Dog

The first domesticated animal species; the earliest such site is the Upper Palaeolithic cave of Palegawra in Iraq, with a date of c 10,000 BC. Other early evidence is from the Mesolithic in Star Carr c 7500 BC, from Turkey c 7000 BC, and in America in a Late Pleistocene deposit at Jaguar Cave, Idaho. A number of different types of dogs can be recognized from depictions in Egyptian tombs. All domestic dogs appear ultimately to have been derived from the wolf. The dog is found in hunter-gatherer communities as well as early farming communities.

All domestic dogs appear ultimately to have been derived from the wolf. Today’s dogs are the product of very intensive artificial selection and show exceptional variation in size and shape. Selection for particular forms has been so intense that in many breeds of dog it has led to physical deformity. Snouts, in some breeds, have become so excessively shortened as to cause dental and respiratory problems. In some of the extreme variation in size, there seems to be a link with congenital deformities such as achondroplasia and acromegaly. By contrast with the enormous variation of today, the early domestic dogs are difficult to distinguish from wolves. In general, dogs are smaller than wolves, have shortened snouts and jaws, and crowded teeth which are themselves decreased in size. There is, however, considerable variation in wolf populations — European wolves being larger than Asian and Indian wolves — and there is overlap between dog and wolf in many characteristics. A number of Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic sites have yielded skeletal remains which may be of dog or wolf. At many of these, it is not possible to determine the extent of domestication. There must have been considerable interchange of genes between the animals kept by man and those of the wild population. But at several of the sites, the skeletal material is sufficiently different to allow it to be distinguished as The earliest such site is the Upper Palaeolithic cave of Palegawra in Iraq, with a date of cl0,000 be. Other early sites are Star Carr, England (c7500 be) and CayOnu, Turkey (c7000 be). The dog is thus among the earliest of domestic animals, and is found in huntergatherer communities as well as early farming communities.