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Dogs have been our closest animal companions for centuries, but new research reveals that our friendship dates back much further than previously imagined.
Earlier studies estimated that dogs were domesticated approximately 11,000 to 16,000 years ago, serving as companions to hunter-gatherers. However, a groundbreaking study published in Current Biology suggests that domestication occurred an astonishing 27,000 to 40,000 years ago. By analyzing the genome of a 35,000-year-old wolf, researchers aimed to pinpoint the exact moment dogs diverged from wolves.
The study utilized a rib bone discovered frozen in ice on Russia’s Taimyr Peninsula, believed to belong to a wolf that lived on the Eurasian steppe tundra during the Ice Age. Scientists compared the ancient wolf’s DNA to modern wolves and dogs, using a calculated mutation rate to determine when the evolutionary split occurred.
According to Love Dalén, a geneticist at the Swedish Museum of Natural History, the mutation rate was significantly slower than initially anticipated, indicating that domestication must have occurred far earlier. "One possibility is that wolves began following humans and essentially domesticated themselves," she explained to the BBC. "Alternatively, early humans might have captured wolf pups, raising them as pets, which over time led to the domestication of these wild animals."
