A new look at an old dog : Bonn-Oberkassel reconsidered

The Bonn-Oberkassel dog remains (Upper Pleistocene and 14223 þ- 58 years old) have been reported more than 100 years ago. Recent re-examination revealed the tooth of another older and smaller dog, making this domestic dog burial not only the oldest known, but also the only one with remains of two dogs. This observation brings the total known Magdalenian dogs to nine. Domestication of dogs during the final Palaeolithic has important implications for understanding pre- Holocene hunter-gatherers. Most proposed hunter-gatherer motivations for domesticating dogs have been utilitarian. However, remains of the Bonn-Oberkassel dogs may offer another view. The Bonn-Oberkassel dog was a late juvenile when it was buried at approximately age 27e28 weeks, with two adult humans and grave goods. Oral cavity lesions indicate a gravely ill dog that likely suffered a morbillivirus (canine distemper) infection. A dental line of suggestive enamel hypoplasia appears at the 19-week developmental stage. Two additional enamel hypoplasia lines, on the canine only, document further disease episodes at weeks 21 and 23. Pathological changes also include severe periodontal disease that may have been facilitated by immunodeficiency. Since canine distemper has a three-week disease course with very high mortality, the dog must have been perniciously ill during the three disease bouts and between ages 19 and 23 weeks. Survival without intensive human assistance would have been unlikely. Before and during this period, the dog cannot have held any utilitarian use to humans. We suggest that at least some Late Pleistocene humans regarded dogs not just materialistically, but may have developed emotional and caring bonds for their dogs, as reflected by the survival of this dog, quite possibly through human care

Refined age estimates and paleoanthropological investigation of the Manyara Beds, Tanzania

The Manyara Beds in the area of Makuyuni Village in the Lake Manyara Basin, Tanzania have been studied for nearly a century, but interpretations of their age have ranged from Middle Pleistocene to Late Pliocene. New geological, paleontological and archeological fieldwork was conducted at the site and has provided siginificant new evidence, including refined stratigraphy, radiometric age estimates, preliminary paleomagnetic analysis, significant new faunal collections, as well as stratigraphic context for some of the lithic artifacts in stratigraphic context. These efforts have succesfully constrained the geological age estimates for the Manyara Beds to between less than 0.63 to 1.3 Ma, and the age of the two hominin bearing localities to between ~ 0.63 and 0.78 Ma. This new chronology may impact the taxonomic interpretation of the hominin remains recovered from the site. They also suggest that two mammalian taxa, Metridiochoerus compactus and Eurygnathohippus, may have some of their youngest known occurences in the Manyara Beds. Acheulean lithics were also found in stratigraphic context during this more narrow time interval. Furthermore, the presence of potential cut-marks on the surface of a bovid mandible may represent the first evidence for human modification of bones from the Manyara Beds

A refined proposal for the origin of dogs: the case study of Gnirshöhle, a Magdalenian cave site

Dogs are known to be the oldest animals domesticated by humans. Although many studies have examined wolf domestication, the geographic and temporal origin of this process is still being debated. To address this issue, our study sheds new light on the early stages of wolf domestication during the Magdalenian period (16–14 ka cal BP) in the Hegau Jura region (Southwestern Germany and Switzerland). By combining morphology, genetics, and isotopes, our multidisciplinary approach helps to evaluate alternate processes driving the early phases of domestication. The isotope analysis uncovered a restricted, low δ15N protein diet for all analyzed Gnirshöhle specimens, while morphological examinations and phylogenetic relationships did not unequivocally assign them to one or the other canid lineage. Intriguingly, the newly generated mitochondrial canid genomes span the entire genetic diversity of modern dogs and wolves. Such high mitochondrial diversity could imply that Magdalenian people tamed and reared animals originating from different wolf lineages. We discuss our results in light of three ecological hypotheses and conclude that both domestication and the existence of a specialized wolf ecomorph are highly probable. However, due to their proximity to humans and a restricted diet, we propose domestication as the most likely scenario explaining the patterns observed herein

A Revised Timescale for Human Evolution Based on Ancient mitochondrial Genomes

We use mitochondrial genome sequences from ten securely dated ancient modern humans spanning 40,000 years as calibration points for the mitochondrial clock, thus yielding a direct estimate of the mitochondrial substitution rate. Our clock yields mitochondrial divergence times that are in agreement with earlier estimates based on calibration points derived from either fossils or archaeological material. In particular, our results imply a separation of non-Africans from the most closely related sub-Saharan African mitochondrial DNAs (haplogroup L3) that occurred less than 62–95 kya. Our results exclude most of the older dates for African and non-African population divergences recently suggested by de novo mutation rate estimates in the nuclear genome