http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-10-evidence-domestication-dogs-paleolithic-period.html Palaeolithic dog skulls at the Gravettian Předmostí site, the Czech Republic, Journal of Archaeological Science, In Press, doi:10.1016/j.jas.2011.09.022 Abstract Whether or not the wolf was domesticated during the early Upper Palaeolithic remains a controversial issue. We carried out detailed analyses of the skull material from the Gravettian Předmostí site, Czech Republic, to investigate the issue. Three complete skulls from Předmostí were identified as Palaeolithic dogs, characterised by short skull lengths, short snouts, and wide palates and braincases relative to wolves. One complete skull could be assigned to the group of Pleistocene wolves. Three other skulls could not be assigned to a reference group; these might be remains from hybrids or captive wolves. Modifications by humans of the skull and canine remains from the large canids of Předmostí indicate a specific relationship between humans and large canids
I like how one of the dogs was buried with his bone in his mouth. Mammoth, bison or mastodon bone, he likely carried it around like my puppy carries hers to this day. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! I couldn't find a solid dating in the abstract. Too bad, as the paleolithic age extended from about 2.5 million years ago to about 11,000 years ago. It would be nice to know how long we have been sharing our lives with canidae. While the researchers speculate they hauled gear, that may be less than accurate as canids have many other ways of helping us - especially in the context of a hunter-gatherer culture. *waits for Frag to expound*
Occasionally evidence is found suggesting that domesticated dogs existed at various times in the past, and this may be true. However, the continuous existence of dogs as a domesticated subspecies, Canis lupus domesticus, has been pretty convincingly established at the dawn of the Neolithic Era, around 11,500 years ago in northwestern Mesopotamia. This was the beginning of the Agricultural Revolution, with the cultivation of hybridized fig trees. Dog DNA has been extensively analyzed and they all appear to be descended from a rather small group of wolves--a dozen or so--at that time and place. This timing makes sense since one of the major differences between wolves and dogs is that wolves prefer predation as a source of food, whereas dogs are quite content to get their food by scavenging. The Agricultural Revolution both allowed and required humans to settle down in permanent villages, and before long their middens (or garbage dumps) became a major civil engineering issue. Wolves with a certain aberrant personality started wondering why they should bother chasing their food across the landscape when these crazy bipeds were building enormous piles of perfectly good food and not eating it. Remember that all canids have extremely short guts and are required to ingest bacteria to facilitate digestion. In the wild they're the only predators who eat their prey's intestines including the contents, and in domestication they eat their own and each other's stool, attempting to rebuild their intestinal flora after all the preservatives and antibiotics in commercial dog food kill it off. To the wolves these piles of rich, bacteria-laden decaying food looked like a gift from the gods. Meanwhile, the humans were quite happy to let the animals walk into camp and clean up their stinky garbage. In the bargain the wolves with their night vision helped protect the camp, the humans built fires during the cold season and let everybody sleep indoors when it rained, and the babies of both species kept each other out of mischief by playing with each other non-stop. A marriage made in heaven! However, humans built middens long before they invented agriculture, and if they followed the same routes through their hunting and gathering territory year after year, those middens probably became attractive to some of the wolves. So it's hardly remarkable if this phenomenon of self-domestication occurred more than once in prehistory. Nonetheless, if there were domesticated wolves prior to the Neolithic, it was not they who bred the bloodline of a companion species for humans. Cats also self-domesticated, a few thousand years later after humans began building granaries which attracted huge populations of tasty rodents. Pigs and goats, both of which are fairly omnivorous, were also attracted to our trash. However, their experience with self-domestication wasn't quite as pleasant as that of the dogs and cats.
Almost surely, since even today there are places where people eat them. But there are two key differences: 1. The dogs and cats had jobs. Eat your dogs and who will keep the panthers away from camp at night? Eat your cats and you'd better enjoy the taste of rodent shit in your grains. 2. Dogs and cats are carnivores. In general humans don't seem to prefer the taste of carnivore flesh if some other kind is available. Yes, I know there are places where dog meat is considered a delicacy, but shit, some people actually like tofu. There's no accounting for weird taste.
Try to experiment combining two dogs in your backyard. The first dog, whom you spend most of the time teaching tricks, will be your control. You make him more human and intelligent. Get a second dog, a puppy would work best. This is the experimental. Don't teach him any tricks as he grows up. Don't give him any attention at all except for bath and his food. Tell me what will be the resullts after few months. You might be suprised that this simple experiment will provide you the answer about "The Missing Link" in the evolutionary path of organism.
So what is the result of the experiment ? Ir do you want us to make the experiment and give you the results ?
My sentiments exactly. Though I had to cancel the trip, a Chinese friend hearing I planned a trip to china told me that I had to try the "stinky" tofu, (No thank you!) and they actually called it stinky tofu!
As usual, I disagree with you. :itold: It was barley that got us to settle down in one place, stay there and get civilized. Why? Because barley can be made into beer and bread, and as we all know - with enough beer and bread you can rule the world! Measures of barley were used as money in Sumer until they invented silver coinage back mebbe 8,500 years ago. Figs came later because they take longer...... ....also fig beer would really suck.
Arauca..... C'mon, just try it first before I'll give you my results.... This will also lead you to how dogs were domisticated long time ago. Good luck ;-)
By the way arauca....make sure you dont associate your control dog to any other dogs at all except with your experimental dog. If you want to do a thought experiment, try to imagine throwing a baby cat into a tank filled with water, and you will know what I mean here.
The earliest fossil evidence of cultivated plants is figs dated to about 9500BCE. In the New World it's peppers, a few hundred years later. Those archeological finds match precisely to the dawn of the Neolithic era, with permanent settlements and farming tools. It would be an amazing leap of logic for nomadic Paleolithic hunter-gatherers to figure out that grains could be made into a bountiful source of nutrition, since it's such a complicated process, the yield of wild grains is nothing to write sonnets about, and nobody knew that the yield could be increased by cultivating hybrids. All ya gotta do with fruit is pull it off the plant and stick it in your mouth. Your source is completely wrong on the timeline of metallurgy. The Bronze Age didn't begin until about 5,500 years ago. Writing was invented in the Bronze Age (it evolved from the symbols tradesmen used for inventory and transactions) so our "records" of how affairs were conducted before that are sketchy. Kegs of olive oil were also used as money, as well as sheep and anything else that was handy, not too perishable, and came in reasonably standard measures. But the invention of records catapulted the ancient economy to a new level, since people could now record debts to each other of services and of goods that did not yet exist. It also allowed the use of smaller, more convenient units. "Money" is now used almost exclusively as a record of surplus wealth or "capital." Beer by definition is made from grains, so it would have been fig wine. Besides, they were not oenophiles. All they wanted was the buzz. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
From Wiki: and for figs: So you get to be right about that by a couple hundred years. Fig wine would really suck then too, though. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Barley was merely exploited instead of being cultivated...sadly. But now I am out of time......Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Eh, a couple of centuries is nothing when you go that far back. We're both right. Today we make wine out of apricots and plums and all kinds of fruits. Besides, as I said, all they really wanted was the high anyway. Apparently the natural wild varieties of barley are a little more rewarding to harvest than the other grains.
Yes, dogs domesticated humans so that they could make them do everything for them instead of them having to do those things for themselves.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Yeah. Mine found a skunk in our back yard last week. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Naw, but he hit my dog and the side door right nice. Then when I let her in not knowing she had been skunked she ran through the house, got the smell in several places...including under this desk on the carpet. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!uke: I have pretty much gotten used to the smell in here though, and on the dog. Used an ozone generator in the gym and front downstairs office. Wife and I gave dog a bath with H2O2+ NaCO2+shampoo in a cold rain in the dark at 6 AM. I wore my swim suit, the wife wore her shorts as dog shook quite a bit. The temp was about 45 degrees F. I smelled like skunk for a while, but don't give a rats arse if I offended anybody. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Wife had a hint too, was unsecured for a couple of days but is all better now. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Dog still smells like a skunk, but I don't care as it will wear off eventually. You know, what you need down under there to keep all those whacky critters in check is some skunks and some porcupines. Those can take all of the fun right out of a day for pretty much anybody that messes with them...or that they think might mess with them. I can get you a real deal on a few if you want, I am sure.
I've never had dogs and skunks at the same time so I've never had to deal with this. However, a quick Google echoes what many people have told me. The best way to neutralize the chemicals that generate a skunk's odor is to bathe in the juice of a highly acidic fruit. Tomato is the almost universal household remedy, but citrus fruits like lemon and orange are also recommended.
