Canine Evolution

[DrmDoc]

Not sure if this is the right place to post this link to a very interesting article on the current search for the origin of canine domestication. The article has a link to works suggesting that the relationship between human and ancient wolf may have been "parasitic" in nature rather than a result of wolf pup capture and breeding. The article also discusses evidence suggesting that this relationship may have began 30,000 years ago rather than 15,000 as many researchers believe. There is a collaborative effort now exploring all facets of canine evolution including its genome as a way of understanding its human impact. What do you think?

[Moontanman]

I think you could be correct, I personally think that dogs may have been at least part of the reason we trumped other hominids and maybe even helped us create civilization...

[tantalus]

Great article, great co-operative effort.

 

Given the ambiguity (as discussed in article) separating intermediates along a wolf-dog spectrum, additionally confused by possible multiple evolutionary origins, it will be impossible to have a real meaningful starting date, especially if wolves slowly adapted themselves to human settlements. Still, actual DNA provides snapshots of amazing insight that fossils could never provide. It's great to read about it.

 

Humans have inadvertently had lesser known domestication-like effects on the evolution of many other wild animal populations outside of the traditional domesticated species.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synurbization

[arc]

Moontanman already had a thread on this and my post repeats similar to the article above;

 

 

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.

 

I still think most of the credit should go to the dogs. They found a nitch and exploited it long before one of their tamer descendants was removed from a litter or approached on its own and was brought into the cave or camp to be a symbiotic member of that cultural group of hunter gatherers.

[DrmDoc]

Moontanman already had a thread on this and my post repeats similar to the article above;

 

 

 

I still think most of the credit should go to the dogs. They found a nitch and exploited it long before one of their tamer descendants was removed from a litter or approached on its own and was brought into the cave or camp to be a symbiotic member of that cultural group of hunter gatherers.

Thanks for the repost, it seems that domestication may have involved a gradual process but could it have been the reverse of what we think about that process? Where humans participated in wolf hunts? Which do you think is more likely, that a faster, likely more efficient predator species followed our ancestors to prey or that our ancestors commandeer and shared the slaughtered prey of these efficient hunters? I think it more likely that our ancestors were wise opportunist who took advantage of the skills of lesser intelligent species. I welcome your further thoughts.

[Moontanman]

Thanks for the repost, it seems that domestication may have involved a gradual process but could it have been the reverse of what we think about that process? Where humans participated in wolf hunts? Which do you think is more likely, that a faster, likely more efficient predator species followed our ancestors to prey or that our ancestors commandeer and shared the slaughtered prey of these efficient hunters? I think it more likely that our ancestors were wise opportunist who took advantage of the skills of lesser intelligent species. I welcome your further thoughts.

 

 

Humans have had and in some places continue to have such relationship with various cetaceans in the ocean, if that is possible then such a relationship with land animals that share some of our our social behaviors should be possible as well.

 

I would speculate that when humans first started trying to live in permanent villages that dogs were an effective alarm system that woke up the people if they village was in danger. With out such an alarm system the first villages would have been far more vulnerable to attack from both wild animals and wild humans...

[DrmDoc]

 

 

Humans have had and in some places continue to have such relationship with various cetaceans in the ocean, if that is possible then such a relationship with land animals that share some of our our social behaviors should be possible as well.

 

I would speculate that when humans first started trying to live in permanent villages that dogs were an effective alarm system that woke up the people if they village was in danger. With out such an alarm system the first villages would have been far more vulnerable to attack from both wild animals and wild humans...

I agree that this added vigilance was likely a great advantage to evolve village living but I do think about the initial stages of this symbiosis where both humans and canine likely viewed the other as either competitor or prey. Initially, our ancestors must have slept with one eye open for fear of being attacked. Mutual trust must have been hard earn by both species.

[tantalus]

Which do you think is more likely, that a faster, likely more efficient predator species followed our ancestors to prey or that our ancestors commandeer and shared the slaughtered prey of these efficient hunters? I think it more likely that our ancestors were wise opportunist who took advantage of the skills of lesser intelligent species. I welcome your further thoughts.

I would lean towards an initial phase of evolution that saw few benefits for humans, but that's just a personal intuitive guess, nothing more. It also seems likely it would have occurred multiple times, though not necessarily that more than one lineage made it to the modern era.

 

The difficulty (I imagine) is the genetic isolation needed from their wilder wolf counter parts, that would be required to allow the wolfs to continue evolve more dog-like over time.

 

I would caution against the idea of a "more efficient predator". Humans intelligence and tool use made them fairly efficient if the megafaunal extinctions across various continents over the tens of thousands of years were indeed caused by human migration and hunting. Plenty of scraps to be had off those waves of slaughter.

 

Also, its not the entire species that followed humans into hunter-gather suburbia, the common wolf and other wolf species continued to be successful predators across north america and eurasia, its that some individuals and populations favoured human habitation as a source of food, when you look at how hard a life is for a wolf, that pup mortality is often around 50% in the wild in the first year, and that many adult males never even breed despite making it to adult hood, it certainly is plausible that some individuals that were inadvertently predisposed with tamer personalities or reduced flight responses could do better with this alternative lifestyle.

Edited January 19, 2016 by tantalus

[DrmDoc]

I would lean towards an initial phase of evolution that saw few benefits for humans, but that's just a personal intuitive guess, nothing more. It also seems likely it would have occurred multiple times, though not necessarily that more than one lineage made it to the modern era.

 

The difficulty (I imagine) is the genetic isolation needed from their wilder wolf counter parts, that would be required to allow the wolfs to continue evolve more dog-like over time.

 

I would caution against the idea of a "more efficient predator". Humans intelligence and tool use made them fairly efficient if the megafaunal extinctions across various continents over the tens of thousands of years were indeed caused by human migration and hunting. Plenty of scraps to be had off those waves of slaughter.

 

Also, its not the entire species that followed humans into hunter-gather suburbia, the common wolf and other wolf species continued to be successful predators across north america and eurasia, its that some individuals and populations favoured human habitation as a source of food, when you look at how hard a life is for a wolf, that pup mortality is often around 50% in the wild in the first year, and that many adult males never even breed despite making it to adult hood, it certainly is plausible that some individuals that were inadvertently predisposed with tamer personalities or reduced flight responses could do better with this alternative lifestyle.

You've made a very valid point; however, I can't get around how much more intelligent our ancestors likely were. An intelligent species does indeed create tools and devise strategies that reflect their superiority. I think intelligent species are more likely to use the labor of other species, as a strategy, than risk injury and expend calories in pursuits other species can engage for them. It was likely less risky to steal the prey of predators injured or exhausted by their pursuits. Among competing species, wouldn't this have been the wisest strategy?

[tantalus]

Wolf populations are low density and they track long distances to make kills, it hard to imagine it being a practical strategy for humans to steal wolf kills if that's want you mean.

 

Tapping the potential of dogs in such a manner does seem like a good strategy but they have to be familiar with the concept, obviously it occurred eventually, with or without the wolfs having become tamer initially.

 

I wonder if it was not companionship and human curiosity that drove this early dog domestication more so than hunting and warning potential...

 

Competition usually occurs most fiercely intra-species, so I imagine dogs would have been more useful in fighting other humans...but still I would speculate all this occurred after the fact...

Edited January 20, 2016 by tantalus

[geordief]

If wolves came to human habitation areas they would "scrap" with each other over available leftovers.

 

The humans would try to repel them.

 

Some of them may have been individually (or as a group) recognized by the humans and relatively** tolerated (rewarded?) if they kept other (more "vicious") ones at bay .

 

Eventually they were given a job?

 

**less actively confronted by the humans as the lesser of two evils.

 

PS did humans ever hunt wolves?

[Moontanman]

Wolf populations are low density and they track long distances to make kills, it hard to imagine it being a practical strategy for humans to steal wolf kills if that's want you mean.

 

Tapping the potential of dogs in such a manner does seem like a good strategy but they have to be familiar with the concept, obviously it occurred eventually, with or without the wolfs having become tamer initially.

 

I wonder if it was not companionship and human curiosity that drove this early dog domestication more so than hunting and warning potential...

 

Competition usually occurs most fiercely intra-species, so I imagine dogs would have been more useful in fighting other humans...but still I would speculate all this occurred after the fact...

 

While it is difficult to believe in this day and age a human in good running condition can run wolves to death! Humans can run down almost any animal over the long haul, wolves are running a distant second!

 

In some areas of the world monkeys steal puppies and raise them to be part of the troop, and in africa baboons cooperate with canines, jackals I think, for protection and sharing of food sources..

Edited January 20, 2016 by Moontanman

[DrmDoc]

 

While it is difficult to believe in this day and age a human in good running condition can run wolves to death! Humans can run down almost any animal over the long haul, wolves are running a distant second!

 

In some areas of the world monkeys steal puppies and raise them to be part of the troop, and in africa baboons cooperate with canines, jackals I think, for protection and sharing of food sources..

A cooperation that grew out of a mutual survival interest--as evinced by somewhat comparable contemporary species--is very convincing indeed. Perhaps this is the likely beginning of the human-canine bond. Thank you for your insight.

[arc]

You've made a very valid point; however, I can't get around how much more intelligent our ancestors likely were. An intelligent species does indeed create tools and devise strategies that reflect their superiority. I think intelligent species are more likely to use the labor of other species, as a strategy, than risk injury and expend calories in pursuits other species can engage for them. It was likely less risky to steal the prey of predators injured or exhausted by their pursuits. Among competing species, wouldn't this have been the wisest strategy?

 

The development of flint edged weapons forever changed humans from scavengers to alpha predators. 6-8 hunters with razor sharp spear points would within several generations practice become efficient killers that used herding tactics to drive their prey to a killing zone, this while expending a fraction of what their ancestors would have done chasing small game and throwing rocks for what probably was a significantly lower calorie intake.

 

The flint edge tools were a time and energy saving advancement that greatly increase their calorie intake and that would likely have attracted the attention of many scavenger species including wolves, crows, badgers and the like to share in the bountiful harvest.

 

 

On a different note I found this interesting;

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_the_domestic_dog

"The pointing gesture is a human-specific signal, is referential in its nature, and is a foundation building-block of human communication. Human infants acquire it weeks before the first spoken word. In 2009, a study compared the responses to a range of pointing gestures by dogs and human infants. The study showed little difference in the performance of 2-year-old children and dogs, while 3-year-old children's performance was higher. The results also showed that all subjects were able to generalize from their previous experience to respond to relatively novel pointing gestures. These findings suggest that dogs demonstrating a similar level of performance as 2-year-old children can be explained as a joint outcome of their evolutionary history as well as their socialization in a human environment.

Later studies support coevolution in that dogs can discriminate the emotional expressions of human faces, and that most people can tell from a bark whether a dog is alone, being approached by a stranger, playing, or being aggressive, and can tell from a growl how big the dog is."

[DrmDoc]

 

The development of flint edged weapons forever changed humans from scavengers to alpha predators. 6-8 hunters with razor sharp spear points would within several generations practice become efficient killers that used herding tactics to drive their prey to a killing zone, this while expending a fraction of what their ancestors would have done chasing small game and throwing rocks for what probably was a significantly lower calorie intake.

 

The flint edge tools were a time and energy saving advancement that greatly increase their calorie intake and that would likely have attracted the attention of many scavenger species including wolves, crows, badgers and the like to share in the bountiful harvest.

 

 

On a different note I found this interesting;

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_the_domestic_dog

"The pointing gesture is a human-specific signal, is referential in its nature, and is a foundation building-block of human communication. Human infants acquire it weeks before the first spoken word. In 2009, a study compared the responses to a range of pointing gestures by dogs and human infants. The study showed little difference in the performance of 2-year-old children and dogs, while 3-year-old children's performance was higher. The results also showed that all subjects were able to generalize from their previous experience to respond to relatively novel pointing gestures. These findings suggest that dogs demonstrating a similar level of performance as 2-year-old children can be explained as a joint outcome of their evolutionary history as well as their socialization in a human environment.

Later studies support coevolution in that dogs can discriminate the emotional expressions of human faces, and that most people can tell from a bark whether a dog is alone, being approached by a stranger, playing, or being aggressive, and can tell from a growl how big the dog is."

Thanks for the link and I agree that tool use offered significant advantages. Have you considered Moontanman's example of observed cooperation between contemporary species of African primates and canines as a reflection of the initial human-canine bonding process pre-tool?

[arc]

Have you considered Moontanman's example of observed cooperation between contemporary species of African primates and canines as a reflection of the initial human-canine bonding process pre-tool?

 

I would offer the suggestion, that possibly before flint edged weapons developed, humans were long using the herding strategy on smaller game with club type weapons and spear shafts with sharpened wood tips. The herding strategy is also widely used by wolves hunting in packs where the technique is almost identical except for the designated killing zone.

 

Wolves as a team will position its members along a specific route. The prey is then chased in relay in the hopes that one of them will get a hold of, if not at least slow the animal until the others can catch up and overwhelm it in number.

 

If, as I have said earlier is true, and a few groups of wolves adapted to living as scavengers in the shadow of the flint armed humans, they would have without a doubt become familiar with the human's daily habits. They would recognize when such a hunt was in the works, this activity is already hardwired into their instincts and they would likely have gotten excited with anticipation of participating in the chase from a safe distance. Their initial wariness of humans would in later generations give way to them moving in closer, from first chasing the prey and hunters from gradually decreasing distances to finally closing in and directly driving the prey forward to the hunters that waited in ambush.

 

Those hunters would likely recognize and acknowledge the contribution of these still wild but much less threatening canines.

 

I imagine this gradual coevolution through generations would eventually bring these dogs and humans together into a single cultural existence.

[geordief]

Their initial wariness of humans would in later generations give way to them moving in closer, from first chasing the prey and hunters from gradually decreasing distances to finally closing in and directly driving the prey forward to the hunters that waited in ambush.

 

This would/could have occurred by accident at first? At what stage could this have become "conscious" behaviour?

 

Can we /do we need to talk about wolves' behavior being "conscious" as opposed to "unconscious"

 

(Can we replace "directly" with "consciously" in your quote? )

 

I am fairly sure that dolphins co-operate with fishermen in this corralling way in S. America to this day.

[DrmDoc]

 

I would offer the suggestion, that possibly before flint edged weapons developed, humans were long using the herding strategy on smaller game with club type weapons and spear shafts with sharpened wood tips. The herding strategy is also widely used by wolves hunting in packs where the technique is almost identical except for the designated killing zone.

 

Wolves as a team will position its members along a specific route. The prey is then chased in relay in the hopes that one of them will get a hold of, if not at least slow the animal until the others can catch up and overwhelm it in number.

 

If, as I have said earlier is true, and a few groups of wolves adapted to living as scavengers in the shadow of the flint armed humans, they would have without a doubt become familiar with the human's daily habits. They would recognize when such a hunt was in the works, this activity is already hardwired into their instincts and they would likely have gotten excited with anticipation of participating in the chase from a safe distance. Their initial wariness of humans would in later generations give way to them moving in closer, from first chasing the prey and hunters from gradually decreasing distances to finally closing in and directly driving the prey forward to the hunters that waited in ambush.

 

Those hunters would likely recognize and acknowledge the contribution of these still wild but much less threatening canines.

 

I imagine this gradual coevolution through generations would eventually bring these dogs and humans together into a single cultural existence.

I've given this question of bonding through mutual survival interests a little more thought. I think all of this is predicated on whether our ancestors actually evolved pack-hunting large prey without weapons and without the examples they may have observed and learned from other animals. I don't think large game hunting among our most immediate ancestors could have successfully occurred without weapons. I think it likely that the first weapons were used in defense against predators rather than in hunting. The effectiveness of these weapons likely allowed our ancestors to evolve from being prey and scavengers to being pack-hunters who initially commandeered the prey of competitors and then hunted their own prey. Hunting in packs by wolves likely evolved long before our ancestors created their first tools or weapons for hunting larger game. I think it likely that our ancestors evolved their hunting strategy from the examples of predators they observed while scavenging. With weapons, early humans were likely able to partner in pack-hunts with animals who gain their proficiency thousands of years before our ancestors left the forest for the savannah. So I think it likely that humans joined the hunt initially rather than led the hunt.

Edited January 22, 2016 by DrmDoc