PORTLAND, Maine -Nearly 10,000 years ago, man's best friend provided protection and companionship ââ¬â and an occasional meal.
That's what researchers are saying after finding a bone fragment from what they are calling the earliest confirmed domesticated dog in the Americas.
University of Maine graduate student Samuel Belknap III came across the fragment while analyzing a dried-out sample of human waste unearthed in southwest Texas in the 1970s. A carbon-dating test put the age of the bone at 9,400 years, and a DNA analysis confirmed it came from a dog ââ¬â not a wolf, coyote or fox, Belknap said.
Because it was found deep inside a pile 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 ââ¬â besides being used for company, security and hunting ââ¬â were eaten by humans and may even have been bred as a food source, he said.
Belknap wasn't researching dogs when he found the bone. Rather, he was looking into the diet and nutrition of the people who lived in the Lower Pecos region of Texas between 1,000 and 10,000 years ago.
It just so happens this person who lived 9,400 years ago was eating dog, Belknap said.
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, pending revisions, for publication in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology later this year, said editor in chief Christopher Ruff. He declined comment on the article until it has been published.
Dogs have played an important role in human culture for thousands of years.
Full story: http://www.aolnews.com/story/old-dog-new-tricks-study-ids-9400-year/1523267/
That's what researchers are saying after finding a bone fragment from what they are calling the earliest confirmed domesticated dog in the Americas.
University of Maine graduate student Samuel Belknap III came across the fragment while analyzing a dried-out sample of human waste unearthed in southwest Texas in the 1970s. A carbon-dating test put the age of the bone at 9,400 years, and a DNA analysis confirmed it came from a dog ââ¬â not a wolf, coyote or fox, Belknap said.
Because it was found deep inside a pile 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 ââ¬â besides being used for company, security and hunting ââ¬â were eaten by humans and may even have been bred as a food source, he said.
Belknap wasn't researching dogs when he found the bone. Rather, he was looking into the diet and nutrition of the people who lived in the Lower Pecos region of Texas between 1,000 and 10,000 years ago.
It just so happens this person who lived 9,400 years ago was eating dog, Belknap said.
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, pending revisions, for publication in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology later this year, said editor in chief Christopher Ruff. He declined comment on the article until it has been published.
Dogs have played an important role in human culture for thousands of years.
Full story: http://www.aolnews.com/story/old-dog-new-tricks-study-ids-9400-year/1523267/
