Ms. Coyote, I could not help but notice your comments about the domestication of dogs, being a dog lover myself. Many years ago when I studied Cultural Anthropology under Beth Dillingham, an associate of and co-author with one of the two founders of American Cultural Anthropology, Leslie White at Michigan, I read about the domestication …
Ms. Coyote, I could not help but notice your comments about the domestication of dogs, being a dog lover myself. Many years ago when I studied Cultural Anthropology under Beth Dillingham, an associate of and co-author with one of the two founders of American Cultural Anthropology, Leslie White at Michigan, I read about the domestication of dogs. Anthropologists then thought dogs were domesticated in the way you mentioned. That is, they followed mobile bands of Hunter-gatherers and ate the food scraps those humans left behind.
Recent research indicates that this is not the best explanation. Instead biologists have found the allele which makes dogs qualitatively different from wolves. Even though dogs and wolves are both lupine creatures and can mate, producing hybrid offspring. They are not genetically the same creatures. In his recent, lovely book DOG IS LOVE author Clive Wynne actually reveals the number of the allele which is found in dogs, but not in wolves. Thus, dogs have appeared sometime in the ancient past as a result of a genetic mutation. A qualitative leap. Dogs are not domesticated wild lupine creatures. Dogs are their own thing. The obvious affection they display for humans is built into them biologically. Neither wild African dogs nor wolves can be made into lovers of humans as dogs are. It is simply not built into them.
Sorry if I am didactic. I could not resist. I love dogs.
Ms. Coyote, I could not help but notice your comments about the domestication of dogs, being a dog lover myself. Many years ago when I studied Cultural Anthropology under Beth Dillingham, an associate of and co-author with one of the two founders of American Cultural Anthropology, Leslie White at Michigan, I read about the domestication of dogs. Anthropologists then thought dogs were domesticated in the way you mentioned. That is, they followed mobile bands of Hunter-gatherers and ate the food scraps those humans left behind.
Recent research indicates that this is not the best explanation. Instead biologists have found the allele which makes dogs qualitatively different from wolves. Even though dogs and wolves are both lupine creatures and can mate, producing hybrid offspring. They are not genetically the same creatures. In his recent, lovely book DOG IS LOVE author Clive Wynne actually reveals the number of the allele which is found in dogs, but not in wolves. Thus, dogs have appeared sometime in the ancient past as a result of a genetic mutation. A qualitative leap. Dogs are not domesticated wild lupine creatures. Dogs are their own thing. The obvious affection they display for humans is built into them biologically. Neither wild African dogs nor wolves can be made into lovers of humans as dogs are. It is simply not built into them.
Sorry if I am didactic. I could not resist. I love dogs.