Artistic reconstruction of Pınarbaşı c. 15,800 years ago based on evidence from archaeological excavations by University of Liverpool.
(c) Kathryn Killackey
This is the first of two blog posts on a pair of recent papers published in Nature on the earliest known domestic dogs and what they tell us about when grey wolves first entered into a domestic relationship with humans. Together, these studies push the earliest firm genetic evidence for dogs back[1] about 10,900 years ago, showing that dog populations were already present in western Eurasia during the Late Upper Palaeolithic. For creationists committed to a young Earth and to the simplistic Bronze Age origin myths of the Bible, that is yet another awkward fact: dogs were already on their way to becoming humanity’s first domestic animal long before their preferred chronology even allows for the Earth to exist. [1.1]
Since then, of course, dogs have been systematically modified by selective breeding to suit the many roles humans have found for them. That alone sits uneasily with the claim that a perfect creator made all animals ready-made for human benefit. But what makes these papers especially interesting to me is not only that they create yet another problem for creationist superstition, but that they touch directly on the background to two novels I have recently published, in which the domestication of wolves forms part of the story.
The first of these books, The Girl and the Wolf, tells the story of Almora, a child of the Drognai clan, who is raised alongside a wolf cub, Sharma, who becomes her inseparable companion. When Almora meets one of the last Neanderthals, Tanu, and they fall in love, Sharma plays a crucial part in bringing them together. The kindness of Almora’s mother, Shana, in rescuing and raising the starving cub becomes the small act from which a much larger change in human history begins.
In the sequel, The Way of The Wolf: A Stone Age Epic, Almora and Sharma have become the stuff of legend, their story spreading far beyond the lands of the Drognai. When Almora’s daughter, Shana — herself of mixed Neanderthal and modern human ancestry — chooses to leave the clan because of the tensions her family’s presence has caused, Almora, Tanu and a small band of Drognai go with her to a distant land. There they discover a people who have taken the legend of Almora and Sharma to heart and formed a close relationship with a pack of tame wolves, a relationship that has helped carry them through hardship into a period of hunting success and prosperity.
These books are fiction, of course, because we cannot know exactly how wolves became domesticated. What we can say is that the current evidence points to a long and complex process rather than a single moment of “invention”. The broad consensus is that some wolves probably began by exploiting scraps around human camps, while humans gradually came to recognise their value as sentinels, scavengers and hunting partners. The rest, as they say, is history.
And according to the first of these two new papers, that history was already under way deep in the Late Ice Age. One study generated nuclear and mitochondrial genomes from canid remains from Pınarbaşı in Türkiye, dated to 15,800 years ago, and from Gough’s Cave in Somerset, dated to 14,300 years ago, and concluded that a genetically homogeneous dog population was already widely distributed across Europe and Anatolia by at least 14,300 years ago. The second study analysed 216 canid remains from Europe and found its oldest dog genome in a 14,200-year-old specimen from Kesslerloch in Switzerland, showing that European dogs were already genetically distinct by then. [1.1]
Background^ Dogs Before Farming. One of the most remarkable things about dog domestication is that it appears to have happened before the rise of agriculture. Unlike cattle, sheep, goats or pigs, which were domesticated by settled farming communities, the earliest dogs lived alongside Late Upper Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers. In other words, humanity’s first domestic animal was not an animal bred for meat, milk or labour by farmers, but a former wolf that entered into a relationship with mobile bands of Ice Age people. [2.1]The first paper, by a team that included scientists from the University of Oxford, is the subject of an Oxford University news release. The related Natural History Museum news item explains how DNA from canid remains, including a jawbone from Gough’s Cave, helped reveal some of the oldest genetic evidence yet found for domestic dogs. The second paper broadens the picture by tracing the genomic history of early dogs in Europe and showing continuity between these early animals and later European dogs. [2]
That matters because it makes dogs unique in the history of domestication. These new studies show that dogs were already present among hunter-gatherer populations in western Eurasia by at least 14,300 years ago, and that the oldest known dog genome so far comes from Pınarbaşı in Türkiye, dating to about 15,800 years ago. This means dogs were already living with humans thousands of years before agriculture had emerged, and long before villages, fields and herds became the basis of human life. [3.1]
This strongly suggests that the original relationship between humans and wolves was very different from later domestication events. Early dogs were unlikely to have been kept as livestock. Instead, they probably became useful because they could exploit scraps around human camps, warn of danger, help defend an encampment, and eventually assist in hunting. A partnership of this kind would have been especially valuable to hunter-gatherers, for whom success in the hunt and early warning of predators or rival groups could make the difference between survival and starvation. The Nature paper argues that these early dogs were exchanged among culturally distinct hunter-gatherer groups across western Eurasia, implying that they had already become socially and practically important. [3.1]
So, before humans domesticated the animals they would later herd, pen and breed for food, they had already formed a close working relationship with wolves. That makes the dog not just the first domestic animal, but the only one whose domestication clearly began in a world of Ice Age foragers rather than farmers. [2.1]
Oldest genetic evidence for domestic dogs identified in Europe and Türkiye
University of Oxford researchers have contributed to a new study which has uncovered the earliest genetic evidence for the existence of dogs. Using ancient DNA analysis, researchers identified dogs at archaeological sites dating to the Late Upper Palaeolithic, approximately 16,000–14,000 years ago – far earlier than the previous genetic record for dogs of around 10,900 years ago. The results have been published today in Nature.
The research team, involving experts from 17 institutions internationally, identified multiple dogs dated to similar periods across Europe and Anatolia, indicating dogs were widely distributed by 14,000 years ago. At this time, all humans were hunter-gatherers and agriculture had not yet emerged.
Scientists have known that dogs emerged from grey wolf populations, and they suspected that the process took place around the last Ice Age. Up to now, evidence from pre-agricultural archaeological sites has been limited and difficult to confirm. During the early phases of domestication, the skeletons of dogs and wolves were likely to have been indistinguishable, and their behavioural differences do not leave traces in the archaeological record.
Previous studies have mostly used very short DNA sequences and skeletal measurements to evaluate the earliest presence of dogs in the archaeological record. In this new study, the researchers recovered whole genomes from archaeological specimens excavated from Upper Palaeolithic sites. These included Pınarbaşı in Türkiye (dating to around 15,800 years ago) and Gough’s Cave in the UK (around 14,300 years ago), as well as two Mesolithic sites in Serbia (11,500–7,900 years ago and 8,900 years ago, respectively). They then compared the genomes with more than 1,000 modern and ancient dogs and wolves from across the world.
The results of these analyses confirmed that these bones belonged to dogs, and that they were already widespread across western Eurasia by at least 14,300 years ago.
Not only has this discovery pushed back the earliest direct evidence of dogs by 5,000 years, but it also showed us that dogs and wolves were clearly separate, both biologically and in how humans interacted with them, at least 16,000 years ago. This suggests that dog domestication likely took place sometime during the last Ice Age, more than 10,000 years before the appearance of any other domestic plants or animals, which really does secure their title as “man’s best friend
Dr Lachie Scarsbrook, co-lead author
Palaeogenomics and Bio-Archaeology Research Network
School of Archaeology
University of Oxford
Oxford, UK.
These Palaeolithic dogs were genetically similar and were members of a population that expanded across the region between 18,500 and 14,000 years ago. They were more closely related to the ancestors of present-day European and Middle Eastern breeds, such as boxers and salukis, than to Arctic breeds like Siberian huskies. This indicates that today’s major dog genetic lineages must have been established by the Upper Palaeolithic.
By comparing the DNA from these ancient dogs with other ancient and modern populations, we were surprised to see just how closely related the earliest dogs were despite living more than 4,000 km apart. This suggests that the first dogs were a game changer and spread rapidly across Europe.
Professor Greger Larson, co-corresponding author
Palaeogenomics and Bio-Archaeology Research Network
School of Archaeology
University of Oxford
Oxford, UK.
What role these dogs played in Palaeolithic communities is currently unclear. The remains were associated with several human hunter-gatherer populations that were genetically and culturally different. This suggests that the spread of dogs may have been linked to the migration and interaction of these groups, including Epigravettian and Magdalenian communities in Europe.
The study included an analysis of dietary isotopes led by researchers at the University of York and the Natural History Museum. This showed that people at Pınarbaşı likely fed dogs fish, which, together with evidence that the animals were intentionally buried, suggests a close interaction between people and their dogs. Suggestions of similar interaction were also seen at Gough’s Cave and a site in Germany, indicating dogs may have held cultural significance across Palaeolithic hunter-gatherer communities.
Publication:
This and the next paper, the subject of my next blogpost, do more than add another detail to the history of domestication; they push the human–dog relationship back into the Late Ice Age, showing that dogs were already living alongside hunter-gatherers by at least 14,300 years ago, with the oldest genome in this study dating to about 15,800 years ago. That places the beginnings of dog domestication far outside the cramped timescale demanded by young-Earth creationism and long before farming, cities or civilisation. In other words, humanity’s oldest animal partnership was already taking shape thousands of years before creationists believe the Earth itself existed.
It also illustrates, yet again, how evolution and selection work in the real world. Wolves did not suddenly appear as fully formed domestic companions, conveniently designed for human use. They entered into a long, messy, contingent relationship with human communities, and over generations that relationship changed both species. Humans gained sentinels, hunting partners and companions; wolves that could tolerate and exploit human proximity gained a new ecological niche. Later, through selective breeding, humans reshaped those early dogs into the astonishing variety of forms we know today. That is not special creation; it is evolution, adaptation and artificial selection operating over deep time.
So, as usual, the science presents no problem at all for evolutionary theory, but a very great one for biblical literalism. The evidence from ancient DNA fits neatly into the scientific account of human prehistory, while the creationist model has nowhere to put it except in the ever-growing pile of facts that must be ignored, denied or misrepresented. Once again, reality agrees with science and not with mythology.
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