The domestication of animals is a long-drawn-out
process involving careful nurturing and breeding of a wild species over many
generations. Cattle, sheep and goats were domesticated for food purposes
8,000-10,000 years ago, but the domestication of the wolf long predates this. The
wolf is also unique in that it was kept for hunting and guardianship rather
than to provide meat or hides, and those traits led it to eventually become man’s
best friend.
The wolf was a killer and a serious danger to humans, and careful selection was needed to breed only the friendliest and most docile animals. This selection process caused other changes, such as the curly tails and floppy ears, and led to the creation of a new species: the domestic dog. Interestingly, these characteristics have also been demonstrated in a modern experiment on wild foxes, where the animals were bred for sociability with humans, and those same dog traits began to emerge.
The date for the domestication of the wolf is open to debate. Likely it happened independently in different parts of the world and different stages of history, and some of those dogs survived into modern times while others were failed experiments. The earliest known remains of a domestic dog date to 15,000 years ago, but genetic studies suggest a divergence from wolves around 40,000 years ago. Europe, Asia, Siberia, and the Middle East have all been proposed for their origin.
So people around the world looked at a deadly wild animal
and thought, ‘it would be very useful to tame that’. What an illustration of
human innovation.
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