Mothering the Orphaned Pup: The Beginning of a Domestication Process in the Upper Palaeolithic

Germonpré, Mietje; Broeck, Martine Van den; Lázničková‐Galetová, Martina; Sablin, Mikhail; Bocherens, Hervé

doi:10.1007/s10745-021-00234-z

Cited by 12 publications

(46 citation statements)

References 120 publications

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“…Therefore, like Germonpré et al (2018Germonpré et al ( , 2021 and Serpell (2021), we discount the hypothesis of self-domestication because it fails to accord with the above-described wolf ecology and behaviour. In addition, it clashes with the human lifestyle of the time.…”

Section: Domesticating Wolvesmentioning

confidence: 65%

An assessment of current wolf Canis lupus domestication hypotheses based on wolf ecology and behaviour

Mech

Janssens

2021

Mammal Review

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The dog was the first domesticated animal. Its derivation from grey wolves Canis lupus is important to the study of mammalian domestication, and wolf domestication is an active area of investigation. Recent popular books have promoted a hypothesis that wolves domesticated themselves as opposed to the earliest hypothesis that featured pup collection, adoption, and artificial selection. Continuing research has produced a greater understanding of wolf ecology and behaviour, including new insights into the wolf's interaction with humans. Several characteristics make the wolf conducive to domestication: its sociality, catholic diet, excellent individual and cultural memory, inbreeding tolerance, varied personalities, and adaptable lifestyle. The wolf's fear of humans is the main impediment and that alone is a factor strongly disfavouring the self-selection hypothesis. However, collecting young pups from dens and raising them would foster their socialising with humans as pack members. Neither hypothesis explains how wolves undergoing domestication were separated reproductively from their wild relatives, an important condition for domestication. We combine information from the literature with information from our own research on wild wolves, archaeology, and canid morphology. We explain how pup collection and deliberate or incidental selection and encouragement to breed with similarly raised wolves could keep incipient dogs separated reproductively from wild relatives. The key is humans regularly feeding the wolves and keeping only those able to live harmoniously with humans. Well-fed, human-dependent wolves would remain near their food supply and in the company of humans, thus increasing their bonds to humans and vice versa. Outbreeding with wild wolves would thus be avoided. Generation after generation of these human-fed, raised, and selected wolves would become increasingly dependent on humans and shaped by them. The pup-adoption hypothesis presented here is more in keeping with basic wolf ecology and behaviour than the self-domestication hypothesis.

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Section: Domesticating Wolvesmentioning

confidence: 65%

An assessment of current wolf Canis lupus domestication hypotheses based on wolf ecology and behaviour

Mech

Janssens

2021

Mammal Review

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“…In the wolf pup-adoption model, Germonpré et al (2021) state repeatedly that they are attempting to describe the beginning of dog domestication, not its entirety. There is recognition here of a longer-term set of processes.…”

Section: Domesticated Dogs?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…When in the relationship such interventions occurred is anyone’s guess. Recent archaeological dog literature refers explicitly to such a model as the self-domestication hypothesis (Germonpré et al, 2021; Morey and Jeger, 2015; Prassack et al, 2020).…”

Section: Domesticated Dogs?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Other competing models of dog domestication also persist, including the long-standing wolf pup-adoption model recently reinvigorated by Germonpré et al (2021; see also Serpell, 2021). This is a human-initiated scenario, with the original intent not being to domesticate animals but rather to keep individuals as companions.…”

Section: Domesticated Dogs?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…People can recognize most living dogs as being distinct from their closest living relatives, gray wolves. The predominant theory regarding how this relationship first emerged is referred to as the commensal pathway or the self-domestication model (Coppinger and Coppinger, 2001; Germonpré et al, 2021; Morey and Jeger, 2015; Prassack et al, 2020; Zeder, 2012). This theory proposes that a subset of wolves began to feed on human refuse and those that were least fearful or friendliest persisted in this niche over the long term.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Domestication is not an ancient moment of selection for prosociality: Insights from dogs and modern humans

Losey

2021

Journal of Social Archaeology

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Domestication is often portrayed as a long-past event, at times even in archaeological literature. The term domestication is also now applied to other processes, including human evolution. In such contexts, domestication means selection for friendliness or prosociality and the bodily results of such selective choices. Both such perspectives are misleading. Using dogs and modern humans as entry points, this paper explores why conceiving of domestication as a threshold event consisting of selection for prosociality is both incomplete and inaccurate. Domestication is an ongoing process, not a moment or an achievement. Selection in breeding, including for prosociality, is a part of many domestication histories, but it alone does not sustain this process over multiple generations. Further, much selection in domestication has little to do with human intention. Care, taming, commensalism, material things, and places are critical in carrying domestic relationships forward.

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Morphological differences between putative Paleolithic dogs and wolves: A commentary to Janssens et al. (2021)

Galeta

Lázničková‐Galetová

Sablin

et al. 2022

The Anatomical Record

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regarding the morphological differences between putative Paleolithic dog and Pleistocene wolf crania. The authors argued that these differences reflect the normal population variation of wolves, that some of the cranial measurements used do not reflect morphological changes during domestication, and that our canid dataset was small because we inexplicably omitted several specimens we analyzed in our previous publications. In this commentary, we briefly address the issue of within and between morpho-population variability. The results based on our canid sample suggest that the magnitude of morphological differences between distinct morpho-populations (i.e., recent northern dogs and wolves) is at least twice as large as that observed within morpho-populations (between two groups of recent northern wolves segregated by cluster analysis). The morphological differences between putative Paleolithic dogs and Pleistocene wolves are relatively large, which may indicate that they did not likely represent a single Late Pleistocene morpho-population. Finally, we clarified the rationale behind the composition of our 2021 dataset to show that we did not adjust the list of the analyzed specimens. Although the sample size was small, the randomization analysis published in 2021 confirmed that the unbalanced composition of the reference sample did not affect the reliability of the morphological segregation of putative Paleolithic dogs and Pleistocene wolves.

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Mothering the Orphaned Pup: The Beginning of a Domestication Process in the Upper Palaeolithic

Cited by 12 publications

References 120 publications

An assessment of current wolf Canis lupus domestication hypotheses based on wolf ecology and behaviour

An assessment of current wolf Canis lupus domestication hypotheses based on wolf ecology and behaviour

Domestication is not an ancient moment of selection for prosociality: Insights from dogs and modern humans

Morphological differences between putative Paleolithic dogs and wolves: A commentary to Janssens et al. (2021)

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