Humans cared for wolves long before dogs emerged, study finds
Discovery of wolf bones offer answers about prehistoric human life
- Prehistoric wolf remains discovered on the Swedish island of Stora Karlsö suggest humans cared for wolves thousands of years before dogs fully emerged.
- Archaeologists found the 3,000-5,000-year-old remains in the Stora Förvar cave, a site heavily used by Stone Age and Bronze Age seal hunters and fishers.
- The wolves were likely brought to the remote island by people, possibly by boat, as there is no evidence of native land mammals.
- DNA analysis confirmed the animals were wolves, not dogs, and one wolf's healed limb injury indicates it was cared for by humans, suggesting close interaction.
- The findings imply that human-wolf relationships were more varied than previously thought, hinting at early domestication experiments that did not directly lead to modern dogs.