Ancient DNA Confirms Humans Had Dogs Before Farming

Ancient DNA Pushes Back Earliest Genetic Evidence of Dogs

Humans were living with dogs before the rise of agriculture, according to two new studies published in *Nature*. The research provides what scientists described as the first definitive genetic evidence that dogs existed during the Paleolithic period, when humans were still hunter-gatherers.

Researchers analyzed DNA extracted from ancient canine remains and identified Paleolithic dogs at five archaeological sites across Europe and Western Asia. The oldest of the dogs lived about 15,800 years ago, moving the earliest known genetic evidence of dogs back by nearly 5,000 years.

Dogs Spread Across Hunter-Gatherer Societies

The ancient dogs were found at sites stretching from Britain to Turkey and were linked to several distinct hunter-gatherer populations. Despite those human groups being very different from one another, the dogs were closely related genetically.

Across the five sites, the researchers found that the dogs were more genetically similar to one another than the humans were. That pattern suggests dogs may have moved between groups rather than developing in isolation within each population.

Evidence of Exchange Between Early Peoples

The findings suggest that hunter-gatherer societies may have exchanged dogs or acquired them from one another as the animals spread across the Paleolithic world.

As one of the study authors, Greger Larson, a paleogeneticist at the University of Oxford, put it: “The people are so different, but the dogs are very much the same.”