Rosa Rubicondior: Creationism Refuted - Doggy Dos For Creationists

Dogs 10,000 years ago roamed with bands of humans and came in all shapes and sizes

This is the second article in The Conversation which incidentally refutes creationism and shows us why the Bible must be dismissed as a source book for science and history on the basis that, when compared to reality, it's stories are not just wrong; they're not even close.

This one deals with essentially that same subject as my last past - the evolution of all the different dog varieties since wolves were first domesticated some 11,000 years ago. Together with all the other canids that creationists insist are all dog 'kind', including several foxes, several subspecies of wolf, coyotes, jackals, and African wild dogs, the hundreds of different recognised breeds of dog could not conceivably have arisen from a single pair and the resulting genetic bottleneck just a few thousand years ago. Moreover, we are expected to believe that in that short space of time, all the canids evolved from being vegetarian (with canine teeth, meat-cutting incisors and bone-crushing molars, apparently) to being obligate carnivores.

As well as the paper that was the subject of my last blog post, this The Conversation article mentions another paper, also published in Science by palaeontologists led by Shao-Jie Zhang from the Kunming Institute of Zoology, China. This paper draws on DNA evidence from ancient Eastern Eurasian dogs.

The article by Kylie M. Cairns, a Research Fellow in Canid and Wildlife Genomics, UNSW Sydney, Australia and Professor Melanie Fillios of the Department of Archaeology and Palaeoanthropology, University of New England, USA. Their article is reprinted here under a Creative |Commons licence, reformatted for stylistic consistency.

Dogs 10,000 years ago roamed with bands of humans and came in all shapes and sizes

Kylie M. Cairns, UNSW Sydney and Melanie Fillios, University of New England From village dogs to toy poodles to mastiffs, dogs come in an astonishing array of shapes, colours and sizes. Today there are estimated to be about 700 million dogs living with or around humans.

To many of us, dogs are loyal companions, working partners, and beloved family members – and the histories of our species are deeply woven together. But how did this incredible diversity come to be – and how far back does this relationship with humans go?

Two new studies published today in Science provide some answers. One, led by Allowen Evin from the University of Montpelier, draws on ancient skeletal remains. The other, led by Shao-Jie Zhang from the Kunming Institute of Zoology, draws on the study of DNA from ancient Eastern Eurasian dogs.

Together, these studies suggest the story of dogs and their relationship with humans is older and more complex than once thought.

The origins of modern dog diversity

The study by Evin and her colleagues used 643 dog and wolf skulls spanning the past 50,000 years to address the origins of modern dog diversity.

Her team’s analysis suggests the distinctive “dog-like” skull shape first arose around 11,000 years ago, during the Holocene epoch, the time since the most recent ice age. They also found substantial physical diversity in dog skulls from the same period.

Photograph of an archaeological canid skull (top) and a modern dog skull (bottom) used for the photogrammetric reconstruction of 3D models in the study.

C. Ameen/University of Exeter

> This means the wide range of shapes and sizes dogs have today isn’t solely a product of the intense selective breeding programs that became popular in the last few centuries. Some of that variation emerged millennia earlier.

The team re-analysed the skull shapes of all 17 known dog or wolf skulls from the Late Pleistocene, a geological period from 129,000 to 11,700 years ago. Some skulls were 50,000 years old.

They found all of these Pleistocene skulls were essentially wolf-like in shape, including some previously identified as early dogs.

Importantly, this suggests that while the split between wolves and dogs likely occurred during the Pleistocene, the skull shape of early dogs didn’t start to change until closer to the Holocene – that is, 11,000 years ago. However, some Holocene dog skulls still retained wolf-like features.

This research suggests early dogs were much more diverse than previously thought. This diversity may have laid the groundwork for the extreme variations in size and shape of the dogs we have today.

Travelling companions

Earlier genomic studies have uncovered four major dog lineages that likely originated about 20,000 years ago: Eastern (East Asian and Arctic) and Western (Europe and Near East) dogs.

The origins of these ancient dog lineages are still being untangled. However, studying shifts in the ancestry of dogs through time and between different regions can help us better understand both the origins of dogs and the movement of Neolithic (new stone-age) humans.

The new study by Zhang and his colleagues used 73 ancient dog genomes spanning the last 10,000 years to explore how humans and dogs moved across Eastern Eurasia through time.

Analysis of these ancient dogs identified multiple shifts in the ancestry of dogs in Eastern Eurasia at times that correlate with the movement of specific human groups (hunter-gatherers, farmers and pastoralists). This suggests that as different human cultural groups moved across Eurasia, their dogs often moved with them, carrying their unique genetic signatures.

There was some discrepancy between human and dog population ancestry in some parts of Asia. For example, Eastern hunter-gatherers from Veretye and Botai, who were more closely related to Western Eurasian humans, had largely Eastern (Arctic) dogs rather than the Western dogs observed with other Western Eurasian cultures at the time.

This means dogs may have been a key part of cultural exchange or trade between different human cultures or communities. It may also illustrate complexities in the evolution of dogs that we are yet to understand.

The work by Zhang and his team presents compelling evidence that in Eastern Eurasia thousands of years ago dogs played an indispensable role in human societies as crucial “biocultural packages” that moved with humans. In other words, humans took their companions with them on their journeys (and perhaps traded them), rather than simply acquiring new dogs after moving.

These findings highlight the long-term, complex and intertwined relationship between dogs and humans that spans more than 10,000 years.

The genetic ancestry of dogs can act as a living record of ancient human migrations, trade networks and cultural exchanges. Studies on ancient dogs may also help us understand the environmental factors that contributed to the evolution of dogs, and their relationship with humans.

The groundwork for the extreme variations in size and shape of the dogs we have today was laid about 10,000 years ago.

Monika Simeonova/Unsplash

Reshaping our understanding of dogs

Together, these new studies profoundly reshape our understanding of how dogs became so diverse and how they have related to humans along the way.

Both studies underscore that the incredible diversity in modern dogs is not an entirely recent phenomenon. The genetic and morphological foundations for this variation were laid thousands of years ago, shaped by natural selection, human selection and diverse environments, long before the structured breeding of the past few centuries.

Future studies investigating the physical diversity and ancestry of dogs through time could deepen our understanding of the complex origins and spread of dogs across the globe. Whatever their origins, this research deepens our appreciation for the unique and ancient bond between humans and dogs that was almost as diverse as canines themselves.
Kylie M. Cairns, Research Fellow in Canid and Wildlife Genomics, UNSW Sydney and Melanie Fillios, Professor, Department of Archaeology and Palaeoanthropology, University of New England

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Published by The Conversation.
Open access. (CC BY 4.0)

Abstract
As the first domestic species, dogs likely dispersed with different cultural groups during the Late Pleistocene and Holocene. To test this hypothesis, we analyzed 73 ancient dog genomes, including 17 newly sequenced individuals sampled from East Asia to the West Eurasian Steppe spanning nearly 10,000 years. Our results indicate correlations between the ancestry of dogs and specific ancient human populations from eastern Europe to Eastern Siberia, including Ancient Paleo-Siberians, Eastern hunter-gatherers, East Asians, and Steppe pastoralists. We also identify multiple shifts in the ancestry of dogs that coincide with specific dispersals of hunter-gatherers, farmers, and pastoralists. Combined, our results reveal the long-term and integral role that dogs played in a multitude of human societies.

Shao-Jie Zhang et al.
Genomic evidence for the Holocene codispersal of dogs and humans across Eastern Eurasia. Science 390, 735-740 (2025). DOI:10.1126/science.adu2836

© 2025 American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Reprinted under the terms of s60 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Several key points emerge from these studies that are particularly relevant to creationists claims. First, the evidence that dogs — one of humanity’s earliest domesticated companions — were already remarkably diverse in size, shape and form more than 10,000 years ago (i.e., before the legendary 'Creation Week') highlights how natural processes of variation and adaptation are robust and ancient. According to the studies discussed, canine skull morphology shows substantial diversification well before formal breed development, indicating that the drivers of change went far deeper than simply human-deliberate selective breeding. That in turn challenges the creation-narrative notion that all animal “kinds” were created in final form and have remained essentially unchanged since that creation. If, as the biblical-creationist framework sometimes asserts, dogs (and other species) were created with fixed form and function, then the morphological and genetic data showing early, dynamic change drastically undercuts that idea. The dog evidence demonstrates: (a) variation over time, (b) the coexistence of humans and early dogs in mobile hunter-gatherer bands, and (c) deep time involvement of natural ecological and evolutionary processes rather than a static “kind” model.

The studies again rais the obvious question: if an omniscient creator god created dogs for the benefit of humans, why have we had to modify them to such an extent to make them fit for purpose (as we have done with almost all domesticated animals). Moreover, the implication that the human-dog relationship is ancient, widespread and integrated into hunter-gatherer societies rather than only emerging with settled agriculture adds another layer. Domestication here is not a quick “kind created, then split” scenario, but a long-term co‐evolutionary relationship involving both human behaviour and canine adaptation. This leaves little room for a simple creationist model of unchanging animal kinds. Instead we see evidence of a rich, evolving partnership, with dogs adapting to human niches and humans likewise shaping dog populations over millennia. Finally, this case study of ancient dog diversification is a rich example. It shows that biological diversity emerges naturally, gradually, and repeatedly through time — not all at once in a fixed creation event. The interplay of genetic variation, ecological opportunity, human influence and morphological change provides a tangible window into evolutionary processes at work, not just in fossil bones or ancient plants, but in creatures still living with us. In summary: the research on dogs underlines that species are not static, created fully formed and then left unchanged. Instead, they are dynamic, mutable and interconnected with other species — including humans. That reality aligns with evolutionary theory and stands fundamentally at odds with the creationist narratives that seek to depict life as fixed, purpose-built and unchanging. The dog story is another clear piece in the broader mosaic of evidence: life on Earth is old, changeable and rooted in natural history, not in an abrupt supernatural creation event.

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