Sunday, May 19, 2013

Man was trained by wolves?

May. 17, 2013


Dear Old Trainer: I am in eighth grade. I told my teacher that you said dogs trained humans in the old days and not the other way around. Now I have to write a paper on it, but I don't know anything about it. How did it happen? — Donna, Fresno

A: For a long time, Donna, experts claimed the wolf was domesticated 15,000 years ago. Then, thanks to the discovery of DNA and how to use it, we discovered it was at least 30,000 years ago.
Now, with even more powerful scientific tools, we know it happened about 100,000 years ago. At that time man had just started walking upright. Wolves were faster, stronger, better hunters, had better hearing and a sense of smell 5,000 times as powerful. They also were smarter.

National Geographic and other prestigious scientific organizations now agree it was the wolf who took the first step toward partnership with man.

Wolves began to hang around early humans because of the ready source of food in the garbage and leftovers surrounding the camps. Wolves learned to read body language and manipulate these early humans. This skill gave the wolves who did it best an evolutionary advantage over those who could not.

Humans discovered the wolves' sense of smell and hearing gave man an advantage in hunting and defending against enemies. They took pups and trained them to hunt — the beginning of the modern dog.

The success of domesticating the wolf eventually led man to the idea of doing the same thing with crops, and they began to farm. The huge amounts of food produced by farming freed man for the first time to concentrate on other problems, so dogs are a cornerstone of modern civilization.

source 

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