Were Wolves Dependent On Humans Long Before They Became Man’s Best Friend?

Plants and Animals





Photo credit:

Keep playing dumb and they might even let us sleep by the fire. Ronnie Macdonald, CC BY

Domestic dogs and cats might be a phenomenal evolutionary success story but we still know remarkably little about how, why and when these animals first became part of our human world.

Archaeologists have been on the trail of these human-animal relationships for decades, searching for clues in the bones excavated from sites around the world. Geneticists are now helping to address these questions, and adding to a picture that is both changing rapidly and becoming more confusing.