Posted on 02/05/2012 8:24:42 AM PST by DogByte6RER
Dog: man's best friend for over 33,000 years
He's been man's best friend for generations.
An ancient dog skull found in Siberia and dating back 33,000 years presents some of the oldest known evidence of dog domestication.
When combined with a similar find in Belgium, the two skulls indicate that the domestication of dogs by humans occurred repeatedly throughout early human history at different geographic locations -- rather than at a single domestication event, as previously believed.
"Both the Belgian find and the Siberian find are domesticated species based on morphological characteristics," said Greg Hodgins, a researcher at the University of Arizona's Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Laboratory and co-author of a study reporting the find.
"Essentially, wolves have long thin snouts and their teeth are not crowded, and domestication results in this shortening of the snout and widening of the jaws and crowding of the teeth."
The Altai Mountain skull is extraordinarily well preserved, Hodgins said, enabling scientists to make multiple measurements of the skull, teeth and mandibles that might not be possible on less well-preserved remains. "The argument that it is domesticated is pretty solid," he said. "What's interesting is that it doesn't appear to be an ancestor of modern dogs."
At 33,000 years old, neither the Belgian nor the Siberian domesticated lineages appear to have survived earth's last ice age. Still, they show, just how far back our special relationship with our canine companions goes, Hodgins said.
"The interesting thing is that typically we think of domestication as being cows, sheep and goats, things that produce food through meat or secondary agricultural products such as milk, cheese and wool and things like that," he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
I get a kick out of how my dogs have to do absolutely nothing, sleep on a $2000 mattress, and are kept warm or cool while we go out and work for them. They owe the hard work of their ancestors a lot - but then again, we owe ours a lot, too.
Check out the video on this link:
Out for a walk with 42 Saint Bernard dogs (YouTube)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2842733/posts
Ha! I’ve already commented on it!
There are dogs and there are bulldogs.
http://www.punjabigraphics.com/animals/images/11/american-bulldog3.jpg
Domestication couldn’t have been that long ago, I couldn’t find any early Helen Thomas pictures with a dog.
It’s like a herd of slobbering furry cattle!
I thought duct tape was man’s best friend.
Shore, Shirley! The Earth is 6,245 years old (last October), and dogs are 27,000 years older!
“Essentially, wolves have long thin snouts and their teeth are not crowded, and domestication results in this shortening of the snout and widening of the jaws and crowding of the teeth.”
Much as I believe dog domestication is very ancient (older than 33k bp), this statement is simply not true. There are wolf studies showing these characteristics in the wild.
Hey, this is a "news" story based on a "scientific" study.
Do you REALLY expect facts along with the entertainment-oblique-stroke-BS?
...even from FOX?
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| GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach | |
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Note: this topic is dated January 24, 2012. |
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