First known pictures of domestic dogs discovered after being carved into rock 9,000 years ago

'This is the first imagery of a dog with a leash'

Holocene-era etchings depict humans with hunting dogs - including some on leads (Maria Guagnin)

Archaeologists have uncovered what they say are the earliest known depictions of domesticated dogs, with pictures engraved in rocks showing some of the animals on leads during a hunt.

The images were discovered in Saudi Arabia’s north west, at sites called Shuwaymis and Jubbah, and depict people surrounded by packs of the animals.

They are shown hunting horse-like creatures and date, potentially, as far back as early Holocene period in the eighth millennium BC.

Lead author Maria Guagnin told the New York Times: “We can now say about 9,000 years ago people already controlled their dogs and had them on leashes and used them for really complex hunting strategies.”

Her study added: “The elaborate depictions of such sizeable hunting dog groups on the Arabian Peninsula, up to 21 animals in some panels, suggests a sustained, and perhaps managed, breeding population, instead of one-off-traded individuals.”

A team of archaeologists from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Germany analysed hundreds of drawings.

“This is the first imagery of a dog with a leash,” said co-author Michael Petraglia.

The animals are “reminiscent of the modern Canaan dog,” researchers said, but precisely where they originated was not clear.

Precisely dating the etchings is also difficult, but estimates were made based on artwork that came before and afterward in the same area.

The original domestication of dogs is thought to have taken place some 15,000 years ago. The first animals were taken from a population of creatures that were ancestors of the grey wolf.