Research published in the scientific journal Science Advances examines 76 fossils of prehistoric canines to better understand the long, complex, and gradual process that converted dogs from wild beasts capable of great violence to the adorable pups you dress up like Santa during Christmas today.
François Lanoë, an archaeologist at the University of Arizona, challenges the assumption that there was one clear moment in history where a certain type of wolf branched off and became what we now consider the common dog. He argues that is way more complex than that. Lanoë believes that it happened gradually, and at different rates in different places around the world, depending on a wide variety of factors. It’s way more complicated than suggesting that hungry dogs cozied up to us and became our best buds because we offered them food scraps around the campfire, allowing us to morph once-mighty creatures into, like, wiener dogs.
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François and his team studied canid bones found in Alaska dating back thousands of years, along with the bones of modern dogs and their many variants. The study’s findings suggest that human-canine relationships had broad definitions, ranging from hunting partners to opportunistic scavengers. Some ancient dog breeds would follow us around to essentially clean up after us when we moved on from a location.
The researchers found an interesting clue into the human-canine relationship in the diets of ancient dogs. Some of the bones showed that the dogs were eating salmon, which is odd since wild wolves don’t usually eat salmon. If they weren’t hunting it themselves, then they must’ve been getting it from us, likely because they hung around human settlements either stealing our food, devouring our scraps, or taking some salmon directly from our hands. The findings suggest that there was no clean break between wolves and dogs, but rather a gradual blending of wild and domesticated traits over time.
