Dogs continue to prove themselves as humanity’s oldest and most loyal companions, with their origins tracing back to gray wolves. However, questions about the when, where, and why of their domestication have remained without precise answers.
Recent genetic research offers new evidence, including the identification of the oldest known dog, dating back approximately 15,800 years.
This dog, whose bones were found at a rock shelter site in Pınarbaşı, Turkey, was used by ancient hunters and is about five thousand years older than the previously oldest known genetically confirmed dog.
The dating of the Pınarbaşı dog and several other dogs identified at other European sites from roughly the same period shows that these animals were widespread and an integral part of human culture thousands of years before the advent of agriculture.
DNA evidence indicates that dogs were present in different parts of western Eurasia 18,000 years ago and were already genetically quite distinct from wolves.
It is envisioned that the dog and wolf populations separated much earlier, likely before the peak of the last Ice Age around 24,000 years ago, though a great deal of uncertainty remains.
Dogs: The First Domesticated Animals
The Pınarbaşı dog descended from an ancient wolf lineage separate from modern wolves and is considered the first animal domesticated by humans, preceding goats, sheep, cattle, and even cats.
Dogs accompanied humans through major lifestyle transformations and the emergence of complex societies.
Interestingly, dogs were not always bred for specific roles; their primary role may often have been simply companionship.
An extensive search for ancient dogs in Europe was conducted using a new method to genetically distinguish wolves from dogs among 216 ancient remains ranging from 46,000 to 2,000 years old from Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Scotland, Sweden, Switzerland, and Turkey. This is the largest study of its kind on these remains to date.
It was possible to identify 46 dogs and 95 wolves. Because dog and wolf skeletons were very similar in the early stages of dog domestication, genetic studies are essential to distinguish them in ancient remains.
The oldest dog identified dates back 14,200 years from the Kesslerloch cave site in Switzerland. The earliest European dogs identified in this study share ancestry with dogs in Asia and the rest of the world, indicating that these different dog groups did not arise from separate domestication events.
Dogs in Ancient Human Life
The Pınarbaşı dog serves as evidence of its high status among the hunters who kept dogs. At Pınarbaşı, there are burials of humans and dogs, with dogs buried alongside humans.
There is also evidence that the inhabitants of Pınarbaşı fed their dogs fish. This study identified five dogs dating from between 15,800 and 14,300 years ago, including dog remains from Gough’s Cave near Cheddar in England.
The study concluded that the Pınarbaşı and Gough’s Cave dogs are more closely related to the ancestors of current European and Middle Eastern breeds like the Boxer and Saluki, compared to Arctic breeds like the Siberian Husky.
Alongside companionship, ancient dogs may have helped humans with hunting or guarding, serving somewhat as an alarm system during the Ice Age. Unlike many modern dog breeds, those ancient dogs likely still closely resembled the wolves they descended from.
Questions regarding when, where, and why humans domesticated dogs still lack precise answers. It is believed this likely occurred in Asia, but the exact location of domestication has not yet been pinpointed.
