Wolf (Canis lupus Linnaeus, 1758) domestication: why did it occur so late and at such high latitude? A hypothesis

Abstract

ABSTRACT Wolf (Canis lupus Linnaeus, 1758) domestication has been the subject of many studies the last decades. All agree to consider that the dog (Canis familiaris Linnaeus, 1758) is the product of wolf domestication, and that this process occurred in Eurasia. Many divergences remain however on the geographic origin(s) of the process, whether domestication was a single event or multiple independent events, the earliest occurrences (roughly between 37 000 and 15 000 cal years ago), and the modalities of this process. A rarely debated question is why wolf domestication occurred so late and at such high latitudes, and not in Africa or Middle East, where humans and wolves have coexisted much longer. We hypothesize that domestication was triggered by one of the five extreme cold events (so-called Heinrich events) which occurred in Eurasia in the range of time between 37 000 and 12 000 cal years, which correspond to the range of wolf domestication. Use of a large-sized wolf/dog was probably an unprecedented way for first societies of Eurasia to survive in such extreme conditions.