Ancient Jawbone Discovery Rewrites History of Dog Domestication in Britain

London. A small jawbone discovered deep inside a cave in Somerset, London, has completely changed the history of the relationship between humans and dogs. According to DNA analysis, this jawbone belongs to one of the world's oldest domesticated dogs.

This discovery confirms the fact that humans in Britain had a very close relationship with dogs as far back as 15,000 years ago. This time is thousands of years before the start of the agricultural era or the entry of cats into human homes.

According to Dr. William Marsh of the Natural History Museum, this finding pushes back the timeline of dog evolution from wild wolves by about 5,000 years. During the end of the Ice Age, grey wolves roaming around human settlements gradually started mixing with people by eating food discarded by humans.

After hundreds of generations of breeding, these animals began to be used for hunting, guarding, and tracking by scent. Over time, those wolves transformed into various sizes of dogs with shorter snouts and smaller teeth.

Interestingly, this significant jawbone was excavated from Gough's Cave in Cheddar Gorge in the 1920s. For decades, this bone was considered ordinary and stored in the museum's drawers.

During his PhD project, Dr. Marsh coincidentally found an old research paper that suggested this bone might belong to a dog. When he conducted its genetic testing, the result was more astonishing than expected. It was proven to be clearly a dog's bone, not a wolf's.

Dr. Lachi Scarsbrook from Oxford University and LMU Munich also collaborated on this research. After the DNA of this small jawbone was found, comparisons with other old samples from Europe and Turkey revealed that they too were dogs. This has clarified many samples where scientists were previously confused about distinguishing between wolves and dogs.

According to Dr. Selina Brace of the Natural History Museum, genetic and chemical analysis also revealed another surprising fact. Those ancient dogs from Turkey to Britain were found to have eaten the same food as their owners.

It was observed that dogs in Turkey ate fish alongside humans, while dogs in Britain ate meat and vegetation just like humans. This shows that the partnership between Stone Age humans and dogs was much deeper and more emotional than we thought. This finding has been published in the journal Nature.

BBC