Ancient Humans Teamed Up with Early, Domestic Dogs to Hunt and Kill Mammoths

Thousands of years ago, our ancient ancestors hunted the mammoth, harvesting it for its bones, meat and fur. Now, though, a new analysis of a few key archaeological sites has shown researchers something surprising: it's possible that our ancestors once teamed up with early domestic dogs in order to hunt and kill mammoths.

The archaeological sites in question contain large numbers of dead mammoths and dwellings built with mammoth bones. In fact, some of these sites contain the remains of hundreds of individuals. What's more interesting is that these sites suddenly became common in central and eastern Eurasia between 45,000 and 15,000 years ago, even though mammoths previously had been hunted by humans.

"One of the greatest puzzles about these sites is how such large numbers of mammoths could have been killed with the weapons available during that time," said Emerita Pat Shipman, one of the researchers, in a news release.

Researchers found that it's very unlikely that these mammoths died of natural causes, which meant that the humans weren't scavenging. Instead, they were likely killed by humans with some kind of new technique. And that technique, as it turns out, may have been working with dogs.

"Dogs help hunters find prey faster and more often, and dogs can surround a large animal and hold it in place by growling and charging while hunters move in. Both of these effects would increase hunting success," said Shipman in a news release. "Furthermore, large dogs like those identified by Germonpre either can help carry the prey home or, by guarding the carcass from other carnivores, can make it possible for the hunters to camp at the kills sites."

In fact, researchers have uncovered that some of the large carnivores present at these archaeological sites were large dogs, rather than wolves. It's therefore possible that our ancient ancestors were using early, domesticated dogs in order to increase their hunting success. In addition, the scientists found the remains of a large number of other large predators at these mammoth kill sites.

"Both dogs and wolves are very alert to the presence of other related carnivores-the canids-and they defend their territories and food fiercely," said Shipman in a news release. "If humans were working and living with domesticated dogs or even semi-domesticated wolves at these archaeological sites, we would expect to find the new focus on killing the wild wolves that we see here."

The findings reveal a bit more about the ancient hunting practices of man. That said, researchers still need to conduct more studies on these sites in order to determine whether or not dogs definitely played a role. Yet the evidence so far seems to support this idea.

"If more of these distinctive doglike canids are found at large, long-term sites with unusually high numbers of dead mammoths and wolves; if the canids are consistently large, strong, individuals; and if their diets differ from those of wolves, dogs may indeed be man's best friend," said Shipman in a news release.

The findings are published in the journal Quaternary International.