Hunter-gatherers sharing leftovers with wolves may have helped early dog domestication

During severe Ice Age winters different nutritional requirements meant wolves and humans were not always competing for the same kinds of meat

Desire to keep pet wolves may not have meant compromising on food, scientists suggest (Getty)

Despite wolves being dangerous pack-hunting predators, these large animals were the first species domesticated by humans — but how and why we came to rear dogs remains unclear.

Paleolithic humans and wolves had the capacity to kill each other, but new research suggests some of the key early interactions which led to domestication could have been when people fed them leftover scraps of meat.

During harsh winters at the end of the last ice age, around 14,000 to 29,000 years ago, hunter-gatherer tribes may have fed some lean meat to wolf packs instead of competing with wolves for scarce resources, according to scientists from Finland.