A fragment of jaw from the Swiss Kesslerloch cave has helped scientists answer more precisely one of zoology and archaeogenetics’ central questions: how wolves became dogs. This ancient dog, more than 14,000 years old, turned out to belong to a large family line from which all modern dogs descend — from pedigree champions to street mutts and dingoes in Australia.
For the first time, scientists managed to almost completely “read” the DNA of such an ancient dog. Usually, only fragments of this genetic instruction remain in bones this old. The researchers found that dogs living in Europe thousands of years ago did not disappear without a trace. Their descendants are still with us today. This is an important argument in the old debate over whether humans domesticated dogs once or in several places independently. The new data suggest that, more likely, there was one common history.
Even at that time, dogs had already begun to split into regional groups: the Kesslerloch specimen turned out to be closer to later European dogs than to Asian ones. That means the divergence of populations began very long ago, and domestication itself happened even earlier. And after the arrival of agriculture in Europe, the new dogs did not replace the local ones but mixed with them. As a result, modern European dogs still carry a significant share of the heritage of their prehistoric ancestors.
Dogs have been at humanity’s side much longer than we thought. And every dog today is a small “heir” of the Ice Age.
