Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of Graph Search.
Concept
Domestication of the dog
Summary
The domestication of the dog was the process which created the domestic dog. This included the dog's genetic divergence from the wolf, its domestication, and the emergence of the first dogs. Genetic studies suggest that all ancient and modern dogs share a common ancestry and descended from an ancient, now-extinct wolf population – or closely related wolf populations – which was distinct from the modern wolf lineage. The dog's similarity to the grey wolf is the result of substantial dog-into-wolf gene flow, with the modern grey wolf being the dog's nearest living relative. An extinct Late Pleistocene wolf may have been the ancestor of the dog.
The dog is a wolf-like canid. The genetic divergence between the dog's ancestor and modern wolves occurred between 40,000 and 30,000 years ago, just before or during the Last Glacial Maximum (20,000–27,000 years ago). This timespan represents the upper time-limit for the commencement of domestication because it is the time of divergence but not the time of domestication, which occurred later.
One of the most important transitions in human history was the domestication of animals, which began with the long-term association between wolves and hunter–gatherers more than 30,000 years ago. The dog was the first species and the only large carnivore to have been domesticated. The domestication of the dog occurred due to variation among the common ancestor wolf population in the fight-or-flight response where the common ancestor wolves with less aggression and aversion but greater altruism towards humans received fitness benefits (similar processes applied to humans), and thus the domestication of the dog is a prominent example of social selection (rather than artificial selection). The archaeological record and genetic analysis show the remains of the Bonn-Oberkassel dog buried beside humans 14,200 years ago to be the first undisputed dog, with disputed remains occurring 36,000 years ago.
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.