Early dogs may have doubled in size to protect livestock

Archaeological evidence suggests domestic canines bulked up between 8000 and 2000 years ago
27 MAY 20222:05 PM BY JOSHUA RAPP



Ancient guard dogs may have looked something like great Pyrenees, which are still used to protect flocks today.BRITTA PEDERSEN/PICTURE ALLIANCE VIA GETTY IMAGES

European dogs doubled in size from 8000 to 2000 years ago, a new study suggests. The beefing up may have helped our canine pals protect sheep from bears and even their direct ancestor—the gray wolf.

It’s “important” research, says Robert Losey, an archaeologist at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, who specializes in ancient human-animal relationships but was not involved with the work. “It’s one of the few long-term studies based in Europe looking at trends in dog size over time.”

Dogs were domesticated between 15,000 and 30,000 years ago. Little is known about the size and roles of the earliest pups, though they were likely smaller than the gray wolves they came from. Scientists have speculated that ancient dogs may have helped humans hunt and pull sleds.

To see how the size—and jobs—of dogs changed over time, Martin Welker, a zooarchaeology curator at the Arizona State Museum, and his colleagues examined the remains of 14 dogs uncovered from ancient human settlements in Croatia. They also incorporated data from another 45 ancient dogs, some from Croatia and some from neighboring countries. The remains dated from about 8000 years ago in the Neolithic (or latter Stone Age) to the Roman period, about 2000 years ago.

More:
https://www.science.org/content/article/early-dogs-may-have-doubled-size-protect-livestock