This is a tribute to our best friend, the dog. Domestic dogs
inherited complex behaviors from their wolf ancestors, which would
have been pack hunters with complex body language. These
sophisticated forms of social cognition and communication may
account for their trainability, playfulness, and ability to fit
into human households and social situations, and these attributes
have given dogs a relationship with humans that has enabled them to
become one of the most successful species on the planet today.
Although experts largely disagree over the details of dog
domestication, it is agreed that human interaction played a
significant role in shaping the subspecies. Domestication may have
occurred initially in separate areas, particularly Siberia and
Europe. Currently it is thought domestication of our current
lineage of dog occurred sometime as early as 15,000 years ago and
arguably as late as 8500 years ago. Shortly after the latest
domestication, dogs became ubiquitous in human populations, and
spread throughout the world. Emigrants from Siberia likely crossed
the Bering Strait with dogs in their company, and some experts
suggest the use of sled dogs may have been critical to the success
of the waves that entered North America roughly 12,000 years ago,
although the earliest archaeological evidence of dog-like canids in
North America dates from about 9,400 years ago. Dogs were an
important part of life for the Athabascan population in North
America, and were their only domesticated animal. Dogs also carried
much of the load in the migration of the Apache and Navajo tribes
1,400 years ago. Use of dogs as pack animals in these cultures
often persisted after the introduction of the horse to North
America. The current consensus among biologists and archaeologists
is that the dating of first domestication is indeterminate,
although more recent evidence shows isolated domestication events
as early as 33,000 years ago. There is conclusive evidence the
present lineage of dogs genetically diverged from their wolf
ancestors at least 15,000 years ago, but some believe domestication
to have occurred earlier. Evidence is accruing that there were
previous domestication events, but that those lineages died out. It
is not known whether humans domesticated the wolf as such to
initiate dog's divergence from its ancestors, or whether dog's
evolutionary path had already taken a different course prior to
domestication. For example, it is hypothesized that some wolves
gathered around the campsites of paleolithic camps to scavenge
refuse, and associated evolutionary pressure developed that favored
those who were less frightened by, and keener in approaching,
humans. The bulk of the scientific evidence for the evolution of
the domestic dog stems from morphological studies of archaeological
findings and mitochondrial DNA studies. The divergence date of
roughly 15,000 years ago is based in part on archaeological
evidence that demonstrates the domestication of dogs occurred more
than 15,000 years ago, and some genetic evidence indicates the
domestication of dogs from their wolf ancestors began in the late
Upper Paleolithic close to the Pleistocene/Holocene boundary,
between 17,000 and 14,000 years ago. But there is a wide range of
other, contradictory findings that make this issue controversial.
There are findings beginning currently at 33,000 years ago
distinctly placing them as domesticated dogs evidenced not only by
shortening of the muzzle but widening as well as crowding of teeth.
General
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