Ancient Dog Bone Found!
Archeological digs says that oldest dog exist 8,000 years or more but have not scientifically proven until one researcher discovered an ancient bone.
Recently, a University of Maine graduate student named Samuel Belknap III was researching about the diet and nutrition of ancient people who lived in what is now Texas. As he examine human waste, he came across a small bone. He says a carbon-dating test pegged the age of the bone at 9,400 years old. A DNA analysis confirmed it came from a dog. And because it was found deep inside a pie of human excrement and was the characteristic orange-brown color that bone turns when it has passed through the digestive tract. The fragment provides the earliest direct evidence that dogs besides from being used for company, security and hunting were also eaten by humans and may even have been bred as a food source.
From the size of the bone, Belknap figures the dog weighed about 25 to 30 pounds. He also found what he thinks was a bone from a dog foot, but the fragment was too small to be analyzed.
Belknap and other researchers from the University of Maine and the University of Oklahoma's molecular anthropology laboratories, where the DNA analysis was done have written a paper on their findings. The paper has been scientifically reviewed and accepted and to be publish later this year.
This is an important scientific discovery that can tell us not only a lot about the genetic history of dogs but of the interactions between humans and dogs in the past. Dogs have played an important role in human culture for thousands of years and in the present. Truly, dog is man's greatest companion.
Recently, a University of Maine graduate student named Samuel Belknap III was researching about the diet and nutrition of ancient people who lived in what is now Texas. As he examine human waste, he came across a small bone. He says a carbon-dating test pegged the age of the bone at 9,400 years old. A DNA analysis confirmed it came from a dog. And because it was found deep inside a pie of human excrement and was the characteristic orange-brown color that bone turns when it has passed through the digestive tract. The fragment provides the earliest direct evidence that dogs besides from being used for company, security and hunting were also eaten by humans and may even have been bred as a food source.
From the size of the bone, Belknap figures the dog weighed about 25 to 30 pounds. He also found what he thinks was a bone from a dog foot, but the fragment was too small to be analyzed.
Belknap and other researchers from the University of Maine and the University of Oklahoma's molecular anthropology laboratories, where the DNA analysis was done have written a paper on their findings. The paper has been scientifically reviewed and accepted and to be publish later this year.
This is an important scientific discovery that can tell us not only a lot about the genetic history of dogs but of the interactions between humans and dogs in the past. Dogs have played an important role in human culture for thousands of years and in the present. Truly, dog is man's greatest companion.
