The dog ( Canis familiaris ) was the first animal species domesticated by humans. It was an extraordinary milestone, since the domestication of species began with the Neolithic revolution: the beginnings of agriculture and livestock. However, dogs were already domesticated when our ancestors still lived as hunters and gatherers . Today we consider the dog man’s best friend, but originally, humans and wolves, from which our pets descend, were hunters who acted in packs and competed for the same resources. How do we go from being enemies to better allies?
According to a study published in the journal Scientific Reports , just as today many dogs continue to eat their owners’ leftovers, the surplus of our ancestors could have led to the domestication of these faithful animals .
The first domesticated animal
We know that the wolf was the first animal domesticated by humans and its evolution has continued to our current dogs. However, researchers debate how, when, and where this domestication occurred . Different investigations provide new data and approaches to narrow the fence that allows us to specify less diffuse answers.
Wolves are thought to have evolved into dogs somewhere in Eurasia between 14,000 and 29,000 years ago . It coincided with the last ice age and the excess meat could have played a fundamental role.
During this ice age, wolves and humans competed for the same resources, especially some prey such as reindeer and deer were the most coveted by both groups. However, humans found their needs met relatively easily. At that time, humans were not adapted to an excessive consumption of protein. Meat consumption was limited by the liver’s ability to metabolize these proteins. They could only tolerate 20% of calories that came from meat proteins, a percentage that could increase to 45% in short periods of time. Instead, wolves could thrive on lean meat for months.
Therefore, humans would have preferred fatty meat, less abundant in the cold season in which we frame a process that began 40,000 years ago. Given enough resources, humans could choose to give the wolves surplus lean meat .
From enemies to allies
Years ago, researchers already supported the idea that dogs came into contact with humans because they came to rummage through the remains of garbage. This study specifies what specific residue led to domestication: lean meat.
We cannot know if the surplus was fed to the wolves voluntarily by prehistoric humans, or if the animals managed to get hold of these remains. In the words of Maria Lahtinen of the Natural History Museum of Finland who led the study:
“In our opinion, the first option would have been more conducive to domestication than inadvertent feeding. Hunter-gatherers keep pets in many cultures. This is not a surprise and is likely to have occurred during the Paleolithic period as well. It’s part of typical human behavior.”
In any case, the benefits of being together were soon reciprocal between humans and wolves, who would go on to become dogs . The animals saw a reliable food source to be around those beings that walked on two legs. Humans saw dogs as companion animals, useful for hunting, as pack animals and, in times of extreme survival, as a source of food.
The first human-made dog burial is more than 14,000 years old . It is obvious that at that time the union between people and canids was already close enough to bury them in the human way. A process that could have started 40,000 years ago according to genetic tests and that now has a prominent element: the meat left over by humans.
References:
Lahtinen, M. et al. 2021. Excess protein enabled dog domestication during severe Ice Age winters. Scientific Reports 11, 7. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-78214-4.
