In 1975, a well preserved “dog-like” skull was found in the Razboinichya Cave (in the Altai Mountains in Siberia). Because this skull was so well preserved, it provided opportunities for study between this animal, dogs, and wolves.
A wolf skull, dissimilar to the skull found in Siberia.
This cave was a home to many other archeological finds. There were bones from numerous other mammals, from reptiles, amphibians, and fish. About 71, 290 mammalian bones and fragments were uncovered and removed from this site. The “dog like” skull was found among the bones of foxes, cave hyenas, and gray wolves.
But what exactly was this skull?
After extensive analysis, the pooch in the cave was found to be most similar to fully domesticated dogs from Greenland that existed 1000 years ago. The Razboinichya Rover was unlike wolves, both modern and ancient.
They look at the skull shape, the arrangement of the teeth, and so forth. The short and relatively broad snout and the tight teeth, both indicate that this animal is more dog than wolf. The only slight anonamly is that the teeth of the Razboinichya canid is inconsistent with the Greenland domesticated dog. In all other measurements, this canid is a dead-ringer.
But this Siberian dog wasn’t the only kinda-dog. Thousands of kilometres away in Goyet, Belgium, his brother was found. Except not his brother, in any way. It seems that dogs, on practically opposite sides of the globes, were setting about a domestication process individually. That is, there is no single place that these dogs were originating. They were each undergoing their separate domestication processes. (The authors of this study note that this conclusion contradicts some DNA evidence, that suggests that dogs originated in a central location – either China or the Middle East.) The Goyet skull underwent similar analysis, as it was large and also a ‘borderline’ wolf/dog. It’s speculated that dogs chose to enter human settlements and ‘domesticate themselves’ – this is supported by the hypothessis that dogs and other mammals had multiple sites of domestication.
Up until this discovery, we knew domestic dogs had been around for a long time. Domestic dog remains were dated from 14,000 to 19,000 years ago. However, radiocarbon dating samples taken in 2007 and 2008 from the Razboinichya skull conclude that the animal probably lived 33,000 years ago.
This study concludes that Razboinichya Rover and his buddy found in Goyet are incipient dogs. They also suggest that the ice age caused their lines to become extinct. That is, the lineage from these dogs did not continue into modern day dogs.
But this doesn’t mean that these guys are irrelvevant! They provide an important illustration of the longevity of our relationship. Dog: Man’s best friend… For 33,000 years.
References and further reading:
Ovodov ND, Crockford SJ, Kuzmin YV, Higham TF, Hodgins GW, & van der Plicht J (2011). A 33,000-year-old incipient dog from the Altai Mountains of Siberia: evidence of the earliest domestication disrupted by the Last Glacial Maximum. PloS one, 6 (7) PMID: 21829526
Further Reading
Original Article: A 33,000-Year-Old Incipient Dog from the Altai mountains of Siberia: Evidence of the Earliest Domestication Disrupted by the Last Glacial Maximum
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