Dogs And Mankind: Coevolution on the Move – An Update

This is a reply to the comments of Morey (2014) on our identification of Palaeolithic dogs from several European Palaeolithic sites. In his comments Morey (2014) presents some misrepresentations and misunderstandings that we remedy here. In contrast to what Morey (2014) propounds, our results suggest that the domestication of the wolf was a long process that started early in the Upper Palaeolithic and that since that time two sympatric canid morphotypes can be seen in Eurasian sites: Pleistocene wolves and Palaeolithic dogs. Contrary to Morey (2014), we are convinced that the study of this domestication process should be multidisciplinary.

2003

Dogs and wolves are part of the rich palette of predators and scavengers that co-evolved with herding ungulates about 10 Ma BP (million years before present). During the Ice Age, the gray wolf, Canis lupus, became the top predator of Eurasia. Able to keep pace with herds of migratory ungulates wolves became the first mammalian “pastoralists”. Apes evolved as a small cluster of inconspicuous treedwelling and fruit-eating primates. Our own species separated from chimpanzee-like ancestors in Africa around 6 Ma BP and‐ apparently in the wider context of the global climate changes of the Ice Age‐walked as true humans (Homo erectus) into the open savanna. Thus an agile tree climber transformed into a swift, cursorial running ape, with the potential for adopting the migratory life style that had become essential for the inhabitants of the savanna and steppe. In the absence of fruit trees, early humans turned into omnivorous gatherers and scavengers. They moved into the steppe of Eurasia an...

Journal of Archaeological Science, 2013

This is a response to the comments of Crockford and Kuzmin (2012) on our identification of Palaeolithic dogs from different European Palaeolithic sites. In their comments Crockford and Kuzmin (2012) present some errors, misunderstandings and misrepresentations that we remedy here. In our opinion, the early wolf domestication must be regarded as an intimate relationship between humans and canids including the breeding of the latter by prehistoric people, resulting in the European Palaeolithic dogs.

2005

Journal of Archaeological Science, 2013

This is a response to the comments of Crockford and Kuzmin (2012) on our identification of Palaeolithic dogs from different European Palaeolithic sites. In their comments Crockford and Kuzmin (2012) present some errors, misunderstandings and misrepresentations that we remedy here. In our opinion, the early wolf domestication must be regarded as an intimate relationship between humans and canids including the breeding of the latter by prehistoric people, resulting in the European Palaeolithic dogs.

This is a response to the comments of Crockford and Kuzmin (2012) on our identification of Palaeolithic dogs from different European Palaeolithic sites. In their comments Crockford and Kuzmin (2012) present some errors, misunderstandings and misrepresentations that we remedy here. In our opinion, the early wolf domestication must be regarded as an intimate relationship between humans and canids including the breeding of the latter by prehistoric people, resulting in the European Palaeolithic dogs.► Accepting an Aurignacian beginning of the domestication of the wolf is controversial. ► Crockford and Kuzmin (2012) conjecture such an early domestication. ► This is a response to the comments of Crockford and Kuzmin (2012) on our identification of European Palaeolithic dogs. ► Two large canid types occur in certain European Palaeolithic sites. ► This is explained by the presence of Palaeolithic dogs and Pleistocene wolves.

Recent work in the field of canid evolution has brought into question the matter of where, how and when the modern dog was domesticated. Now generally believed to be descended from the wolf, Canis lupus, some biologists point directly at the Asian wolf, Canis lupus pallipes and Canis lupus arabs. Until relatively recently the domesticated dog was thought to be the result of the cross breeding of various canids, including the wolf, the jackal, Canis aureus and perhaps the coyote, Canis latrans. The possibility of any jackal ancestry subsequently ruled out it was classified as Canis familiaris. Given that the dog and the wolf are able to interbreed and produce viable fertile offspring, something not previously thought possible in higher mammals across species, the domesticated dog is currently considered a subspecies of the wolf being placed in the genus lupus, along with the wolf, and is now classified as Canis lupus familiaris. However, the DNA studied of ancient American dogs appears to show greater similarities with the Eurasian dog than with the north American wolf. After the examining of mitochondrial DNA of some 654 dogs from around the world, biologists hold that a commonality can be demonstrated between regional groups of dogs, implying a common parent or group of parents. The mtDNA varies little from dog to dog regardless of its location or breed, much as is the case with humans. Early Native Americans are thought to have brought dogs with them from Asia as the Aboriginals of Australia likewise are believed to have imported the dingo, Canis dingo. Despite some opinion that dogs were domesticated independently in the Old World and in the New, most consider domestication to have happened only once, possibly around 15,000 years ago in Asia. I propose that dogs were pre-domesticated either from wolves and/or wild dogs independently in different places and different times without human intervention and that subsequent hybridization of wolves and dogs in addition to cross breeding within a species both by, and without man, has occurred which completed the domestication process. I point further to the possible movement of man and animal between the Eurasian and American continents prior to, and during the exposure of the Bering land mass and after its submergence.

The process and timing of initial dog domestication is an important topic in human evolution and one which has inspired much recent debate. Findings of putative domesticated dogs have recently been reported from two Gravettian sites by Germonpre et al. (2015a), joining a handful of other reputed " Paleolithic dogs " dating to before the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). Though these findings have been challenged previously, this paper draws attention to the most significant shortcoming in claims of early domesticated dogs e a lack of data on Pleistocene wolf variation. Without comprehensive data on the range of variation within Pleistocene wolf populations, the identification of domesticated dogs from prior to the Late Upper Paleolithic cannot be conclusively accepted or rejected.

2014

The timing of wolf domestication remains a subject of intense debate, especially as recent genetic, morphological and radiometric analyses of relevant skeletal material apparently demonstrate the presence of canids on Eurasian Early Upper Palaeolithic sites to be more widespread than previously envisaged. However, numerous questions still surround wolf domestication, not least of which is satisfactorily explaining the process whereby this social carnivore progressively became a 'member' of human societies.

Science, 2020

Dogs were the first domestic animal, but little is known about their population history and to what extent it was linked to humans. We sequenced 27 ancient dog genomes and found that all dogs share a common ancestry distinct from present-day wolves, with limited gene flow from wolves since domestication but substantial dog-to-wolf gene flow. By 11,000 years ago, at least five major ancestry lineages had diversified, demonstrating a deep genetic history of dogs during the Paleolithic. Coanalysis with human genomes reveals aspects of dog population history that mirror humans, including Levant-related ancestry in Africa and early agricultural Europe. Other aspects differ, including the impacts of steppe pastoralist expansions in West and East Eurasia and a near-complete turnover of Neolithic European dog ancestry.