Here are some tidbits about the origin or possible origin of dogs and our relationship with wolves from wherever we started as human beings.
-Rusty
The archeological evidence of human antiquity and dog domestication continue to be pushed back. Interestingly, according to the more deeply pushing author Pat Shipman, whose book, "The Invaders: How Humans and Their Dogs Drove Neanderthals to Extinction,” dogs were domesticated by 40,000 years ago.
Despite having atlatl technology, Modern Homo sapiens were pushed out of the eastern Europe and the Middle East by Neanderthals prior to 40,000 BC.
The way I quantify the question of dogs, is that dog domestication was only crucial among Europeans, with no Native Americans using them for hunting and even Asians having a tendency to view dogs as food rather than partners in the hunt and war. It should be of note that the people who first domesticated the horse were the only ancient people that we know had domesticated the wolf into a hunting and war partner rather than as a camp cleaner and emergency food supply.
Even today, the most decadent folk on earth, the first to eschew reproduction for pet ownership, plays a weird echo down the ages.
I recently spent a few months with three large dogs, from 70 to 120 pounds, who regarded me as some kind of magic worker and leader despite my relative slowness, lack of leaping ability and non-existent senses of smell and hearing. I took three hikes week over a mountain hunted by a “250-pound Tom Cougar” and never knew the least concern for my person, despite being armed with only a 3-inch knife. Those dogs could rock the two-ton camper I lived in back and forth to wake me up. There was something about their trust in my judgement and my place as a rally point that was humbling, and made me be the best man I could.
I was attacked by an 80-pound dog that did not see the 120 pound dog, Amos, or the 110-pound sister Izzy, who stood by my hip, because of high scotch broom cover. Amos rolled his ass over and sent him packing when that would have been a brutal fight for me, a mangled arm at least as I ripped the thing's guts out.
In the Indo-European world, dogs have either been our partners, or they’ve been baying at our heels or throats for their masters. They are not creatures to take lightly and should not be taken out of the human story.
