Scientists Discover Dogs Were Domesticated 40,000 Years Ago

According to several investigations, dogs have been with us for thousands of years. Their ancestry comes from the wolves  and, over time and the evolution of man, they became what they are today: loyal friends, great guardians, efficient in rescue, but, above all, a great company for children, the elderly and for all those who want to live with these adorable animals.

Hundreds of investigations have been carried out around the world to determine the origin of dogs and when they have been with us.

The answers to these questions were given in an investigation published recently in the prestigious journal Current Biology . The study claims that dogs evolved from wolves 40,000 years ago.

Scientists came to this conclusion after analyzing the genetic material of a Siberian wolf that lived 35,000 years ago. This suggests that humans could have started domesticating dogs between 27,000 and 40,000 years before our time.

Researchers theorize that the first domesticated dogs might have been friends with humans who, during the ice age, were dedicated to hunting animals.

Below we will share some relevant points of this important discovery.

What data gathers the information found?

According to the investigation, several previous genetic analyzes had determined that dogs were separated from wolves between 10,000 and 30,000 years ago.

The researchers relied on samples of rib bones, from which DNA was extracted. The material was discovered on an expedition on the Taymyr peninsula, Russia, in 2010.

When they found the bone, the researchers first thought it might belong to a long, long dead reindeer.

However, initial analysis showed that the piece came from the remains of a wolf and radiocarbon dating put its age at around 35,000 years.

This period was thought to be long before the domestication of dogs, but the genetic code showed a representation almost equal to that of the DNA of wolves and modern dogs.

Research indicates that humans could have held wolves in captivity before they were fully domesticated, even though dogs probably retained wolves’ bodily characteristics for thousands of years.

They could also have been domesticated by the first humans who inhabited Asia and Europe.

According to the researchers, even after the canids separate from the family tree in which the wolves participate, the two types of animals probably continued to breed for a very long period of time.

Hence, breeds such as Greenland dogs and Siberian Huskies were derived, which have been shown to have more genetic material from wolves than from dogs.

In this sense, if the analysis carried out by the scientists is correct, then dogs were domesticated long before other species, such as chickens, pigs and cattle.

In fact, some researchers think domesticated dogs could have helped Neanderthals hunt.

Research findings

The results of these scientific investigations provide direct evidence for the existence of a much older period for determining the ancestry of dogs and wolves and therefore this suggests that dogs could have originated much earlier than the commonly accepted period.

The report argues that such time divergence coincides with several paleontological investigations of canids up to 36,000 years old. 

There is also evidence to support the theory that domesticated dogs accompanied America’s first settlers.

However, the investigation reveals that the initial divergence between the ancestors of dogs and gray wolves did not necessarily have to coincide with domestication,  in the sense of selective breeding, as this human process could have occurred after or during a longer period of time.

The report also says that the ancestry of current dog breeds is due to various events or domestication factors and, in the case of breeds such as the Siberian Husky and Greenland dog, may trace part of their ancestry in the Taimyr wolf, whose lineage currently is extinct.