New findings in Jordan indicate that they’ve been assisting us for nearly 12,000 years.
At the same time, the researchers also found that the remains of small prey—mostly hare, but also some fox—began to appear much more frequently around the time that dogs arrived at Shubayqa 6. The two developments seem linked, as it’s possible that the dogs helped the hunters refine their methods. Before using dogs, the hunters may have relied more heavily on imprecise methods like netting—less effective than setting packs of hungry canines onto a hare’s bushy tail. The researchers also established that people occupied Shubayqa 6 year round, meaning that the dogs wouldn’t have simply been prowling around on their own, and further supporting the theory that humans were intentionally using these dogs to hunt.
Number 6 isn’t the only part of the Shubayqa area in northeast Jordan to bear significant evidence of our developing knack for harvesting food. In July 2018, researchers published their analysis of the oldest bread ever found, at a site known as Shubayqa 1. The crumbs predate the advent of agriculture. Just as the hare remains can change our understanding of the history of canine domestication, the bread offers new insight into the domestication of cereal grains.
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