It has been found that wolves were domesticated into dogs in the Paleolithic era, long before agriculture developed. The international journal Nature said on the 26th that two papers reported that domesticated dogs had already been widely distributed across western Eurasia at least 14,200 years ago.
Until now, the oldest known dog genes dated to 10,900 years ago, but this time genes from 15,800 years ago were identified. By extending the genetic history of dogs by 5,000 years, the findings are expected to help reveal how dogs emerged and spread in Europe.
◇Modern European dogs are descendants of Paleolithic dogs
A research team led by Anders Bergström, professor in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom, reported in Nature that they analyzed the genes of 216 dog and wolf remains from the Paleolithic era transfer to 10,000 years ago in Europe. The oldest dog remains were found at the Kesslerloch site in Switzerland and were dated to about 14,200 years ago.
A comprehensive genetic analysis showed that the Kesslerloch dog shared ancestors with dogs from other parts of Europe. This indicates that the genetic diversification of domesticated dogs began 14,200 years ago. Until now, it was thought that dogs originated separately from wolves in eastern and western Eurasia. The team found that all early European dogs were of East Eurasian lineage. This means they share genetic lineages with Asian dogs.
Dogs were the only domesticated animals present in Europe before the advent of agriculture, but the exact timing of domestication remains unclear. Archaeological evidence suggests that dogs split from wolves in the Paleolithic era 15,000 years ago. Some scientists, based on fossil size and morphology, argued that dogs and wolves diverged much earlier than 30,000 years ago.
But it was difficult to verify that process using only remains. Some fossils that initially appeared to be dogs later turned out to be wolves that are now extinct. By fully decoding the genes of dog remains this time, the researchers found definitive evidence that domesticated dogs spread during the Paleolithic era.
Bergström's team also found that the impact of agriculture, which began in the Neolithic era, on the history of European dogs was smaller than expected. In humans, the spread of agriculture from Southwest Asia to Europe led to large-scale population inflows. Migrants caused major changes in human genetics. In dogs, such genetic effects were less pronounced than in humans. The team said that, rather, dogs kept in hunter-gatherer societies had a greater influence on today's European dog breeds.
◇A special relationship formed in hunter-gatherer societies
A research team led by Laurent Frantz, professor at the Graduate School of Life Sciences at Ludwig Maximilian University of Germany, published a paper reporting that analysis of the genes of Paleolithic dog remains found at Pınarbaşı in Türkiye and Gough's Cave in the United Kingdom showed that domesticated dogs had already been widely distributed across western Eurasia at least 14,300 years ago.
The Türkiye dog dates to about 15,800 years ago, and the United Kingdom dog to 14,300 years ago. The team analyzed the genes of Paleolithic dogs more than 10,000 years old and compared them with those of about 1,000 modern and ancient dogs and wolves worldwide. Comparing mitochondrial DNA, which is maternally inherited, showed that although the Türkiye and United Kingdom sites are more than 300 km apart, the dogs were genetically similar. Genetic analysis revealed that the two Paleolithic dogs were members of a population that expanded across the continent between about 18,500 and 14,000 years ago.
This study also produced evidence that dogs had close relationships with hunter-gatherers of the time. An analysis of radiogenic isotopes in the remains by the University of York and the Natural History Museum in the United Kingdom found that hunter-gatherers in Türkiye likely fed fish to their dogs. This means they provided food that dogs could not easily obtain in the wild. Along with evidence of dog burials, the team explained, this shows that humans treated dogs as special beings.
Why did Paleolithic humans give dogs special treatment? It is unlikely that dogs moved such long distances on their own. Scientists infer that hunter-gatherers took dogs with them as they moved to other regions. Frantz said, "The fact that people exchange dogs across Europe so early indicates that this animal was important." He said, "Keeping dogs when resources were scarce suggests some purpose," adding, "One possibility is that dogs served as an efficient alarm system that alerted people to danger."
Mikkel Sinding of the University of Copenhagen in Denmark and Lauren Hennelly of Rice University in the United States wrote in a commentary in Nature that "these papers reinforce that domesticated dogs had already been widely distributed across western Eurasia 14,000 years ago, from the United Kingdom through Central Europe and the Italian Peninsula to Anatolia (Türkiye)," and that "taken together, the two studies place the origins of today's Western dogs in the late Pleistocene (about 126,000 to 11,700 years ago), before the end of the last ice age."
References
Nature (2026), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10112-7
Nature (2026), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10170-x