Human evolution and dogs.

[Moontanman]

I was watching a documentary about the evolution of dogs and how humans had molded dogs but i wondered if dogs had any significant influence on the evolution of humans. According the documentary the linage of dogs can be traced back only 15,000 years at this point but Jean Auel in her fictionalized accounts of early humans indicated we might have domesticated wolves when neanderthals still existed and then there are the denisovians and recently evidence of a third unknown contribution to the humans gene pool.

 

Could our affinity to wolves have been at least part of why we are here and none of them are?

[Spyman]

The collaboration between humans and our furry friends have very likely been to our advantage, otherwise we would hardly still continue to live together with them. This partnership must also have effected both sides over the ages.

 

If there was a competition where we wiped out all others and we had already started to use animals so early, then our animals certainly was to our advantage.

 

However we don't really know what happened to the other subspecies of humans and their relations with other animals.

[Moontanman]

It might go a bit deeper as well, I know this is blind speculation but possibly our affinity to make pets or domesticate other animals might have been more pronounced in homo sapiens. Of course baboons that domesticate dogs sheds some doubt on that...

[john5746]

It might go a bit deeper as well, I know this is blind speculation but possibly our affinity to make pets or domesticate other animals might have been more pronounced in homo sapiens. Of course baboons that domesticate dogs sheds some doubt on that...

I think you are on to something with this. Seems to me that humans and wolves would have been in direct competition - hunting similar prey in a similar manner. Learning to cooperate with them would have been a key advantage for both sides. This might have been more selective for human groups.

 

As far as neanderthals, new microbes probably were the main culprit.

[Moontanman]

I think you are on to something with this. Seems to me that humans and wolves would have been in direct competition - hunting similar prey in a similar manner. Learning to cooperate with them would have been a key advantage for both sides. This might have been more selective for human groups.

 

As far as neanderthals, new microbes probably were the main culprit.

 

 

Can you give me a link to that bit about the neanderthals, they are one of my areas of interest...

[john5746]

Can you give me a link to that bit about the neanderthals, they are one of my areas of interest...

Oh, my post was speculation on my part. I'm sure I've heard it mentioned elsewhere, but no evidence that I know of.

[arc]

I think we need to credit the canines for their own initial approach to humans. I come by this opinion mainly from the research originally done in Russia by Dmitri Belyaev and continues currently under the supervision of Lyudmila Trut.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesticated_silver_fox

 

As Lyudmilla Trut says in her 1999 American Scientist article [1], The least domesticated foxes, those that flee from experimenters or bite when stroked or handled, are assigned to Class III. Foxes in Class II let themselves be petted and handled but show no emotionally friendly response to experimenters. Foxes in Class I are friendly toward experimenters, wagging their tails and whining. In the sixth generation bred for tameness we had to add an even higher-scoring category. Members of Class IE, the "domesticated elite," are eager to establish human contact, whimpering to attract attention and sniffing and licking experimenters like dogs. They start displaying this kind of behavior before they are one month old. By the tenth generation, 18 percent of fox pups were elite; by the 20th, the figure had reached 35 percent. Today elite foxes make up 70 to 80 percent of our experimentally selected population.

 

I think it comes down to the way the prehistoric wild canines may have competed against these new human interlopers, initially keeping their distance lest they get a spear tossed their way. but within the canines there were individuals that took advantage of the humans particular characteristics. These new two legged predators were more efficient hunters, they had larger brains and with this advantage they developed strategies, flint tools and weapons. These advantages created a niche for any canine that could shadow these humans, carefully approaching the abandoned kills and then to move behind the band as they hunted and traveled.

 

So, the less aggressive trait of just a few canines to follow and scavenge would lead to the self breeding of a line of continually less fearful and trusting canines. They would reinforce through generations a selection mechanism of gradually losing their fear of humans by rewards of food that would be attainable the closer you came to the humans. The least fear = the most food. I wonder when that first meaty bone was directly tossed out to that little pack of proto pets.