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How Dogs Went Domestic, Part One: Classic Rom-Com · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio.
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Speaker 2: Welcome back to the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Happy twenty
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Speaker 2: twenty five. Let's hear it for our super producer, mister
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Speaker 2: Max Williams.
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Speaker 3: Woof, woof, woof.
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Speaker 2: I am Ben Bullen, joined as always with the man,
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Speaker 2: the myth, the legend, our very own bag man, mister
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Speaker 2: Noel Brown.
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Speaker 3: I'm a regular human incarnation of elaboratedoodle. Nice. Nice.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, this is how we're kicking it off.
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Speaker 3: Guys.
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Speaker 2: We're doing an on purpose two parter. We knew in
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Speaker 2: advance this would be uh, this would be a saga,
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Speaker 2: a journey. It's a dogs. We hope that you are
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Speaker 2: if you are a dog owner or dog friends. We
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Speaker 2: hope that you and your fellow pooch are listening along today.
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Speaker 2: We got to start off with this. Dogs are just awesome.
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Speaker 3: They're pretty cool, you know. And Ben, I gotta add
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Speaker 3: you said this is an episode intentional two parter about dogs.
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Speaker 3: I would argue too, it's also about humans.
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Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, we'll get to the idea of co evolution.
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Speaker 3: Yeah indeed. But nah, man, you're right, Like, I was
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Speaker 3: never what I would consider a dog person until I
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Speaker 3: had a couple of special boys come into my life,
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Speaker 3: and I would say I'm definitely approaching dog person at
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Speaker 3: this point. But you point out, too, Ben and your
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Speaker 3: fantastic research brief for this topic, that most people, whether
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Speaker 3: they're dog people, are not, or they would consider themselves
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Speaker 3: as such, probably have a couple of, you know, doggoes
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Speaker 3: that they vibe with, right, yeah, yeah.
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Speaker 2: Even if you don't particularly love the idea of dogs
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Speaker 2: in general, even if you don't want that close partnership
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Speaker 2: in your own neck of the global woods, you probably
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Speaker 2: ran into at least one or two specific doggos that
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Speaker 2: you dig. And so this time we are asking, at
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Speaker 2: the very beginning of twenty twenty five, how did humans
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Speaker 2: and what used to be wolves strike this bizarre, fascinating,
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Speaker 2: at times ridiculous covenant and very much is a covenant.
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Speaker 3: For sure, And how in the blazes did these creatures
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Speaker 3: get so dang cute and have such sway over our
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Speaker 3: mortal souls.
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Speaker 2: Cough cough, oxytocin. We've got to say it right here
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Speaker 2: at the front, folks. The domestic dog is known as
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Speaker 2: the canus lupus familiaris in our fellow nerd circles. And
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Speaker 2: get this, noal. It is currently one of the most
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Speaker 2: widespread carnivores on all of the land.
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Speaker 3: Ben, something just hit me like a bolt out of
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Speaker 3: the blue. Familiaris you know how like you know, vampires
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Speaker 3: and witches and stuff, they have a familiar which is
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Speaker 3: usually some sort of pet that they keep by their
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Speaker 3: side that aids them in their infernal deeds or you know,
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Speaker 3: possibly benevolent deeds. No shaming here of anyone practicing the
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Speaker 3: aughts of magic, but it's got to be a connection there, right.
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Speaker 2: Absolutely a known entity. And if we tease that out
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Speaker 2: a bit further, Nole, what we see is in early
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Speaker 2: human civilization certain things that could only be done with
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Speaker 2: canines were very much like superpowers. You have a familiar
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Speaker 2: that can supervise, superpower vise whatever your flock of livestock,
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Speaker 2: whether they be goats, sheeps, et cetera.
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Speaker 3: Heck, even just the act of fetching is a bit
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Speaker 3: of a power, you know. It's sort of like an
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Speaker 3: extension of yourself.
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Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, and today these creatures that you ridiculous historians
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Speaker 2: may be petting right now, they come in so many
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Speaker 2: shapes and sizes. They're found in pretty much every country
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Speaker 2: all over the world. There is no nation that has
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Speaker 2: a ban against dogs. We may well do an entire
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Speaker 2: episode on dog breeds in the future. So fellow ridiculous historians,
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Speaker 2: go ahead, get in front of it, tell us your favorites,
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Speaker 2: fetch us.
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Speaker 3: Some photos, indeed, hit us with your picks. You know, Ben,
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Speaker 3: you mentioned the idea of no ban on dogs. I
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Speaker 3: love that you jumped right to the chase on that.
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Speaker 3: We've talked a lot on our other podcast. Stuff they
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Speaker 3: don't want you to know about how often in many
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Speaker 3: countries domesticated animals are off limits for consumption because of
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Speaker 3: something called speciesm I believe, is the term in which
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Speaker 3: humans prize value the lives of certain species of creatures
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Speaker 3: over others, and dogs tend to be front and center
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Speaker 3: in this way of thinking.
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Speaker 2: I'll eat a lot of things as long as they're
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Speaker 2: not cute, say the humans. Now, of course we know
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Speaker 2: I appreciate you pointing this out at the top. No,
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Speaker 2: of course we know that in certain cultures and at
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Speaker 2: certain times of privation, humans have consumed dogs and cats,
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Speaker 2: and you know, each other, horses.
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Speaker 3: Sure, yes, I mean you know. I think I believe
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Speaker 3: you've been Some of your travels have sent me pictures
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Speaker 3: of places where they fully advertise that they serve horse.
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Speaker 2: Yep, that's correct, and I have consumed those fleet footage quadrupeds.
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Speaker 3: And not to get too off track here, but while
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Speaker 3: we here in America might frown upon eating horses, we
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Speaker 3: sure as heck use the crap out of them for
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Speaker 3: our own financial gain and entertainments, don't we?
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Speaker 2: Yes, just so, so, we do want to acknowledge again. Look,
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Speaker 2: when we say that human beings culturally have predilections or
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Speaker 2: social ways against consumption of certain other animals, we are
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Speaker 2: acknowledging that if worse comes the worst, humans will eat anything,
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Speaker 2: including one another.
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Speaker 3: That's right. We've seen the Donner Party, for example, in
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Speaker 3: cases of humans being stranded in horrible situations and survival
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Speaker 3: becomes really the only thing.
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Speaker 2: Left Leningrad war zones. The list unfortunately goes on. Please
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Speaker 2: check out our earlier series on cannibalism. We promise we're
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Speaker 2: going to keep this pretty light because we are such
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Speaker 2: fans of dogs. In fact, Noel, when we were talking
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Speaker 2: to our pal Max here in twenty twenty five pitching
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Speaker 2: this dog episode, Max said, you know, guys, this is
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Speaker 2: definitely gonna be a two parter.
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Speaker 3: Oh, yeah.
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Speaker 4: Yeah.
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Speaker 3: We all three of us here love dogs on ridiculous history.
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Speaker 5: Well, I mean, I think we're all collective just animal lovers.
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Speaker 6: Obviously our love of cats is very well stated. But
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Speaker 6: I'm like Ben's like, I'm gonna trush runs down. Like Ben,
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Speaker 6: there's no point we're gonna go on forever about this.
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Speaker 6: We might as well just accept it.
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Speaker 3: I will say I have a complicated relationship with cats
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Speaker 3: that usually lands on liking, but it sort of vacillates.
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Speaker 3: But I think that's the nature of cats, whereas dogs
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Speaker 3: just kind of give you their undying affection and love
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Speaker 3: and loyalty, and that comes in no small part from
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Speaker 3: their evolution.
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Speaker 2: Mm hmmm, yes, yeah. Dogs what we call dogs today,
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Speaker 2: are most likely the first non human animal species to
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Speaker 2: be domesticated by human beings. It's a bond that goes
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Speaker 2: back tens of thousands of years, so far back that
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Speaker 2: we are not sure how long ago this occurred. Somewhere
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Speaker 2: between forty thousand years ago, there were things that we
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Speaker 2: could call wolves on the way to doghood and the
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Speaker 2: things that we know could be considered dogs instead of wolves.
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Speaker 2: They show up somewhere around fourteen thousand to fifteen thousand
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Speaker 2: years ago. But fifteen thousand to forty thousand, that's a
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Speaker 2: crazy margin, right, that's pretty wide.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, pretty wide swath indeed.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, And scientists as of now are still debating about
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Speaker 2: the history and evolution of dogs, the timeline of how
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Speaker 2: this interaction with humans, this great team up occurred. Here's
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Speaker 2: what we know so far. We got to talk about
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Speaker 2: the ancient past, Noel, what do we mean when we
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Speaker 2: say dog?
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Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean dogs belong to a family known as
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Speaker 3: Canada has something to do with Canada, which is a
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Speaker 3: family of you guessed it, dog like species. You probably
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Speaker 3: know the hits, foxes, wolves, you already mentioned, Ben, Jackals, Yeah,
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Speaker 3: you know, kind of long probosis, having quadrupeds with waggly tails.
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Speaker 2: The coyote as well. Yes, they branched off from a
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Speaker 2: family called Maya Cide about forty million years ago, probably
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Speaker 2: in North America, where that's where we see the evolutionary split.
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Speaker 2: That's why, to be quite honest, that's why they're not
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Speaker 2: domesticated bears for sure.
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Speaker 3: And you know, Ben, what's interesting about this whole conversation,
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Speaker 3: among many things that are interesting about it, is this
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Speaker 3: is an example of I guess we could call it
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Speaker 3: kind of assisted evolution, right, yeah, yeah, like evolution that
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Speaker 3: is directly changed, the course of which, the branchings of
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Speaker 3: which are influenced directly by the actions of human beings.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, natural the artificial selection. I mean, maybe we explore
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Speaker 2: this ancient past with some journalism logic, old school j
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Speaker 2: type stuff. What when, where, and how did this amazing
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Speaker 2: friendship come about?
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Speaker 3: Bitty bitty bitty bit extra extra you read all about
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Speaker 3: it now. It's true, Ben, dogs look different. There's so
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Speaker 3: many varieties of these, you know, fluffy creatures. You point out, Ben,
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Speaker 3: that ashitsu looks a whole lot different from a big
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Speaker 3: old mass stuff, and both of those look a hell
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Speaker 3: of a lot different from a wolf the og indeed, So.
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Speaker 2: Okay, this is true, and you might be petting your
10:39
Speaker 2: favorite Pomeranian or in fear of a shaky Chihuahuah right
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Speaker 2: now as you listen to this. Today, most folks believe
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Speaker 2: modern dogs came from a relatively small population of now
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Speaker 2: extinct gray wolves from the plastine. And it was dude,
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Speaker 2: it's just like the first act of a good rom com.
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Speaker 2: Early humans and these wolves, who were again extinct, they
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Speaker 2: did not get along at first. They were rivals ecologically speaking.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm so excited to get into some of the
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Speaker 3: details of how domestication works. But the question becomes why
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Speaker 3: this particular subspecies of gray wolves. There's just something about
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Speaker 3: their demeanor kind of right.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, they had these they had this will they
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Speaker 2: won't they think? Going on for quite some time. I'm
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Speaker 2: sticking with this rom Cobb analogy.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, right.
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Speaker 2: They were competing for the same resources, they were after
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Speaker 2: the same prey, right, and they were largely carnivorous. If anything,
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Speaker 2: these two groups already had evolved to be incredibly similar.
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Speaker 2: Like humans, wolves are highly social creatures. They live in packs,
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Speaker 2: they have complex highiarchies. Although the alpha wolf thing, by
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Speaker 2: the way, is kind of a myth, just going to
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Speaker 2: put that out there. The lone wolf, the lone wolf
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Speaker 2: can happen.
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Speaker 3: Okay, Okay, there's a different the AffA wolf meaning what
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Speaker 3: like leader of the pack?
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Speaker 1: Hm.
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Speaker 2: Just like the old Motown song which can legally afford
12:17
Speaker 2: to play a clip.
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Speaker 3: On, No we can't, but you can use your imagination.
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Speaker 3: You're hearing it in your head right now, I know
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Speaker 3: you are. It's a jam. So the members of a
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Speaker 3: pack more realistically, were kind of equals.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, so in a hierarchical environment, the primary thing is
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Speaker 2: going to be stuff like access to reproduction and who
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Speaker 2: gets to eat first. This is clearly also happening to
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Speaker 2: the human packs as well. Both wolves and humans are
12:46
Speaker 2: what we would call nomadic at at the point where
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Speaker 2: they have this rom com and even their hunting strategies
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Speaker 2: were related. Noel, I'm sure you've heard the phrase persistent hunter,
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Speaker 2: persistence hunting.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, and not to mention hungry like the wolf.
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Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, and both humans and wolves track their prey
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Speaker 2: over long distances, wearing down the sprinters, the ussane bolts
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Speaker 2: of the grazing world.
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Speaker 3: Oh yeah, we've certainly seen national geographic footage that is
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Speaker 3: somewhat triggering traumatic Dare I say of you know, the
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Speaker 3: wolves kind of running after a herd of grazing animals
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Speaker 3: and kind of picking off the weak ones.
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Speaker 2: Or a flock of seagulls. I just want to reference that, right, So, wolves,
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Speaker 2: at this time, and honestly at all times, wolves are
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Speaker 2: not normally attacking humans. Most non human predators are not
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Speaker 2: actively chasing the human being because humans are intensely inconvenient prey.
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Speaker 2: But these wolves back in the day, they are souper,
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Speaker 2: duper down with stealing and scavenging whatever they can whenever
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Speaker 2: they can. This was a rivalry that continued for thousands
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Speaker 2: and thousands and thousands of years until something changed.
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Speaker 3: Well sure, I mean we've already kind of alluded to it,
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Speaker 3: but the human beings entering the chat changed a whole lot. Ben,
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Speaker 3: there's a Rudyard Kipling poem that I think sums this
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Speaker 3: up beautifully that I know you're a fan of the
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Speaker 3: Law of the Jungle. Yeah, Yeah.
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Speaker 2: The most important part of that is probably the refrain
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Speaker 2: for the strength of the pack is the wolf, and
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Speaker 2: the strength of the wolf is the pack. Humans had
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Speaker 2: similar experiences. They learned to care for one another, right
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Speaker 2: to rear their young, to protect and feed them. They
14:49
Speaker 2: got to the point where they got by with a
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Speaker 2: little help from their friends, and this is something that
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Speaker 2: we see wolves doing as well now in the brutal
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Speaker 2: Game of Nature. Shout out to David Attenborough at all.
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Speaker 2: We will see that usually creatures this ecologically close with
15:11
Speaker 2: such a similar Venn diagram of aims, they will become
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Speaker 2: mortal enemies. They will possibly fight unto the point of extinction,
15:21
Speaker 2: and for a long time, the smartest boffins in the
15:25
Speaker 2: human world used to believe that early human communities would
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Speaker 2: kill adult wolves, kidnap their cubs, and then hand rear them,
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Speaker 2: effectively taming them, which is different from domesticating them. But
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Speaker 2: there's a big problem with this theory, Noel. It's the timing.
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Speaker 3: Well, yeah, I mean it's like these types of shifts
15:48
Speaker 3: don't happen overnight. This is a bit of a long game,
15:52
Speaker 3: and like one cub being reared by humans does not
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Speaker 3: equate to a you know, full bore domestication of a species.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, just because you tame and pet one extinct gray
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Speaker 2: wolf doesn't mean all its kids are gonna be Uh,
16:09
Speaker 2: what's a what's a funny dog breed?
16:11
Speaker 3: Oh? Well, you already said she'suu well and I said
16:14
Speaker 3: labradoodle cockapoo sneuzer. Sure, Yeah, well, I mean I think
16:19
Speaker 3: I get what you're putting down.
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Speaker 4: Ben.
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Speaker 3: The way evolution works is there has to be a
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Speaker 3: trait that becomes beneficial to the entire species entire, you know,
16:28
Speaker 3: that allows them to flourish. And with man entering the equation,
16:34
Speaker 3: it makes a lot of sense that over time, playing
16:36
Speaker 3: nice with humans would be just that type of adaptation.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, just soon. That's a great point because if
16:45
Speaker 2: you look at wolves today and you look at wolves
16:48
Speaker 2: back then, they are relatively uniform in appearance, they are homogeneous.
16:54
Speaker 2: The odds of a mutation appearing randomly in one wolf
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Speaker 2: in a captain population, even today, they're very small, and
17:03
Speaker 2: it's winning the lottery four times in a row, probably
17:07
Speaker 2: more in a row. To imagine a mutation that would
17:11
Speaker 2: successfully breed through a population. So logically it would have
17:16
Speaker 2: taken thousands or even millions of years to get the
17:21
Speaker 2: diversity that we see in dogs. But if you look
17:24
Speaker 2: at the fossil evidence, you'll see dogs appear pretty recently.
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Speaker 2: What we say forty thirty three thousand years ago. If
17:41
Speaker 2: you fast forward to fifteen thousand years ago, you were
17:44
Speaker 2: going to see unambiguously domesticated dogs, and Noel, they have
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Speaker 2: all the stuff that you were describing, right in the
17:53
Speaker 2: bone structure, the changes in the snout, and perhaps even
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Speaker 2: more importantly, the changes in human interaction with those creatures.
18:06
Speaker 2: Now we're seeing dogs buried with people. Now we're seeing
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Speaker 2: the you know, the beloved Fido shout out to our
18:14
Speaker 2: Fido episode, you know, nestled up with an ancient human
18:20
Speaker 2: and we also have modern evidence that shows us wild
18:25
Speaker 2: wolves are different from dogs on a fundamental level. Like
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Speaker 2: you take a random dog, you take a random wolf,
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Speaker 2: they behave very differently.
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Speaker 4: Right.
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Speaker 3: There have been studies of wolf pups raised in captivity
18:37
Speaker 3: that show that this would have been completely impractical. The
18:42
Speaker 3: way that early humans live was pretty tough. I mean,
18:46
Speaker 3: you know, there's no question about that. Survival was the
18:50
Speaker 3: name of the game. So regardless of how much attention
18:53
Speaker 3: or you know, love and care are given to these
18:57
Speaker 3: wolf pups, the fact remains that they are wolves.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, very much so, right, Like if you raise a
19:04
Speaker 2: horse and you raise a zebra, you contame them both,
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Speaker 2: but only one could be domesticated. It's strange, and I
19:11
Speaker 2: love that you're pointing out the time it would take
19:14
Speaker 2: as a hunter gatherer to pay this focused attention to
19:20
Speaker 2: this thing that will naturally bite you and will see
19:24
Speaker 2: you as an ecological threat.
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Speaker 3: So you got enough going on. You don't need that, nobody,
19:29
Speaker 3: You don't need that drama.
19:31
Speaker 2: No, No, you're out hunting mammoths or whatever. You got.
19:35
Speaker 2: You got bigger things to worry about. You're trying to
19:38
Speaker 2: figure out wheels and fire. You know, you got a lot.
19:42
Speaker 3: Of projects one hundred percent. That's to say that you're
19:44
Speaker 3: not going to purposefully keep around something that is not
19:48
Speaker 3: benefiting you in some way. You know, this is like
19:51
Speaker 3: very much a lean time where you travel light and
19:54
Speaker 3: you definitely aren't keeping heck, human stragglers around. You know,
19:58
Speaker 3: if people can't pull their weight in the hunting party,
20:01
Speaker 3: they're probably not gonna make it either. So like having
20:03
Speaker 3: a creature around that's nipping at your heels literally, or
20:06
Speaker 3: you know the worst, actually biting you and drawing blood,
20:09
Speaker 3: You're probably going to put an end to that real quick.
20:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, can you trust this other entity that is not human?
20:18
Speaker 2: Can you trust it to the point where you go
20:20
Speaker 2: to sleep around it? The answer with dogs is yes.
20:24
Speaker 3: The answer with wolves is no, right, yeah, can you
20:27
Speaker 3: have your infants around it? You know?
20:30
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, good point, because wolves are not really rule followers,
20:36
Speaker 2: they're not into human rubric of behavior. This leads us
20:41
Speaker 2: to the next question, which you so excellently foreshadowed. What
20:45
Speaker 2: if some wolves effectively domesticated themselves.
20:50
Speaker 3: Because they saw a benefit to running with the humans.
20:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a theory we find in works like Dogs
21:01
Speaker 2: a startling new understanding of Cadine origin behavior. And Evolution
21:07
Speaker 2: by Raymond and Lorna Coppinger.
21:10
Speaker 3: Their Eyebrows stuff.
21:12
Speaker 2: It's it's a pretty great read. It's kind of controversial,
21:15
Speaker 2: but it's one example of this argument. It suggests that
21:19
Speaker 2: when humans moved from a mobile hunter gatherer society to
21:25
Speaker 2: agriculture to a sedentary lifestyle where you had to stick
21:29
Speaker 2: around and make sure crops made it from one season
21:33
Speaker 2: to the next, their argument is that in doing so,
21:36
Speaker 2: humans created a new parking spot, a new ecological niche
21:42
Speaker 2: for the wolves in the area.
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Speaker 3: Well, it's just like you know in any situation, Like
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Speaker 3: I think it's Maslow's hierarchy of needs that once certain
21:49
Speaker 3: certain needs are required to be met, shelter, food, et cetera,
21:52
Speaker 3: once those needs are easier to meet, you kind of
21:55
Speaker 3: open up the ability to focus on things like leisure
21:59
Speaker 3: and perhaps companionship from a critter.
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Speaker 2: Yeah right, I love that you're bringing in Maslow. There,
22:06
Speaker 2: we see that what likely happened is some of these
22:11
Speaker 2: early wolves may have built a tolerance to the presence
22:16
Speaker 2: of humans, and they at some point realize, look, if
22:20
Speaker 2: you see humans around, they litter, they leave a lot
22:25
Speaker 2: of leftovers, they leave a lot of trash. So we
22:28
Speaker 2: can go to the human camp just like one of
22:32
Speaker 2: those weird folks at a fish festival. Groundcourse is that
22:37
Speaker 2: what they're called is they're called groundcour called.
22:40
Speaker 3: Ground where's the ground score? It's anything that you find
22:44
Speaker 3: on the ground that a festival. Typically you'd be looking
22:46
Speaker 3: for drugs, but it can be anything that could be
22:49
Speaker 3: you know something, you love it, I love it. So
22:52
Speaker 3: the wolves figure out how to groundscore.
22:54
Speaker 2: What a perfect term.
22:56
Speaker 3: Uh.
22:56
Speaker 2: And then they also evolved the well, they didn't really
23:01
Speaker 2: evolve at this point. They sort of migrated their skill set.
23:05
Speaker 2: The stuff they used for their wolf packs, they figured
23:10
Speaker 2: out they could do the same thing for their new
23:12
Speaker 2: human packs.
23:14
Speaker 3: Well, there was a new situation that presents itself. And
23:16
Speaker 3: it's a whole act of a lot easier to you know,
23:19
Speaker 3: non a nice juicy bone that still has some meat
23:22
Speaker 3: on it than it is to stalk and hunt and
23:24
Speaker 3: kill your prey. Not to mention if human's presence and
23:28
Speaker 3: their advantage in hunting is maybe thinning out the herd
23:32
Speaker 3: for you a little bit.
23:33
Speaker 2: M that's a really good point. And perhaps, like so
23:36
Speaker 2: many big changes, this happened in small steps. Uh, Max,
23:41
Speaker 2: could you que us up some epic historical soundtrack.
23:51
Speaker 3: Brolicking good chap perfect.
23:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, what's a way to it? Yeah, I like the
23:57
Speaker 2: hand signals you're given there. All right, So picture this.
24:01
Speaker 2: What if one of these ancient wolves long ago is
24:05
Speaker 2: low in the pecking order of her own community, and
24:08
Speaker 2: she decides to leave her pack and takes up a
24:13
Speaker 2: life closer to a human community, like you were saying,
24:18
Speaker 2: something with a more consistent source of food. And at
24:22
Speaker 2: first she lives along the fringes, right, she hides.
24:26
Speaker 3: She's sort of like coming in like a thief in
24:28
Speaker 3: the night and picking up these scraps. But then over time,
24:32
Speaker 3: you know, perhaps the humans acknowledge the presence of the
24:37
Speaker 3: wolf no longer as a threat. And the moment that
24:40
Speaker 3: the humans stop immediately like killing these creatures on site,
24:44
Speaker 3: but rather see them as a potential benefit, then there's
24:47
Speaker 3: this kind of quid pro quote thing that emerges.
24:50
Speaker 2: Yes, now look at this, they say, this one wolf
24:55
Speaker 2: out of all these other wolves, it can smell better
24:59
Speaker 2: than us, it can see better, it can hear better.
25:02
Speaker 2: It warns us of predators. It also helps us find food.
25:07
Speaker 2: It also guards you know, our little humans, human.
25:12
Speaker 3: Ees like minimes. Yeah, exactly.
25:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, And eventually the humans also learn to tolerate this presence,
25:23
Speaker 2: meaning that the descendants of our hypothetical she wolf reproduce
25:29
Speaker 2: in like like around the humans. They grow tamer with
25:32
Speaker 2: each generation. Sure, they eventually evolve more complicated behaviors like
25:38
Speaker 2: guarding crops. That's another thing wolves do well, you know,
25:41
Speaker 2: And it's funny.
25:42
Speaker 3: At the top of the show, I sort of mentioned
25:44
Speaker 3: the idea of like sort of human assisted evolution. But
25:47
Speaker 3: the more I think about it, like, that's just kind
25:48
Speaker 3: of how evolution works. Humans are just another factor, you know,
25:54
Speaker 3: that presents itself in evolution that over time become the
25:59
Speaker 3: reason for an adapted trait that then, you know, over time,
26:02
Speaker 3: with these generations of new pups being born among the humans,
26:06
Speaker 3: that just sort of becomes an innate characteristic that is learned.
26:11
Speaker 3: Is it a mutation though, because eventually long enough, I
26:14
Speaker 3: guess the mutation does take place and their appearances begin
26:17
Speaker 3: to change. The wolves, not the humans. Yeah, well humans
26:21
Speaker 3: too a little bit. I mean, we certainly know that
26:23
Speaker 3: early humans look different than what we know of is
26:25
Speaker 3: more modern humans. But we certainly begin to see a
26:28
Speaker 3: change in the physicality of what were once wolves and
26:33
Speaker 3: are now starting to resemble much more closely what we
26:36
Speaker 3: think of today as dogs.
26:38
Speaker 4: Yeah.
26:38
Speaker 2: Man, it's so wild to imagine sheep dogs, just sheep
26:44
Speaker 2: dogs alone, working herding dogs. Their wolf ancestors would have
26:51
Speaker 2: immediately killed the sheep, and now the dogs will go
26:55
Speaker 2: on these honestly these action movie level mission to kill wolves.
27:01
Speaker 2: There's that one guy I think we both saw who
27:04
Speaker 2: just like killed eleven wolves and went and tracked them
27:07
Speaker 2: down Liam Neeson style. Do you hear about this one?
27:10
Speaker 3: I don't think so, no Ah, He's a legend. Liam Neeson's.
27:16
Speaker 2: The dog version, the cade version, right, and you know,
27:20
Speaker 2: shout out to you, Liam. If you're listening and you're thinking,
27:23
Speaker 2: there still have the dog in me, well then we
27:26
Speaker 2: got your back.
27:26
Speaker 3: I mean, but dogs definitely have a certain set of skills,
27:29
Speaker 3: You're absolutely right, and those skills sort of develop over
27:32
Speaker 3: time with further influence from their now human masters. I mean,
27:37
Speaker 3: you know, like to your point, wolves would have immediately
27:40
Speaker 3: eaten the sheep rather than helped the humans out, because
27:43
Speaker 3: there's sort of a new I guess currency, because if
27:47
Speaker 3: you hang with the humans, you're getting more consistently fed,
27:52
Speaker 3: you're getting more consistently treated, you know, well, rather than
27:56
Speaker 3: being out in the wild and fending for yourself. And
27:58
Speaker 3: I know that's an oversimplify, but there is something to that.
28:01
Speaker 2: One hundred percent, you know, And it's perhaps one of
28:05
Speaker 2: the most baffling differences, the idea that you could, as
28:10
Speaker 2: a human society somehow impart the concept of rules, right
28:17
Speaker 2: and object permanence upon this non human animal that could
28:22
Speaker 2: you could say, Hey, I know we usually eat the sheep,
28:26
Speaker 2: and don't worry, we are going to eat sheep later.
28:30
Speaker 2: But for now, bro, I need you to just bark
28:34
Speaker 2: if you see any wolves.
28:35
Speaker 3: Well, and it's just a long game, you know, trial
28:39
Speaker 3: and error type situation, much like humans figuring out what
28:42
Speaker 3: things would kill you if you ate them, or what
28:44
Speaker 3: things were tasty and would give you sustenance. The same deal.
28:48
Speaker 3: Like can you imagine the first person that decided to
28:51
Speaker 3: try to train a more wolf like you know canine
28:55
Speaker 3: probably didn't go well for quite a while. I you know,
28:58
Speaker 3: I think about that a lot.
29:00
Speaker 2: I think they probably just threw scraps at a distance
29:05
Speaker 2: and the dog, excuse me, the wolf on the way
29:08
Speaker 2: to Doghood showed up. But I don't think there was
29:11
Speaker 2: any petting. I don't think there were any belly scratches
29:14
Speaker 2: for quite.
29:15
Speaker 3: Some time, and more modern psychology gave us sort of
29:18
Speaker 3: a framework for understanding this, with things like the Pavlovian responses,
29:23
Speaker 3: you know, and like being able to train the dog
29:25
Speaker 3: with positive reinforcement. But they didn't have a name for
29:28
Speaker 3: that then. It was literally just kind of making it
29:31
Speaker 3: up as they went along until they got a result
29:33
Speaker 3: that was desirable.
29:34
Speaker 2: Great point. Yeah, we should also know at this juncture,
29:38
Speaker 2: humans hadn't even figured out how to write stuff down.
29:42
Speaker 3: Exactly, you know what I mean.
29:46
Speaker 2: Yes, they were vibing, that's the way to put it.
29:49
Speaker 2: And we may be romanticizing our she wolf situation a bit,
29:54
Speaker 2: but we do know something like this had to have occurred.
29:59
Speaker 2: Those gray wolves did eventually evolve into something like dogs,
30:05
Speaker 2: and when they did those just like how we're saying
30:08
Speaker 2: it's dangerous for the first human to try to hang
30:12
Speaker 2: out with a wolf, it's dangerous for the first wolf
30:15
Speaker 2: to try to hang out with a human, you know,
30:17
Speaker 2: because historically, if you're a wolf and you see a
30:22
Speaker 2: group of humans, you're not going to like howl at
30:25
Speaker 2: the moon and then jump at them. You are going
30:28
Speaker 2: to run away. And then after they leave, when you
30:32
Speaker 2: can smell that they are gone. You were going to
30:35
Speaker 2: run back to where they were and see if you
30:38
Speaker 2: can eat any of their trash.
30:39
Speaker 3: Well, that's right, because I mean, you know, early on
30:41
Speaker 3: in this relationship human and still today, there are wolves
30:44
Speaker 3: that remain. And if you're in a sort of a
30:47
Speaker 3: nomadic culture, or you're in sort of maybe some of
30:49
Speaker 3: the more untamed parts of the world, you gotta shoot
30:53
Speaker 3: wolves on site a lot of the time because they
30:55
Speaker 3: represent a threat to your settlements, to your you know, community.
30:59
Speaker 2: Even places where it's illegal to do so, folks will
31:05
Speaker 2: attempt to shoot wolves or poison them, or somehow murder
31:09
Speaker 2: them because for them it is a direct, clear and
31:13
Speaker 2: present threat. If you're a timid wolf, however, you don't
31:18
Speaker 2: get in the human club because you're always running away.
31:22
Speaker 2: So there's a Goldilock zone, as astronomers would call it.
31:26
Speaker 2: The bolder ones are the ones who go up to
31:29
Speaker 2: the edge of the firelight.
31:31
Speaker 3: And it's sort of what I was alluding to early
31:33
Speaker 3: on when you talked about how there was a particular
31:36
Speaker 3: group of gray wolves that were the sort of genesis
31:40
Speaker 3: of what we think of today as dogs, and it
31:44
Speaker 3: was something to do with their temperament they were a
31:47
Speaker 3: little bolder, They were a little more curious, They were
31:51
Speaker 3: a little more willing to check things out and not
31:53
Speaker 3: immediately mall on site.
31:56
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, they were not smash on site. They had
31:59
Speaker 2: a little or vinegar with them. They were a family show.
32:04
Speaker 2: So we're not going to use the other American idiom right.
32:09
Speaker 2: One group of wolves we know split from the human
32:14
Speaker 2: forest hunters. They went down a different evolutionary path. You
32:17
Speaker 2: can find them now. This other group of wolves that
32:22
Speaker 2: hung with the humans, they figured out quickly they didn't
32:25
Speaker 2: have to be as fast nor as creative as their ancestors.
32:30
Speaker 2: In fact, being slower was better. Being smaller was better
32:35
Speaker 2: because smaller animals need less food. The main quality, and
32:42
Speaker 2: we're still a natural selection here. The main quality these
32:45
Speaker 2: individuals needed to have was a tolerance for humans.
32:51
Speaker 3: And would that group of the gray wolves that branched
32:54
Speaker 3: off be what we would today refer to as Canus lupus.
32:57
Speaker 2: Well, Canus lupus, yeah, this is you get to it
33:01
Speaker 2: because the wolves that are alive now are not the
33:07
Speaker 2: direct ancestors of the dogs that are alive now. Like
33:11
Speaker 2: you're describing the pleastine, I believe it is pleastine wolves
33:16
Speaker 2: that probably created dogs.
33:20
Speaker 3: They are extinct now and well, but what I'm saying
33:23
Speaker 3: is that evolutionary split, the one that we know of
33:26
Speaker 3: today as like that's a wolf, yes, is what we
33:30
Speaker 3: would call canus lupus.
33:32
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, yeah, I believe that's correct. And during this split,
33:37
Speaker 2: this is all taking a very long time, right, humans
33:40
Speaker 2: are using I don't like using. They're working with these
33:44
Speaker 2: primitive dogs to help hunt, to help protect the human
33:48
Speaker 2: pack from bigger, madder predators. And at the same time,
33:53
Speaker 2: as you mentioned earlier, dogs are using humans as a
33:57
Speaker 2: consistent food source. Now, if you have never had to
34:01
Speaker 2: live in the wild, congratulations. If you ever find yourself
34:05
Speaker 2: in the woods with no help and no cell phone,
34:09
Speaker 2: your biggest immediate concerns are going to be finding consistent
34:15
Speaker 2: sources of water and food.
34:17
Speaker 3: And hopefully you get to league up with a white
34:19
Speaker 3: fang type situation.
34:20
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, of course, you know, dream big. This is
34:24
Speaker 2: a mutually beneficial structure for the humans and the wolves
34:30
Speaker 2: on the way to doghood. It's called commensal domestication. It's
34:35
Speaker 2: a symbiosis of sorts. It's the same structure we see
34:40
Speaker 2: in human canine relationships today. Like have you ever hung
34:44
Speaker 2: out with a sheep dog.
34:45
Speaker 3: They're amazing.
34:46
Speaker 2: They love do it like they naturally love organizing stuff.
34:51
Speaker 2: They're very type A.
34:52
Speaker 3: Absolutely No, I have not personally spent time with a
34:54
Speaker 3: sheep dog, but I've seen Benji. Yes, yes, he's a
34:58
Speaker 3: good boy the franchise. Yeah, stop hunting Benji seem pretty sharp,
35:04
Speaker 3: is all I'm getting. He's super sharp. You nailed it.
35:07
Speaker 2: Our next question perhaps the billion dog tree question, know
35:13
Speaker 2: where did this happen? Is it true that people still
35:23
Speaker 2: don't agree.
35:24
Speaker 3: Yes, it's true, Like many things that occur over such
35:28
Speaker 3: a massive timeline, some experts believe that this took place
35:33
Speaker 3: for the first time in Europe, others in the Middle East,
35:35
Speaker 3: others East Asia. Still not a particular consensus. You know,
35:39
Speaker 3: as we've seen in many situations like this, there's probably
35:42
Speaker 3: some truth to all of those. They probably there was
35:44
Speaker 3: some parallel things going on. It just kind of seems
35:48
Speaker 3: like that's pretty likely. But no, there is no scientific
35:52
Speaker 3: consensus at this particular moment, though the Eurasian East Asian
35:56
Speaker 3: origin story does seem to get the most support. So
36:01
Speaker 3: this is a little bit more foreshadowing. We've alluded to
36:04
Speaker 3: some potential plot twists coming, and we're about to get
36:06
Speaker 3: to it.
36:07
Speaker 2: Yes, as the Cenabytes, I wanted to I wanted to
36:12
Speaker 2: see if you would do this joke. As the cinabytes
36:15
Speaker 2: used to say, put a pin in it for now,
36:20
Speaker 2: it's a it's a hell raiser joke.
36:22
Speaker 3: They also used to say, we have such wonders to
36:25
Speaker 3: show you, as we do as well, ridiculous historical wonders
36:28
Speaker 3: to show you. You know, it's funny. Cinebyte is. The
36:31
Speaker 3: more I think about it, the more it sounds like
36:32
Speaker 3: sort of a dainty, you know, cinnamon roll thing. You
36:35
Speaker 3: might get a cinnabon, you know, cinabytes please.
36:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, kind of like Buddy is naturally a name for
36:42
Speaker 2: a dog instead of a human. Yeah, like Max, Max
36:46
Speaker 2: is one of the most popular names for dogs.
36:48
Speaker 3: Borderline is a stand in the way that Fido is.
36:53
Speaker 3: Max is making a face.
36:54
Speaker 2: We looked at the statistics Max and again that's We'll
36:58
Speaker 2: get to the methodology later, maybe in part two.
37:01
Speaker 5: But Deal's voices now different.
37:05
Speaker 2: Give me give me a give me a deeper voice,
37:07
Speaker 2: give me.
37:08
Speaker 5: Higher than you're hired. Noel's the deep voice.
37:10
Speaker 4: Now I want to sound like Walter White. Okay, Apparently
37:13
Speaker 4: there are these celebrity voice changer filters on Instagram now
37:18
Speaker 4: Brave New World. Not necessarily in a good way, Max.
37:20
Speaker 4: If you have any dog like qualities, they're all positive.
37:22
Speaker 6: Yeah, I would say, I'm a loyal person and I
37:24
Speaker 6: don't do anything else, but just that, anything else dog.
37:29
Speaker 4: You also like pets and and a good walk the
37:31
Speaker 4: good walkies.
37:32
Speaker 5: I do like a good walk that is true.
37:35
Speaker 7: So we have learned a little bit about a fraut relationship. Uh, Matt,
37:41
Speaker 7: I'm not sure why you decided to take revenge on
37:45
Speaker 7: us for the statistics about games. Is my voice not
37:49
Speaker 7: the regular for a thing that is very much not
37:53
Speaker 7: my fault your decision.
37:54
Speaker 5: No, you're the one who the brain statistics into this.
37:57
Speaker 5: You could just ignore them like me.
37:59
Speaker 4: No, statistics are there to be fussed over and to
38:03
Speaker 4: be pedantic with.
38:05
Speaker 5: Yes, exactly, I'm just kidding. Your voice is normal again?
38:08
Speaker 3: Oh great.
38:09
Speaker 2: When we try to figure out exactly when and how
38:12
Speaker 2: domestication happened, we are seeing an interlocking set of mysteries.
38:18
Speaker 2: And this is where you might say, Hey, go guys, Max,
38:22
Speaker 2: Noel Ben, we as civilization, we know about DNA. Now,
38:28
Speaker 2: surely we can just do some DNA testing a little
38:32
Speaker 2: bit of forensic searching, and this will tell us where
38:37
Speaker 2: and when and how wolves became dogs.
38:41
Speaker 3: Eh yeah, I mean it certainly hasn't stopped scientists from trying.
38:46
Speaker 3: There are all sorts of advances in the research, but
38:49
Speaker 3: the problem is, as is often the case, some of
38:51
Speaker 3: this new information doesn't always provide answers so much as
38:55
Speaker 3: it raises new questions and can yield to further modification
39:01
Speaker 3: of the scientific data and less consensus between scientists.
39:06
Speaker 2: I like modification.
39:07
Speaker 3: That's great, that's great, so we know.
39:10
Speaker 2: Oh let me correct myself here. It is a late Pleistocene,
39:14
Speaker 2: not Pleacene. This extinct late Pleistocene gray wolf is the
39:20
Speaker 2: nearest common ancestor to the dog, meaning modern wolves are
39:25
Speaker 2: not the direct ancestral line. But secondly, we have to
39:31
Speaker 2: go back to the idea of genetic divergence. So everything
39:34
Speaker 2: we're learning about the DNA brings up that timeline question again.
39:39
Speaker 2: And this is compounded or I'm gonna use it no,
39:42
Speaker 2: because I love that phrase. It's modified by the fact
39:46
Speaker 2: that dogs and wolves, just like horses and zebras, are
39:51
Speaker 2: genetically close enough to reproduce with each other. They have
39:55
Speaker 2: crossbread so often that, according to folks like Greg Larsen
40:00
Speaker 2: at the University of Oxford. Their genes are a bowl
40:04
Speaker 2: of soup.
40:05
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it's sort of like what we think
40:07
Speaker 3: of when we compare the DNA of humans and great apes.
40:11
Speaker 3: But this is way closer than that, because I certainly
40:14
Speaker 3: don't think anyone has ever suggested that humans and great
40:16
Speaker 3: apes could could mate with one another with any level
40:19
Speaker 3: of success.
40:20
Speaker 2: There's the human z thing, but again I guess that's
40:23
Speaker 2: stuff they'll want.
40:24
Speaker 4: You to know.
40:26
Speaker 3: Definitely more the stuff of nightmares rather than interesting breeding choices. Yeah.
40:32
Speaker 2: And there's a great article with Ed Yong, a journalist
40:36
Speaker 2: over at The Atlantic, talking to Professor Larson, where he says,
40:41
Speaker 2: you know, he goes, he goes tintoes down on this
40:45
Speaker 2: soup analogy. He says, somebody goes, what ingredients we're added,
40:49
Speaker 2: in what proportion and in what order to make that soup?
40:53
Speaker 2: Meaning the long genetic story leading to Doghood. And he says,
40:59
Speaker 2: the patterns we see could have been created by seventeen
41:03
Speaker 2: different narrative scenarios. Shout out Jonathan, and we have no
41:10
Speaker 2: way of discriminating between them. And this is where this
41:14
Speaker 2: is where we see some amazing research nol Larsen teamed
41:20
Speaker 2: up with other scientists human as far as we know,
41:25
Speaker 2: and to figure out the answer from wolves to dogs.
41:28
Speaker 2: He did what any good dog would do. He had
41:32
Speaker 2: to search here over, He had to search for the
41:35
Speaker 2: right bone. Ah, that was close. And what bone would
41:38
Speaker 2: that be?
41:38
Speaker 3: Ben?
41:39
Speaker 2: Oh, it's called a petress. Here we can here, we
41:42
Speaker 2: can play along at home. If you take your finger,
41:46
Speaker 2: take any one of your pointer fingers you wish, and
41:50
Speaker 2: you put it behind your ear sort of like mid
41:54
Speaker 2: distance behind your ear. You might feel a bump. Do
41:58
Speaker 2: we feel that bump?
41:59
Speaker 1: I do?
42:00
Speaker 3: Thankfully? Normal?
42:01
Speaker 2: Higher up? Yeah, yeah, okay, looking at Max, you got it.
42:05
Speaker 2: That is your petrus bone. It's super dense, which means
42:10
Speaker 2: it's fantastic for retaining DNA. If you try to pull
42:14
Speaker 2: DNA out of most fossils, it's gonna be contaminated. It's
42:18
Speaker 2: gonna be riddled with microbes and history. You'll get a
42:22
Speaker 2: lot of DNA from a fossil, but they're a very
42:26
Speaker 2: small percentage of it will come from.
42:28
Speaker 3: The I guess we should say the owner of the bone,
42:32
Speaker 3: the creator of the bone, right, rather than the contamination
42:35
Speaker 3: over time and a researcher named Dan Bradley of Trinity
42:39
Speaker 3: College Dublin found the perfect specimen in Eastern Ireland's New Grange.
42:45
Speaker 3: It's a forty eight hundred year old monument that actually
42:48
Speaker 3: predates Stonehenge and the Pyramids of Giza. Pretty big deal,
42:52
Speaker 3: very important site. Beneath it's a circular mound with you know,
42:58
Speaker 3: massive networks underground chambers. Many animal bone fragments could be found,
43:04
Speaker 3: and among those were the petress bone of a dog boom.
43:10
Speaker 2: Which means that if you can if you can extract
43:13
Speaker 2: DNA from this petress bone, you will get as high
43:18
Speaker 2: as eighty percent of the original bone owners DNA. This
43:25
Speaker 2: is a burial site. It's super old. It's not necessarily
43:29
Speaker 2: unique because, as we mentioned earlier, the careful, ritualistic interment
43:36
Speaker 2: or burial of dogs. It's not forget the written word,
43:41
Speaker 2: it's older than that. It's older than agriculture. People were
43:45
Speaker 2: hanging out with, you know, their favorite doggo or their pooch,
43:50
Speaker 2: way before they figured out how to grow crops on
43:52
Speaker 2: a repeatable, reproducible basis. Dogs have been buried like humans
43:59
Speaker 2: for thousands of years. They have been part of the
44:02
Speaker 2: family since before humans figured out how to write. Family trees.
44:07
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I mean you call a man's best friend
44:09
Speaker 3: for no reason. Another important specimen found in Germany, the
44:13
Speaker 3: famous bon Albercastle dog. Bon Obercastle dog shows signs of
44:19
Speaker 3: some deterioration due to something called distemper, an advanced distemper
44:24
Speaker 3: that suggested that it was cared for during a period
44:28
Speaker 3: of illness. And another important specimen was found in Germany,
44:33
Speaker 3: known as the bon Obercastle dog or hunt. It showed
44:38
Speaker 3: signs of some physical deterioration due to a malady that
44:41
Speaker 3: it was apparently stricken with. This dog something called distemper,
44:45
Speaker 3: and it suggested some of the evidence on the bone
44:47
Speaker 3: itself that it had been cared for during this time
44:50
Speaker 3: of poorliness.
44:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, so someone said, oh no, bon Obercastle is sick.
44:59
Speaker 2: He has a highly can tageous virus. And someone else
45:01
Speaker 2: said what is a virus? And they said, never mind,
45:04
Speaker 2: let's take care of our dog. This is, by the way,
45:07
Speaker 2: similar to research that showed us how intelligent the Deanderthal
45:13
Speaker 2: population was. They cared for their elderly. It's Another example
45:18
Speaker 2: would be a dog found in Tunisia and a Roman
45:23
Speaker 2: burial who was eighteen years old when they passed away. Yeah,
45:28
Speaker 2: missing teeth, definitely had arthritis. These are just the things
45:32
Speaker 2: we can know from bones, which means someone kept this
45:37
Speaker 2: little guy around and loved him.
45:39
Speaker 3: Eighteen years old. The dog. The dog that's like, by
45:44
Speaker 3: today's standards, an incredibly long life for a canine.
45:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, no kidding, and probably a hopefully a very well
45:52
Speaker 2: lived life. If we look at this. We'll go back
45:56
Speaker 2: to our buddy Larsen. He teams up with Laurent Frot
46:00
Speaker 2: and they they take Bradley's research that petros bone in
46:06
Speaker 2: New Grange and they say, okay, let's compare the DNA
46:10
Speaker 2: from there to something like seven hundred modern dogs. Now,
46:15
Speaker 2: let's try to build out a family tree. And they
46:19
Speaker 2: found the tree they built again an all objective. It
46:23
Speaker 2: had this obvious fork in its trunk. Sorry, that's just
46:28
Speaker 2: a funny phrase.
46:29
Speaker 3: It is a funny thing.
46:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, it had this obvious fork in its trunk. There
46:34
Speaker 2: seemed to be two different dog dynasties.
46:38
Speaker 3: Be Am I the only one that, upon hearing fork
46:40
Speaker 3: in its trunk, I'm picturing like an elephant with two trunks.
46:43
Speaker 4: I don't know why.
46:44
Speaker 3: I'm just a silly guy.
46:45
Speaker 4: I like that.
46:46
Speaker 2: I pictured I pictured an episode of one of those
46:49
Speaker 2: sort of copaganda law enforcement shows where they say, well,
46:53
Speaker 2: the suspect did have a fork in their trunk.
46:57
Speaker 3: You mean like the murder weapon was a fork and
46:58
Speaker 3: they found it in the trunk of their.
46:59
Speaker 2: Ca Well, we can't say anything until it goes to work.
47:03
Speaker 3: Okay, But back to the use of fork and it's
47:05
Speaker 3: strunk for our purposes. One of these forks included all
47:08
Speaker 3: the dogs from eastern Eurasia, like the Sharpei, which is
47:12
Speaker 3: a delightful little sweetie, as well as Tibetan mastaves, which
47:15
Speaker 3: are much more big bruiser dogs boys exactly the other one,
47:21
Speaker 3: the other fork in said drunk, includes all of the
47:24
Speaker 3: western Eurasian breeds and the New Grange dog.
47:30
Speaker 2: Which is the source of that original Petrus both. So
47:34
Speaker 2: this leads Larsen to a fascinating hypothesis or fascinating piece
47:40
Speaker 2: of speculation. We thought dogs were domesticated once, maybe thirty
47:47
Speaker 2: something thousand years ago in Eurasia, but DNA seems to
47:52
Speaker 2: indicate different populations of humans with little to no interaction
47:58
Speaker 2: may have independent domesticated canines, not once, but multiple times.
48:04
Speaker 2: Parallel thinking. As said earlier, it makes sense because a
48:07
Speaker 2: good idea is a good.
48:09
Speaker 3: Idea absolutely, and the team responsible for this research also
48:12
Speaker 3: calculated that the two dog dynasties we're talking about here
48:17
Speaker 3: split from each other between somewhere around sixty four hundred
48:20
Speaker 3: and fourteen thousand years ago. Another pretty big swath, but
48:25
Speaker 3: the oldest dog fossils. Dog fossil be a great name
48:28
Speaker 3: for a band, By the way, some sort of like
48:29
Speaker 3: metalcore band are older even than that, which means that
48:33
Speaker 3: when those Eastern dogs migrated west into Europe, there were
48:37
Speaker 3: already dogs waiting on them there to buddy.
48:40
Speaker 2: Up and to larsen, this only makes sense if dogs
48:46
Speaker 2: were domesticated more than once. To be clear, this is
48:50
Speaker 2: not one hundred percent accepted by the scientific world at large,
48:55
Speaker 2: but it's a pretty great guess. Again, it goes down
48:57
Speaker 2: to the timing. Dogs may have been maybe domesticated just
49:02
Speaker 2: the one time, split into other populations before the dawn
49:06
Speaker 2: of history or recorded history, or they may have been
49:12
Speaker 2: a great idea for various human communities at various points
49:16
Speaker 2: in time and across the planet. All we know for
49:19
Speaker 2: sure is that they were definitely domesticated in the ancient
49:23
Speaker 2: ancient past, and they were probably the first animals to
49:27
Speaker 2: experience the profound change we call domestication today, and domestication
49:35
Speaker 2: is sometimes a misleading term or misunderstood. You could argue,
49:40
Speaker 2: it's not a one way push, it is a two
49:43
Speaker 2: way streaked it is a.
49:45
Speaker 3: Four kid trunk. No, it's a little different. Didn't quite
49:48
Speaker 3: land so similar to some of our discussions on other
49:51
Speaker 3: podcasts with our buddy Matt Frederick, stuff they don't want
49:54
Speaker 3: you to know. We do have to ask or are
49:56
Speaker 3: left with the question, what if those ancient wolves also
50:00
Speaker 3: domesticated us? Dun, dun, dun. I've been made along the
50:05
Speaker 3: way to answer this and other questions. We're going to
50:09
Speaker 3: have to take a break here and start a new
50:14
Speaker 3: episode entirely on domestication. Ben, there's a lot to discuss.
50:17
Speaker 3: I know we've been teasing that. I'm so excited about
50:19
Speaker 3: getting into some of the minutia of what domestication means
50:22
Speaker 3: because I learned a lot about this concept that I
50:25
Speaker 3: think is often misunderstood.
50:26
Speaker 2: Agreed, and we can't wait for you to join us.
50:29
Speaker 2: Ridiculous historians learn about domestications. Send us your dog picks,
50:34
Speaker 2: explore this with us. We're huge, huge fans of all
50:39
Speaker 2: things K nine. We're also big fans of you and
50:43
Speaker 2: you know who else. We're big fans of Noel, our
50:46
Speaker 2: super producer, mister Max Williams. You can also find your
50:50
Speaker 2: faithful correspondence on social needs. Should thou ship Noel? Where
50:56
Speaker 2: can people find you?
50:58
Speaker 3: Yeah? You can find me pretty exclusively on Instagram, where
51:00
Speaker 3: I exist at the handle how now Noel Brown, Ben Bollan,
51:04
Speaker 3: I think I know yours?
51:06
Speaker 2: Yes, in a burst of creativity, I can be found
51:09
Speaker 2: calling myself at Ben Bullen on Instagram, at the game
51:13
Speaker 2: downt that down at the A lot of good folks
51:16
Speaker 2: died at benbullin hsw on Twitter, or at the website
51:20
Speaker 2: Benbollan dot com.
51:22
Speaker 3: Big big thanks, of.
51:22
Speaker 2: Course to Alex Williams who composed this bang in track.
51:26
Speaker 3: I love it everything no same man. I was gonna
51:29
Speaker 3: throw the Max see if he wanted to shout out
51:31
Speaker 3: any of his social medis, but apparently he's He's gone
51:34
Speaker 3: scorched earth with that.
51:36
Speaker 6: I've left everything. Twitter was the last one that went,
51:38
Speaker 6: and when it changed to X I try to stay around,
51:41
Speaker 6: but I just constantly was getting emails saying someone's trying
51:44
Speaker 6: to access your your accounts.
51:46
Speaker 5: You know what, I'm done?
51:47
Speaker 3: Goodbye.
51:48
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51:52
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51:59
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52:03
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52:07
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52:10
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52:13
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52:15
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