Dog Domestication

The domestication of the wolf can not be clarified exactly.  DNA tests came to the conclusion that the domestication of wolves began more than 100,000 years ago and have been held several times independently.

The existence today of genetic breeds is grouped into four different categories.  The domestic dog may have also long after its initial domestication phenotypically resembled the wolf, so an unambiguous assignment of older fossil records is not always possible. The oldest fossil evidence for the existence of the domestic dog comes from the young. The study of fossil bones from dogs gave an age of about 31,700 BC

In East Asia it is suggested that molecular genetic testing prior to domestic dogs was about 15,000 years ago.  There are known dog bones, which are dated at 13.000-17.000 BC. The reference is located in the Dnieper valley at the Southeast, a tributary of the Desna. The fauna is dominated by mammoth bone (Mammuthus primigenius) and is dated from the last stage of the Valdai glaciation.  Culturally, it is attributed to the Epi-Gravettian.  The settlement was excavated between 1930 and 1940 by KM Polikarpovitch.

They found two complete dog skulls. The first was on a hearth, another in a shelter made of mammoth bones. The dogs had a short snout and were about 70cm high. An old skeleton of a morphologically domesticated dog is from the double grave of Upper Kassel, which is attributed to the Magdalenian.

Ancient Egyptian Representation

Mesolithic dog burials are common, for example in the Scandinavian Ertebolle culture (Skateholm). Even in ancient Egypt you can find mummified dogs.  Notching by Konrad Lorenz held hypothesis that the dog is at least partly descended from the golden jackal (Canis aureus).  This has now been disproved on the basis of DNA analysis.