Living with a furry best friend is a tradition that goes back way further than anyone realized. Brand new genetic research published in Nature and reported by The New York Times has pushed back the timeline of this special bond by 5,000 years. Scientists analyzed ancient DNA from canine remains across Europe and Western Asia, and they discovered something remarkable. It turns out prehistoric dogs acted as human companions long before early societies figured out how to farm.
Ancient DNA confirms dogs were human companions before they had farming
For the studies, international scientific teams looked at bones from five archaeological sites. These spots stretch from present-day Britain to Turkey. What’s fascinating is that even though they were found belonging to completely different hunter-gatherer cultures, the animals were incredibly similar genetically. In fact, they were way more alike than the human groups. Greger Larson of the University of Oxford told The New York Times, “The people are so different, but the dogs are very much the same.” It seems ancient societies were actively trading them like a “fun new thing.”
The oldest specimen dates back roughly 15,800 years in Turkey. Another canine from a cave in Britain is about 14,300 years old. Scientists used these full genomes to interpret incomplete data from other locations. Lachie Scarsbrook, who is a paleogeneticist at the University of Oxford and an author of one of the studies, said that the new information “unlocked” everything they already had in their database. Suddenly, mystery remains from Germany, Italy, and Switzerland started to make complete sense.
Nobody knows exactly what jobs these animals performed back then. But it points to the fact that ancient dogs definitely lived as human companions during the Paleolithic era. Some sites show that people shared their food with them, and they even buried dead canines just like humans. William Marsh at the Natural History Museum told the NYT that this indicates a “very close interaction.” Later, when early farmers migrated into Europe 9,000 years ago, the different canine populations mixed.
Modern European pups still carry a lot of that ancient hunter-gatherer ancestry today. So the next time a dog begs for dinner, remember that this relationship is older than farming itself. Scientists are still trying to find out where the bond first started. But prehistoric humans clearly knew a good friend when they saw one.
