h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: How dogs happened - A1132796
Author: Alitnil - U198253

I still have some questions but I don't know how to find the answers (yet). I haven't seen anywhere else a discussion of the domestication mechanism. Probably because there is no scientific way to verify it. Oh, well.

It is a pretty interesting topic and hotly debated. There has been quite a lot over the years about the whole hominid/dog symbiosis over on the "sci.anthropology.paleo" newsgroup (you can find it on Google quite easily). It has been a while since my paleoanthropology days so I find the endless and hairsplitting discussions pretty hard to follow but you might be able to pick some good stuff out of there.

I think this latest strand of research is brilliant and may be getting pretty close to the truth. Another theory (again hard to prove) is that pre-humans actually begun by observing and learning from the pack hunting habits of African Wild Dogs and that is where it all started. You'll find stuff on that in sci.anthropology.paleo, too.

My only other suggestion is the use of the word "unequivocally" - science has a habit of progressing and today's "unequivocal proof" is tomorrow's joke so I would always use it advisedly.

Good point, Seyms, about "unequivocally". I really like mitochondrial studies, however, and would love to believe they're as close to unequivocal as we get, mostly because they're so elegant.

Very interesting entry, I wonder though if it would be suitable for the EG as it seems to be mostly speculation (I rather feel your theorys sound quite good though).

That's why I still want to pursue some of the [bracketed] questions. I have to figure out how to.