It was in Germany, between 16,000 and 14,000 years ago, that the European dog was born, according to a new study

It was in Germany, between 16,000 and 14,000 years ago, that the European dog was born, according to a new study

According to a research team led by the Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and the Paleoenvironment at the University of Tübingen, the transition from wild wolves to domesticated dogs in Europe may have occurred in southwestern Germany between 16,000 and 14,000 years ago .

Therefore, the team of researchers assume that Magdalenian humans domesticated and raised animals that came from different wolf lineages.

Canidae

In the study , the results of which have been published in Scientific Reports, several Canidae fossils from a cave in that central European region were analyzed with various methods. This includes, in addition to modern domestic dogs, wolves and foxes .

Canidae Fossilien 960x638

Gnirshöhle is a small two-chamber cave in southern Baden-Wuerttemberg located in the immediate vicinity of two additional caves from the Magdalenian period. Therefore, an origin of European domestic dogs could be found in southwestern Germany .

As Chris Baumann of the Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and the Paleoenvironment at the University of Tübingen explains:

We linked morphology, genetics, and isotopic characteristics, leading to the discovery that the examined bones originated from numerous different genetic lineages, and that the new genomes sequenced from the samples cover the entire genetic range from wolf to domestic dog.