ABOUTYour pet dogs are the descendants of domesticated wolves that, at some point in our prehistoric era, allied with ancient humans and remained with us for millennia, shaped by our selective breeding. Researchers have long debated whether these wolf ancestors simply began interacting with humans (self-domestication) or whether it was a more deliberate attempt to domesticate them.
new study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences offers evidence for the latter: humans intentionally cultivated relationships with wolves. And the results reveal a previously underappreciated episode in the saga of man and wolf, in which an ancient population ferried wolves to an island that the canines might not otherwise have been able to access.
Researchers from Sweden and the UK analyzed two sets of canine remains found in a cave (Stora Førvar) on a remote island (Stora Karlsø) in the Baltic Sea. These remains were discovered in the late 19th century and have been kept in museum collections ever since. The tiny island, just one square mile in size, was inhabited by people who subsisted on fishing and seal hunting during the Neolithic and Bronze Ages. Due to its size and remoteness—no land connection to mainland Scandinavia—Stora Karlsø had no native mammals at all.
This means that the bone remains must have belonged to animals brought in by boat.
Genomic analysis of bones from animals ranging from 3,000 to 5,000 years old showed that they belong to wolves (dog lupus), rather than domesticated dogs (Familiar wolf dog), as would be expected under the circumstances.
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“It was a complete surprise to see that it was a wolf and not a dog,” said Pontus Skoglund of the Francis Crick Institute's Ancient Genomics Laboratory and co-author of the study. statement.
In addition, the studied individuals showed signs of domestication. Compared to mainland wolves, Stora Karlsø's wolves had smaller body sizes and, according to isotope analysis, the animals lived on a diet of seals and fish similar to the diet of the people who inhabited the island. Wolves have difficulty catching such marine organisms, suggesting they were dependent on their human companions for food.
Equally revealing was the lower genetic diversity of the Stora Karlsø wolves compared to other ancient wolves. “This is similar to what you see in isolated or restricted populations or in domesticated organisms,” explained co-author and evolutionary biologist at the University of East Anglia Anders Bergström in the paper. statement.
The results suggest that people transported wolves to the island and shared food with them, possibly raising them as companion animals. One of the wolves had a leg injury that would likely make independent survival impossible, suggesting further dependence on humans.
Although scientists believe the domestication of wolves – and thus the emergence of dogs – occurred around 15,000 years ago, the wolves of Stora Karlsø suggest it was a long, iterative process. It appears that humans maintained relationships with these large predators long after the end of the Stone Age.
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Main image: Stefan / Wikimedia Commons
