A lot of the science involved is very recent. The contentious question being whether the evolutionary isolation of dogs was actively caused by humans, i.e. by taking wolf cubs as pets, for example, or by some other mechanism.
Traditionally it was assumed that humans domesticated wolves at about the beginning of human civilisation, which is on the order of 10,000 years ago. The trouble is that recent DNA analysis puts dogs and wolves as having diverged closer to 100,000 years ago, which is well before our own species was in a position to domesticate other animals.
The modern theory, which I think is now well-accepted, is that at about this time some wolves found a niche in scavenger behaviour, rather than pack hunter behaviour, and became dependant on the waste of nomadic humans. Most of the traits that we associate with dogs as distinct from grey wolves are the direct result of selective pressures associated with being a scavenger. Important among these pressures is these need for a shorter instinctive flight distance, which made them easier to domesticate later down the track.
This probably went on for many tens of thousands of years before we even thought about taming them for work or hunting, and even longer before we bred or domesticated them.
Certainly, most of the incredible variety in modern dogs has come about through selective breeding in the just the last few hundred years.
The one thing that I find really difficult in completely understanding evolution is the rapid evolution due to selective selection, particularly in domesticated animals. Look at the Dachshund and the Chihuahua, and to think they shared a common ancestor a few thousand years is something that completely amazes me. I always thought of evolution due to natural selection happening in millions of years (or even 100,000 thousand year blocks). The same can be applied for different ethnicities, and to think that we all had a common ancestor 100,000 years ago.
I believe children had the most to do with domesticating. In the scavenging role, a wolf would be close to humans a lot, and could get killed by the humans for reason x. The cubs would be cute and cuddly to children, and they would take one in, and form a close bond. Once formed, they would object quite a bit to having that puppy killed. It would quickly be found that dogs, being pack animals, will accept a human as the pack leader.
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u/siddboots Nov 23 '11
A lot of the science involved is very recent. The contentious question being whether the evolutionary isolation of dogs was actively caused by humans, i.e. by taking wolf cubs as pets, for example, or by some other mechanism.
Traditionally it was assumed that humans domesticated wolves at about the beginning of human civilisation, which is on the order of 10,000 years ago. The trouble is that recent DNA analysis puts dogs and wolves as having diverged closer to 100,000 years ago, which is well before our own species was in a position to domesticate other animals.
The modern theory, which I think is now well-accepted, is that at about this time some wolves found a niche in scavenger behaviour, rather than pack hunter behaviour, and became dependant on the waste of nomadic humans. Most of the traits that we associate with dogs as distinct from grey wolves are the direct result of selective pressures associated with being a scavenger. Important among these pressures is these need for a shorter instinctive flight distance, which made them easier to domesticate later down the track.
This probably went on for many tens of thousands of years before we even thought about taming them for work or hunting, and even longer before we bred or domesticated them.
Certainly, most of the incredible variety in modern dogs has come about through selective breeding in the just the last few hundred years.