Ancient bones show dogs have been woven into human life for nearly 16,000 years
Analysis Summary
- Propaganda Score
- 0% (confidence: 100%)
- Summary
- The article discusses recent studies published in Nature that use ancient DNA analysis to trace the domestication of dogs, revealing their integration into human societies over 16,000 years ago. It highlights findings from archaeological sites in Turkey and Britain, emphasizing the close relationship between dogs and humans during the last Ice Age.
Fact-Check Results
“Our new research, published in Nature this week, helps explain the unique and striking way dogs like Odin fit into the human world”
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“The two new studies have unlocked previously unavailable information from the bones of dogs long dead”
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“These papers are not just about the dusty old bones found in our archaeological sites, or the cutting-edge science applied to them”
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“They shine light on a relationship that has been part of the human social world for at least 16,000 years”
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“Dogs are the earliest known animals to be both tamed and separated from their wild relatives over generations by humans”
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“It has long been thought that dogs were domesticated from wolves, their closest relatives, during the last Ice Age”
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“Solid evidence to test this has been hard to find in archaeological sites as dog bones are difficult to tell apart from those of wolves using their shape alone”
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“It has taken the successful extraction of ancient DNA (aDNA) to provide definitive identification of dogs”
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“One of the new studies confirmed the earliest known dog is now from Pınarbaşı, a rockshelter site in Karaman, central Turkey”
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“This dog lived around 15,800 years ago”
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“The dog pups were buried carefully and treated in death similarly to the humans buried nearby”
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“Chemical analyses suggest the dogs and humans shared similar foods, including small fish from the local wetlands”
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“The same analysis found dogs genetically similar to those at Pınarbaşı at Gough’s Cave in Britain around 14,300 years ago”
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“These dogs were not related to European wolves and evidence from the second new study suggests European dogs were not domesticated separately to those elsewhere”
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“Their difference to east Asian dogs is due to the spread into Europe with farmers 8,500 years ago from Turkey of dogs which had interbred with local wolves”
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“Our excavations showed that pups were buried in the graves of people directly related to those earlier communities at Pınarbaşı”
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“Genetically related farmers from this region spread into Europe around 8,500 years ago, with dogs also genetically related to those at Boncuklu at their heels”
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“The detailed archaeological evidence from Boncuklu and Pınarbaşı show just how close dogs and humans had become”
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“These studies show that dogs were already living alongside people across a surprisingly wide area from Anatolia to western Europe in the last Ice Age”
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“We still do not know exactly where and when dog domestication began”
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