Domestication of original paleo began because paleo

By Justin Jones On Jun 29, 2022

Domestication of original paleo began because paleo: As a result of their inability to break down vast quantities of protein, hunters probably left behind scraps that could have contributed to the domestication of wolves.

It is not difficult to comprehend why early people domesticated dogs and made them their new companions. Canines that have been tamed can serve as a line of defense against other animals and human intruders, pull sleds, transport supplies, and give warmth on chilly nights. However, these advantages are not realized until after the animal is domesticated.

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Domestication of original paleo began because paleo

Even after more than a century of research, scientists aren’t entirely sure what began the process of domestication in the first place, and they’re having a hard time explaining it. A new proposal published in Scientific Reports proposes that hunter-gatherers may have shared their surplus meat with wolves because their omnivorous digestive systems prohibited them from consuming excessive protein. It’s possible that those remnants were the first step in domestication.

Study author Maria Lahtinen says this is the first time we’ve had an ecological explanation for the domestication of dogs; she is a senior researcher at the Finnish Food Authority and a visiting researcher at the Finnish Museum of Natural History. “I do not believe that there is a simple answer behind the domestication of dogs, but we need to view the whole picture and the intricacy of the process,” she said.

Lahtinen’s initial intention was not to shed light on a long-standing mystery involving a dog. Instead, she was researching the cuisine of hunter-gatherers who lived in the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions of Eurasia during the Late Pleistocene. Around 20,000 to 15,000 years ago, the planet was engulfed in the coldest period of the most recent ice age. This period lasted for many thousand years. In colder environments back then, as they are today, people tended to obtain most of their sustenance from other animals. It wasn’t always a lack of protein that caused nutritional inadequacies; instead, it was a lack of fat and carbohydrates.

Diarrhea is typically the result when humans consume an excessive amount of meat. And in a few weeks, they can acquire symptoms of protein poisoning and possibly pass away from it. According to Lahtinen, the inability to properly digest protein is because humans have not entirely adapted to a diet consisting of carnivorous foods. It can be very lethal in a concise amount of time.

Reindeer, wild horses, and other human prey animals would have been barely able to eke out an existence during the coldest years of the most recent ice age, especially in the harsh winters of the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions. As a result, their bodies would have been nearly devoid of fat and composed primarily of lean muscle.

Using early fossil records published in the past, Lahtinen and her colleagues concluded that the game taken by people living in the Arctic and sub-Arctic during this time would have provided a great deal more protein than they were able to consume without risking their health.

Wolves and humans would have been directly competing for the same prey species in an environment with more biologically favorable conditions. But in the severe conditions of the Arctic and sub-Arctic ice age winter, people would have been better off if they had shared their excess meat with their canine companions at no additional expense.

The progeny of wolves that took advantage of such freebies would have become more submissive toward their bipedal patrons over time, and it is possible that they went on to become the first dogs to be domesticated. The authors point out that the notion makes sense not only ecologically but also geographically: the oldest discoveries of Paleolithic dogs come predominantly from regions that were quite cold when they were discovered.

According to Brian Hare, an evolutionary anthropologist at Duke University who was not involved in the work, the new study presents a “fascinating idea about lean protein being a food that humans would have discarded, but wolves may have relied on during winter months in the Arctic.” The idea suggests that humans would have thrown away lean protein while wolves may have relied on it during the winter months in the Arctic. “I believe it provides yet another important piece of information regarding how the human-dog partnership may have been sparked first.”

What is the Paleo Diet?

The Paleolithic period, commonly referred to as the Old Stone Age and occurring approximately 2.5 million years ago, was a significant turning point in the history of humans. As a result of humans adapting to the shifting conditions of the environment over this period, substantial physiological and anatomical changes took place.

According to historical accounts, early people made their homes in crude shelters and caves, which existed by hunting and gathering food. To survive the harsh climatic circumstances, humans developed the ability to cook their food, including high-protein animals such as woolly mammoths, bison, and deer.

How Dogs Became Man’s Bestfriend

The paleolithic diet consisted primarily of fat obtained from animals that were hunted during the midst of the ice period. An early discovery made by humans was that consuming only protein might result in either famine or protein toxicity.

This was the beginning of a beautiful connection with the dogs. The leftover thin meat was served to the progenitors of canines, which were werewolves. Their species flourished and survived on diets consisting of a significant amount of protein because their digestive systems were so complex.

Early man and canines had a mutually beneficial relationship due to this.

Dietary Needs Could Be the Origin of Dogs

There has been a lot of discussion and speculation about where the Canis familiaris came from and how it became a domesticated pet over the years.

Maria Lahtinen, an archaeologist working for the Finnish Food Authority, and her colleagues reported the specifics of their findings in the journal Scientific Advances. The team’s first goal was to study individuals who live in the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions. Still, in the end, they were led to postulate about how nutritional requirements are essential to the domestication of dogs.

Early humans and wolves were determined to pack hunters of large prey, and early humans were the first mammal to be tamed by other humans. In earlier times, they were engaged in a struggle for resources within ecological niches that partially overlapped.

According to the study’s findings, there was no fat on the animals that were hunted during the severe winters that occurred during the Old Stone Age. As a result, hunter-gatherers who lived in Eurasia throughout the Pleistocene would have had an abundance of animal-derived protein that they may have shared with early wolves.

Because humans and wolves have differing dietary requirements, the mutually beneficial connection between the two species began with the wolves reaping the benefits of the excess meat while humans experienced neither a loss nor a gain.

It has never been clear where the domestication of dogs began, which has left scientists and historians scratching their heads. Nevertheless, they think it could have started about 15,000 years ago.

According to the findings of the researchers, human hunters in the Arctic could have obtained 45 percent of the calories they required throughout the winter from animal protein. When researchers determined how much protein was included in the prey that was available to wolves during the ice age, they found that the wolves’ protein consumption exceeded the levels that were possible for humans.

If humans could not find any other food sources, they would eventually perish from the high levels of protein in their kills because they shared their meat with wolves.

Because humans have the peculiar practice of feeding animals and maintaining them as pets, researchers tend to lean toward this theory for the evolution of human bands. There is a possibility that humans have taken wolf pups to make room for their surplus of food resources. In the end, a state of domesticity was attained.

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