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New research shows that the two well-preserved ice age “puppies” found in northern Siberia may not be dogs at all.
Still furry and naturally preserved in ice for thousands of years, “Tamat puppies” contain tips for the last meal of the stomach, including meat from the fur and the meat of a small bird called wagtail, as is known.
Previously, it was thought to be an early domesticated dog or a domesticated wolf living near humans, so the animal remains were found near the bones of wool mammoths burned and cut by humans, suggesting that humans lived near where the mammoths were slaughtered.
By analyzing genetic data from intestinal content and chemical characteristics of bone, teeth and soft tissue, the researchers now believe the animal is a two-month old wolf puppy, and does not show evidence of interaction with people, according to findings published Thursday in Quaternary Research.
Neither of the mummy wolf cubs believed to be sisters show any indication of an attack or injury. Research shows that the burrow collapse may have been caused by landslides.
A wealth of data from the ruins shed light on the daily lives of ice age animals, similar to modern wolves’ habits.
“It was incredible to preserve the two sisters of this era so well, but even more incredible, many of their stories were previously doctoral students at York University and Copenhagen, until the last meal they ate. “While many would be disappointed that these animals were almost certainly wolves and not early domesticated dogs, it helped us to understand the environment at the time, how these animals lived, and how amazingly similar these animals were to modern wolves.”
Numerous studies of these puppies and other specimens show how difficult it is to prove when dogs, widely considered first domesticated animals, become part of human society.
Confined to thawed permafrost, Tumat puppies were found separately at the Syalakh site, about 25 miles (40 km) from the nearest Tumat village. Dr. Nathan Wales, a senior lecturer in archaeology at York University in the UK, said that the contents of the hair, skin, nails and the entire stomach can survive under the correct conditions.
“The most surprising thing for me is that the archaeologists discovered their second Tumat puppy a few years after the first one was discovered,” Runge told CNN. “It’s very rare to find two very well-preserved specimens, and then it turns out to be a sibling/littleman. It’s extraordinary.”
Like modern wolves, puppies ate both meat and plants. Wool rhinoceros are quite large prey for wolves to hunt, but one puppy’s wool rhino skin fragments are evidence of inuid diet. The skin of the blonde furry rhino was partially digested, suggesting that the puppy was resting in the den, and died shortly after his last meal, Lange said.
The colour of wool rhino fur matches the colour of the calf, based on previous studies of larval wool rhino specimens found in permafrost. Adult wool rhinoceros probably had dark fur. According to the study authors, a herd of adult wolves hunted the calves and returned them to their dens to feed the puppies.
“The hunting of animals like furry rhinoceros suggests that even babies are likely larger than the wolves we see today,” Wales wrote in a statement.
Researchers also revealed that the small plants remained fossilized in the Cub’s stomach, and that wolves lived in a dry, somewhat calm environment that supported a variety of vegetation, such as grasslands, willows and shrub leaves.
Researchers say that in addition to eating solid food, puppies are likely still breastfeeding milk from their mothers.
What scientists couldn’t find was evidence that mammoths were part of the Cubs’ diet. This means that it is unlikely that the people in that place are feeding the inuids. But is it possible that people shared a cub and wool rhinoceros? That’s something Wales considered, but now he believes the evidence is being shown in other directions.
“Modern wolves know that they hunt big prey like elk, moose, and musk cows. Anyone who watches animal documentaries knows that wolves tend to choose boys or weak people when they hunt,” Wales wrote in an email. “I lean towards the interpretation that Tamat puppies were given to some of the young woolly rhinoceros (by adult wolves).”
The origin of wool rhino meat is impossible to identify. Wolfpacks may have hunted calves and cleaned them from corpses and slaughterhouses, but given the Cubs’ age and the fact that their burrows fell, it appears unlikely that they were directly supplied by humans.
The fact that cubs were kept in dens and were fed in packs, just as how wolves breed and young today, also suggests that Tamat puppies are wolves rather than dogs, Wales said.
It is difficult to draw a wider picture of a wolf during the Ice Age. It is unclear how the wolf packs interacted with ancient humans, Runge said, as no written sources or cave art were found.
“We need to try to explain our own biases and preconceptions based on the interactions of human wolfs today,” she writes. “And we have to be okay with knowing that we can never answer some of the questions.”
Researchers are still trying to understand how domesticated dogs became human companions. One hypothesis is that wolves lived near humans and cleaned their food. However, the domestication process requires humans to tolerate this behavior for generations. Another hypothesis is that humans will capture aggressively, hand-raised wolves, some of which will be isolated from the wild population and become early dogs.
Previous DNA testing in the Cubs suggested that it could have come from the now extinct wolves that eventually died.
“When we talk about the origins of dogs, we are talking about the first domesticated animals,” Wales said. “And that’s why scientists need to have really solid evidence to claim early dogs.”
All the evidence found by the authors of the new study are compatible with wolves living on their own, Wales said.
“Today, Ritters are often more than two larger, and it is possible that Tamat puppies had brothers who escaped the fate of their brothers,” he said. “We may see more cubs hidden in permafrost or have been defeated by erosion.”
Dr. Linus Girdland-Flink, a lecturer in biomolecular archaeology at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, said that the dogs remained like the Holy Grail at the location and time when they were domesticated. Girdland-Flink’s research is about ancient wolves and dogs, but he was not involved in new research.
However, he said it is not easy to determine whether ancient relics like the Tumat puppy are early dogs, wild wolves, scavengers, or domesticated individuals because of fragmented archaeological records. One piece of evidence does not lead to a definitive answer. And it is even more difficult to make comparisons involving cubs, as adult traits help to distinguish between wild wolves and domesticated dogs.
“Instead, we must put together evidence for various proxies, archaeological, morphological, genetic and ecological, and consider how they fit,” Girdland-Flink wrote in an email. “So I really welcome this new, interdisciplinary Tamat puppy reanalysis.”
Girdland-Flink was not surprised that the Cubs were not associated with the mammoth slaughter site – there is no significant evidence. And combined with the lack of strong genetic connections with dogs, he agreed that the Cubs must come from a population of wolves that do not live with humans.