Excess protein enabled dog domestication during severe Ice Age winters

Abstract

Dogs (Canis familiaris) are the first animals to be domesticated by humans and the only ones domesticated by mobile hunter-gatherers. Wolves and humans were both persistent, pack hunters of large prey. They were species competing over resources in partially overlapping ecological niches and capable of killing each other. How could humans possibly have domesticated a competitive species? Here we present a new hypothesis based on food/resource partitioning between humans and incipient domesticated wolves/dogs. Humans are not fully adapted to a carnivorous diet; human consumption of meat is limited by the liver’s capacity to metabolize protein. Contrary to humans, wolves can thrive on lean meat for months. We present here data showing that all the Pleistocene archeological sites with dog or incipient dog remains are from areas that were analogous to subarctic and arctic environments. Our calculations show that during harsh winters, when game is lean and devoid of fat, Late Pleistocene hunters-gatherers in Eurasia would have a surplus of animal derived protein that could have been shared with incipient dogs. Our partitioning theory explains how competition may have been ameliorated during the initial phase of dog domestication. Following this initial period, incipient dogs would have become docile, being utilized in a multitude of ways such as hunting companions, beasts of burden and guards as well as going through many similar evolutionary changes as humans.

Energetic and health effects of protein overconsumption constrain dietary adaptation in an apex predator

“…When protein is limited it can affect species behavior, health, and population dynamics 54 . Yet, our results, along with those of others 34 , 40 , 55 , suggest that the implications of protein overconsumption may play an equally important role in affecting behavior, health, and conservation.…”

Commensalism or Cross-Species Adoption? A Critical Review of Theories of Wolf Domestication

“…Unlike wolves, humans are only able to digest about 20% of their energy needs from protein, so any excess could have been fed to pet wolves without depriving humans of nutritional resources. Thus, people and their pet wolves would not have been in competition with each other for limited food resources, thereby enabling them to coexist over multiple generations; long enough to give rise to genetically isolated, breeding populations of proto-dogs (8).…”

Reconsidering domestication from a process archaeology perspective

“…This took place, for example, when humans became seed dispersers in place of large herbivores in numerous small-seeded crop progenitors (Spengler and Mueller 2019;Mueller et al 2020), and when commensal animals were mutually tolerated in anthropogenic environments (Zeder 2012a). Both the wolf (Lahtinen et al 2021) and the wild boar (Price and Hongo 2020) were likely initially attracted to human settlements by human food waste before entering a cooperative relationship, obtaining protection against predators and a secure food source from the human community. Small felids colonized early farming settlements in both western and eastern Asia, a process that predated cat domestication (Vigne et al 2004;Hu et al 2014).…”