,000 years ago. Isotopic analysis of bones found in Türkiye revealed that the dogs consumed a fish-rich diet consistent with the local human diet. The fact that similar feeding patterns are seen in other regions shows that dogs are being fed consciously by humans.

There was also evidence of deep emotional ties. The bones of three puppies buried on top of a human’s legs were found in Pınarbaşı, a reflection of the elaborate human burials carried out by this group. At Gough’s Cave, where locals performed gruesome rituals with human remains, an ancient dog jawbone appeared to have deliberately carved holes on both sides. The researchers concluded that domestic dogs were likely also eaten after death.

The close genetic relationship between dogs in the three regions suggested that dogs spread rapidly across Europe after domestication and were probably traded between unrelated groups.

“The fact that people traded dogs so early means that these animals were important,” said Prof Laurent Frantz, from the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and one of the senior authors. “They must have served a purpose beyond being pets. It’s crazy to think they would keep this fairly large carnivore just out of kindness because they looked cute.”

Dogs may have increased hunting efficiency or served as an early warning system against predators.