How hunting with wolves helped humans outsmart the Neanderthals
According to a leading US anthropologist, early dogs, bred from wolves, played a critical role in the modern human’s takeover of Europe 40,000 years ago when we vanquished the Neanderthal locals.
“At that time, modern humans, Neanderthals and wolves were all top predators and competed to kill mammoths and other huge herbivores,” says Professor Pat Shipman, of Pennsylvania State University. “But then we formed an alliance with the wolf and that would have been the end for the Neanderthal.”
The idea is controversial, however, because it pushes back the origins of dog domestication so deeply into our past. Most scientists had previously argued the domestication of dogs, from tamed wolves, began with the rise of agriculture, 10,000 years ago, though other research has suggested it began earlier, around 15,000 years ago.
But Shipman places it before the last Ice Age, pointing to recent discoveries of 33,000-year-old fossil remains of dogs in Siberia and Belgium. Although they look quite like wolves, the fossils also show clear signs of domestication: snouts that are shorter, jaws that are wider and teeth that are more crowded than those of a wild wolf.
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/mar/01/hunting-with-wolves-humans-conquered-the-world-neanderthal-evolution
Wolves became domesticated dogs much earlier than thought
Exactly when the wolf was first domesticated, however, is a topic of great debate, as this can be difficult to determine accurately. Now scientists have come up with a brand new estimate of when this first domestication took place.
The new analyses reveal that wolves became part of man’s world much earlier than previous DNA analyses have been able to determine.
According to the lead author of the new study, Olaf Thalmann of the University of Turku, Finland, wolves were domesticated as early as between 19,000 and 32,000 years ago, which brings the genetic record into agreement with the archaeological record.
So far, DNA researchers have only been able to show that wolves became domesticated between 10,000 and 15,000 years ago.
Modern dog originates from extinct wolf population
DNA analyses of archaeological finds of dogs and wolves in Switzerland and Germany showed that the domesticated dog is older than previous analyses have managed to determine.
Two modern dogs, Higgins (left) and Albi. (Photo: AuB)
The other surprising finding was that most living dogs turned out to be more closely related to ancient wolves than to modern ones.
"The [gray wolf] population that gave rise to modern dogs is most likely extinct," Thalmann told Sciencemag.org.
Where did the dog originate?
Since the new findings are almost exclusively based on archaeological finds in Europe, Sciencemag.org has re-ignited an old debate about where the dog was first domesticated.
Some believe that the dog first became man’s best friend in the Middle East, while others say the dog originates from Eastern Asia.
However, even though the new findings locate the earliest dogs in Europe, the study does not prove that this is where the wolves were first domesticated, according to Merete Fredholm, a professor at the Department of Veterinary Clinical and Animal Sciences, 'Animal Genetics, Bioinformatics and Breeding', at the University of Copenhagen, who also researches into the genetic history of the dog.
This, she argues, is because the researchers only used finds from Europe in their study. There may well be DNA material from elsewhere in the world that links to even older or domesticated wolves.
http://sciencenordic.com/wolves-became-domesticated-dogs-much-earlier-thought
Man’s Best (and Oldest) Friend
Their findings refute earlier speculation that prehistoric dogs may have served simply as work animals used for hunting purposes. If this were the case, the scientists would have expected to see burials in the Early Holocene period (around 9,000 years ago) when humans largely subsisted on terrestrial game. In fact, the researchers found that dog burials reached a peak in the Early Neolithic period, some 7,000-8,000 years ago. According to the study’s lead author, Robert Losey of the University of Alberta, canine burials “tend to be more common in areas where diets are rich in aquatic foods because these same areas also appear to have had the densest human populations and the most cemeteries.”
Losey and his colleagues also found that humans living in hunter-gatherer societies buried their dogs, while pastoralist, or farming societies, did not, suggesting that the latter societies may not have placed as much importance in their canine friends. Among the dogs that were buried, the method of their burials revealed the bond their human companions may have felt with their canine companions. One dog skeleton was laid to rest in a sleeping position; others were buried with small ornaments or implements, some resembling toys. One man was buried with two dogs laid on either side of him, while another dog was placed in his grave wearing a necklace fashioned from four deer’s teeth pendants. All the dogs found bore a resemblance to large varieties of huskies, similar to today’s Siberian huskies.
In another recent scholarly project, a network of international scientists led by Ya-Ping Zhang of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has compared DNA from canines around the world in the hopes of understanding how dogs may have evolved from wolves, and specifically how their brains evolved to turn them from fierce predators into faithful companions. Their findings suggest that the transformation likely happened in East Asia around 32,000 years ago, when early dogs came into contact with small bands of hunter-gatherers. (Humans didn’t start forming permanent settlements in East Asia until about 10,000 years ago.) The process may have begun when populations of wolves started lingering around these humans, possibly to scavenge the remains of the animals they consumed. In this situation, humans would have killed the more aggressive wolves, while those wolves that displayed mellower temperaments would have thrived.
Through their DNA research, Dr. Zhang and his colleagues have been able to identify some specific genes that may have been involved in this evolution, including those related to smell and hearing, as well as those active in the region of the prefrontal cortex (which governs decisions about behavior in mammals). One specific gene they identified, SLC6A4, is responsible for carrying the feel-good neurotransmitter serotonin into neurons. Evolution of this gene in early canine brains may explain why early dogs became less aggressive, as serotonin has been shown to influence aggression.
http://www.history.com/news/mans-best-and-oldest-friend
I don't know about them helping eradicate the Neanderthals but
its worth consideration.
= new reply since forum marked as read
