Dogs might have become man's best friend because they ate Paleo humans' leftovers.
What is the Paleo Diet?
The Paleolithic era, also known as the Old Stone Age, or roughly 2.5 million years ago, was pivotal in human evolution. During these times, significant physiological and anatomical changes occurred as humans adapted to climate changes.
During these times, early humans lived in simple huts and caves, surviving through foraging and hunting, according to History. Humans learned to cook food, including high-protein animals such as wooly mammoths, bison, and deer, trying to adapt to the cruel climatic conditions.
Check out: Could Paleo Diet Really Lead to Heart Disease?
How Dogs Became Man's Bestfriend
In the middle of the ice age, the paleolithic diet relied heavily on fat from hunted animals. Early on, humans discovered that a pure protein diet could mean starvation or protein poisoning.
This sparked a beautiful relationship with dogs. The leftover lean meat was given to canine ancestors--wolves. Because of the complicated digestive system of early wolves, their species thrived and could survive on prolonged high-protein diets.
Thus begun a symbiotic relationship between early man and canines.
Dietary Needs Could Be the Origin of Dogs
The origins of the Canis familiaris and its transition to domesticity has been a long-debated and theorized subject.
An archeologist from the Finnish Food Authority, Maria Lahtinen, and colleagues published the details in the journal Scientific Advances. Initially, the team set out to research the Arctic and sub-Arctic people, was ultimately led to hypothesize how dietary needs are critical to dogs' domesticity.
As the first animal to be domesticated by humans, wolves and early humans were persistent pack hunters of large prey. They were, during the old days, competing over resources in partially overlapping ecological niches.
The study presents data that during the Old Stone Age's harsh winters, the game was lean and devoid of fat. Hence Pleistocene hunter-gatherers in Eurasia would have a surplus of animal-derived protein that could have been shared with early wolves.
Initially, due to different nutritional needs, the symbiotic relationship begun with wolves benefiting from the excess meat while humans neither lost nor benefitted.
The origins of dogs' domesticity have always been a puzzle for scientists and historians. However, they agree that it might have begun roughly 15,000 years ago.
Researchers explained that animal protein could have provided human Arctic hunters 45% of the calories needed during winter. Calculating the amount of protein in prey available to wolves during the ice age, researchers discovered that they consumed protein over the limits humans could.
Since humans and wolves hunted the same prey, humans would die of excessive protein from their kills if they could not explore other dietary options.
Because humans have an odd habit of feeding animals and keeping them, scientists lean towards this idea for human band evolution. Humans might have snatched wolf puppies to accommodate their excess food resources. Eventually, domesticity was achieved.
See Also: How Centuries of Domestication Have Changed Dog Breeds
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