When and how did wolves and dogs become our companions?
The Origins of Dogs Revealed Through Evolutionary Biology, Ecology, and Anthropology

When did wolves become our companion dogs? Archaeologist Mice Hermonfrey and her team present evidence showing that wolf domestication occurred very early.
A skull of a 'Stone Age dog' dating back to 36,000 to 32,000 years ago was discovered in the Goyet Cave in Belgium.
This was evidence that refuted the later school's 'garbage heap' model, which holds that wolves were domesticated into dogs about 10,000 years ago while scavenging for food in human-discarded garbage dumps.
Raymond Pierotti and Brandy R., who studied evolutionary biology and Native American folklore,
Fogg points out that the existing domestication model is overly anthropocentric and contains the traditional (Christian) biases of Western science, and re-creates the history of cooperation and coexistence between wolves, dogs, and humans based on various scientific evidence and stories of indigenous people.
The purpose of this book is to examine how the first domestication occurred during the coevolution of humans and wolves, thereby confirming the long-standing bond between the two.

Anthropologist Pat Shipman's book Animal Connection (2011) is a goldmine of early inspiration.
Shipman's latest book is Invasive Humans: A Fundamental Exploration of Human Flourishing and the Future (2015, translated by Eunyoung Jo, Pureunsup, 2017).
This book has contributed to our research by examining the archaeological record of Neanderthals in detail, examining the close chronological relationship between the extinction of Neanderthals and the emergence of modern humans, and the relationship between modern humans and dogs (wolves).
Schiffman argues that modern humans' close relationship with dogs gave them an ecological advantage and allowed them to replace Neanderthals, who (apparently) had no dogs.
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We are not attempting to explain the origins of the hundreds of 'breeds' of dogs that exist today (Morris 2001; Spady and Ostrander 2008; Hunn 2013).
Most of these varieties have been created by humans within the last 200 years, and many are much more recent.
This can be seen in the recent trend of creating 'designer' dogs by mixing existing breeds, such as the 'Pikachu', which is a cross between a Miniature Poodle and a Pekingese.
Our purpose is to discuss the early stages of the coevolutionary relationship between humans and wolves that resulted in what we call the "domesticated dog."
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A wolf pack or family group of wolves usually consists of members similar to a human extended family.
There is an alpha female, a mate, and offspring of various ages (Moehlman 1989; Pierotti 2011a; Spotte 2012).
The young, especially the females, remain with the herd led by their mothers after they grow up.
Older cubs help care for the younger ones, making the group larger.
Modern humans are the only great apes that generally practice monogamy.
Because mating systems are emergent and influenced by the environment, it is likely that monogamy is a trait acquired from wolves, or at least a trait shared by both species due to convergence of ecological niches.
Both species share a similar ecological role as capable predators capable of hunting large prey in packs.
Additionally, both species benefit from cooperative food sharing.
Human adoption of wolf social strategies may explain why wolves assimilate into human social groups, and this reciprocal situation is documented in many cultural traditions.
Examples include the legend of Romulus and Remus, The Jungle Book, and many stories from Native American tribes (Bettelheim 1959; Itard 1962; Singh and Zingg 1966; Lane 1976).
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The model proposed by Schleidt and Shalter in their 2003 study gave new meaning to Thomas Hobbes's notion of Homo homini lupus (“man is god to man, and bad wolf” [meaning that in the state of nature, humans behave violently like wolves toward other humans, and a war of all against all ensues - translator's note]) (Hobbes 1985, cited in Schleidt and Shalter 2003).
Schleiter and Schalter, given the strong social bond between humans and canines, wrote, “To humans, humans are friendly wolves.
No, at least that's how it should be," he argues, arguing that recent shifts in people's perceptions of wolves give us a chance to change our minds.
“Rather than continuing the conventional wisdom that ‘domesticated animals’ are deliberately human inventions,” we should “consider the initial contact between wolves and humans to have been reciprocal, and the subsequent changes in both species to have been a process of coevolution” (Schleidt and Shalter 2003, 58).
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In our discussion, there are two separate questions.
(1) Did Homo sapiens develop a cooperative relationship with a non-domesticated canid, namely wolves, immediately after migrating into Eurasia? (2) When and where did this non-domesticated canid transform into what is now considered a domesticated animal, namely dogs? The problem arises when researchers combine or conflate these two distinct questions into a third.
The question is, 'When did we first establish a relationship with an animal that could be easily recognized as a domesticated dog?'
Much of the confusion fueling the ongoing debate begins here.
--- p.151

Explorers of European descent would have been unable to accept the evidence before their eyes that Native Americans lived with socialized wolves.
A European who visited an indigenous tribe said:
“The Indian dog seen here in such detail resembles a wild wolf so much that if one had encountered one in the forest, one would almost certainly have killed it, thinking it was a wolf” (Audubon 1960, 520).
Early European visitors assumed that since this animal lived alongside humans, it must fit the European concept of a domesticated canis, or dog.
Modern scholars also make this mistake.
This is because Europeans only consider written records as true evidence (Pierotti 2011a).
Most scholars claim to be fair, but they are unable to see beyond the shackles created by their own narrow cultural perceptions (Ritvo 2010).
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What is largely undiscussed, at least among scholars studying the origins of domestic dogs, is that the relentless campaign of persecution of Canis lupus by people of European descent (McIntyre 1995; Grimaud 2003; Coleman 2004; Rose 2011; Pierotti 2011a) has led to strong selection that ensures that only the most shy and unsocialized wolves survive in the wild today.
Oddly enough, most scholars who write about dogs, such as Mori (2010) and Schiffman (2011, 2015), write as if today's shy and timid wolf were the archetypal ancestor of all wolves.
Starting from that assumption, these scholars explain why modern wolves are described as “dangerous,” “ferocious,” and “aggressive”—descriptions that genuinely misrepresent the characteristics of these shy animals—and other terms that implicitly acknowledge the negative image of wolves that appears in much of popular culture.
In popular media, especially in film and television, wolves are almost always portrayed as vicious, uncontrollable killers.
Examples range from Liam Neeson's fantasy film [The Grey] to Disney's animated film [Beauty and the Beast].
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As has been well established in the philosophy and sociology of science, many scientific practices are not value-neutral but rather imbued with the values ​​they purport to assert (Hess 1995; Tauber 2009; Pierotti 2011a; Medin and Bang 2014).
Few fields reflect Western social values ​​more strongly than the study of the relationship between domesticated and non-domesticated forms of the same species: dogs and wolves.
However, if human-wolf interactions have changed significantly over time, wolves selected as human companions during the early stages of domestication would have been subject to different selection pressures and would likely have exhibited behavioral traits different from those of wolves living alongside humans in modern societies.
For most of human history, we hunted with wolves, shared food, and even lived in close proximity, seeking out and interacting with the individuals most socialized.

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