The History and Evolution of Dogs

(word count includes Annotated Bibliography)

Throughout the world there are many different countries that contain diverse cultures, religions, and life styles. There is however certain aspects within these countries and cultures that acts as a common ground between one another. One dominant aspect is the existence of dogs within these cultures. Dogs are common throughout the world, either as a domestic pet, a protector on a farm, or an assistant for hunting; amongst others. Regardless of the reason for having a dog most people have either owned one for themselves or has known somebody who has owned one at some point in their life. Despite the relative normality of having a dog in your life in one way or another, the reasons for dogs coming into existence is not common knowledge among most people. Throughout a great portion of mankind’s history dogs have been an essential part of life. The truth is dogs were actually created in part by man. It was evolution from wolves in the form of natural and artificial selection that brought dogs into existence (Harris 3). This is the most modern and widely excepted theory at this time, however this was not always the case considering the theory of evolution in of itself is relatively new in our society. After evolution as a theory was accepted there were several other variations on the theory such as, the evolution being from jackals opposed to wolves, and artificial selection being the only form of evolution to have taken place. According to Jarret A Lobell and Eric A Powell of Archaeology magazine “The idea that dogs were domesticated from jackals was long ago discarded in favor of the notion that dogs descend from the gray wolf (2)”. As for the theory that artificial selection ...

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...tion, including their initial evolution, their domestication, and the roles they played in human society throughout the ages. It is a relatively new book being published in 2010. Darcy Morey, the author of this book is a zooarchaeologist and focuses his research on the relationship between dogs and humans throughout time. He is a graduate of the University of Tennessee. This book is based on the authors own research and also refers to the information gathered by many other scientists, all of which are listed in the reference section of the book. As mentioned this book contains the results of research from many scientists and is beneficial for learning both general and more scientific knowledge on the subject. I would recommend it to anybody who is conduction a research on the topic. This book was found using I-Share using the search term the domestication of dogs.