The dog, undoubtedly the closest animal to man, was actually the first species to be domesticated by man. What is still unclear, however, is when and where this domestication took place. A new study by scientists from the University of the Basque Country provided new data on this and At Euskadi he finds the oldest domesticated specimen ever found on the old continent.
In 1985, a team led by archaeologist and anthropologist Jesús Altuna found nearly the entire humerus of a canid, a family of wolves, foxes, jackals, and dogs, during an excavation in the Erralla cave in the town of Zestoa (Gipuzkoa). .
The Human Evolutionary Biology team from the University of the Basque Country has now, and after all these years, come to the following conclusion, without being able to clarify the exact nature of this relic: The pet dog already lived in the Basque Country in the Paleolithic, 17,000 years ago.. This dating makes it the oldest specimen ever found in Europe.
The team, led by Professor Conchi de la Rúa, said, “The morphological, radiometric and genetic analyzes made possible the genetic identification of the species as follows: canis lupus familiar (pet dog)”, with a dating oscillating between 17,410 and 17,096 years ago.
This means that what is currently known as the ‘dog of Erralla’ may have lived during the Magdalenian period of the Paleolithic and would share a mitochondrial ancestry with the few Magdalenian dog specimens analyzed so far. Its origin is related to the last Glacial Maximum, which took place in Europe about 22,000 years ago.
Analysis allowed us to rule out that the bone found belonged to a dole or Asian wild dog. (cuon alpinus).
These results raise the possibility of: Domestication of the wolf took place earlier than proposed, at least in Western Europe. The interaction of Paleolithic hunter-gatherers with wild species, for example canis lupus lupus it could have been strengthened in glacial shelter areas (like the France-Cantabria strip) during the climate crisis”, Conchi de la Rúa explained.
Some experts have suggested that most of the dog lineages date back to ancient European wolves, but other experts think there is a dual origin in Europe and Asia.
Reference work: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352409X22003698?via=ihub#f0005
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