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Fantastic Domesticates and Where to Find Them - Dogs - Ep 63
447 Plays5 years ago
For this episode of Just the Boyz, we kick off our series on animal domesticates, starting with the oldest known domesticated animal: the dog. We are fortunate to have David as a one of the hosts as he is one of the leading public scholars when it comes to the relationship between dogs and humans throughout human history. We chat about the earliest evidence for dog domestication, the leading theories behind Howe and why dogs were domesticated, and delve into a discussion about the Siberian Fox Domestication experiment and animal research ethics.
Literature recommendations
1) "Dogs": Darcey Morey
2) "The Social Dog: Behavior and Cognition" Kominski and Marshall-Pescini
3) “Dogs: Archaeology Beyond Domestication" Bethke and Burtt
4) "Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know" Alexandra Horowitz
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Transcript
Introduction to Life Ruins Podcast
00:00:01
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network. Welcome to episode 63 of Life Ruins Podcast, where you investigate the careers of those living life ruins. I'm your host Carlton Gover, and I'm joined by my co-hosts, as always, Connor Johnen and David Howe.
Exploring Dog Domestication
00:00:26
Speaker
In today's edition of Just the Boys, we are talking about domestication as it pertains to animal domestication. And to start off with tonight's discussion, we are absolutely fortunate to have the leading, I'd say leading public figure in dog domestication, our very own
00:00:47
Speaker
David Howe, ethnocynology, talking about domestication today, specifically like the first animal, and please correct me if I'm wrong, David, to have been domesticated by human beings is dogs. Is that correct?
Call for Listener Engagement
00:01:01
Speaker
Before we get into this, guys, I know you wait to the end of the podcast and you tune out right when it's over and you don't listen to the end. You're missing Connor's jokes and you're also missing the point where I'm like, hey, guys,
00:01:14
Speaker
Rate and review the podcast. I'm saying it now before we jump into it. Just pause, go to where you're at, Spotify, Instagram, iTunes, rate that podcast, review it, give us one star. I don't care, just review it. Leave us a little thing, makes us look better, makes it better for you. Carlton, continue about domestication.
Origins and History of Dogs
00:01:33
Speaker
Absolutely. Yeah. Great points by David. So prior to, and dogs come from wolves, correct? Is it Canis lupus? Canis lupus, yes, is the modern gray wolf, but it's possibly from an extinct gray wolf species, but it would still be in the genus Canis for sure.
00:01:54
Speaker
Now in paleontology, there are bone crushing dogs, correct? Like in paleontology, there are a couple of species that have the label dogs. Are they truly dogs as we know them today? Or do you know anything about that background in terms of taxonomy? Especially here in North America, where we have these like dogs that date back millions of years ago.
00:02:13
Speaker
Yeah, so like the Borofagone, like, or Borofagone, whatever you want to say. Either way, it sounds weird. But they're like ancient canids that are, we call them bone crushing dogs. But to answer your question, man, it's like gender or race. It's just words we attribute to something and then therefore they get categorized as something. And I was just on a podcast earlier today.
00:02:34
Speaker
This guy asked me great questions and the most concise I've ever answered them. I'm like right now, but he asked me about African wild dogs and like, why are they different than regular dogs? And I was like, cause they're not dogs are wolves. They're literally in their own genus. They just happened to look and behave like dogs. And like they're in, uh, Lyacom pictus is their names, like the painted wolves. And yeah, they're not dogs in any sense. And the bone crushing dogs are not.
00:02:59
Speaker
dogs in the proper sense, but dog is like a Latin term for anything dog-like. So the Latin, you know, name for dogs we have now is Canis lupus familiaris. So Canis dog lupus wolf familiaris, like the friendly one. So like the family one, the domestic one. So dog wolf friendly.
00:03:19
Speaker
Yeah. Canis lupus is dog wolf is the gray wolf. So like, it's just confusing. So in this episode, when we refer to dogs, let's just refer to domestic dogs.
Ashfall Fossils and Ancient Canines
00:03:31
Speaker
Excellent. Honestly, one of the coolest paleontological sites I've ever seen is the Ashfall site in Nebraska, where it's with last time Yellowstone went off, it covered
00:03:41
Speaker
the Midwest and Eastern United States and ash a couple of million years ago. And there's a depression in the natural environment, a bunch of American rhinos. They don't have the tusks. They're really weird. The whole point of this, there's like a couple dozen American rhinos that died.
00:03:57
Speaker
in this depression. And you can see they have fossilized bone crushing dog paws that you can see on the surface. And you can also see just how intact they are. It's so cool. The actual rhinos aren't even fossilized because the ash produced that a layer over the bones that negated the fossilization process. So the inside of them is still soft. And you can see where bone crushing dogs removed ribs and vertebra and pieces of the rhinos off.
00:04:27
Speaker
and discard them elsewhere in the site and you can see their paw prints. Wow. Moving to and
Dogs in Mythology and Early Domestication
00:04:33
Speaker
from places. It's absolutely fascinating. You can also see a pregnant rhino. It still has the fetus in the pelvis area. Solid. Crazy. And that's when I, that's where I first learned about bone crushing dogs years ago. Yeah.
00:04:47
Speaker
Yeah. Reach out to, uh, what is it? Uh, Mary Annings revenge. Mary Annings revenge. Mary underscore Annings underscore revenge. She's no longer at the museum of the Rockies, right? She's, she's here in the big peach, big old Georgia. All right, David. And one of my, we, we did like a video before we asked you about America, Indian dogs, cause I had never thought about them before.
00:05:11
Speaker
Prior to one of Dr. Taylor's students, Dr. Taylor was on a previous episode of ours talking about domestication, specifically the horses.
Debating Dog Domestication in America
00:05:18
Speaker
One of his new students here in the PhD program does dogs. I never thought about them before.
00:05:25
Speaker
And when we talk about domestication, specifically of animals, we'll get the plants later in the podcast. What's the earliest evidence or what is the current train of thought as to when wolves became domesticated?
00:05:42
Speaker
to become dogs, right? Because all dogs today are descendants of wolves, correct? Yes. Should we step aside and define domestication first before we get into that, or do we want to do that later? We also need to say that all dogs go to heaven, so that's also...
Defining Domestication and Human Interaction
00:06:00
Speaker
Excellent series. Yes, so the definition for domestication as it relates to animals according to dictionary.com
00:06:08
Speaker
is the act or process of taming an animal for human use or companionship. Is that a definition you all would agree with? I have, in my PowerPoint, very similar. It's the systematic cultivating or taming of a population of organisms in order to accentuate traits that are desirable to the cultivator or tamer. So same kind of thing. Yeah. And humans basically have been
00:06:34
Speaker
in interacting with animals for as long as we've been a species, right? But at some point we
Genetics and Initial Domestication Theories
00:06:41
Speaker
decided that we wanted to change or I don't know if that's a decision, a conscious decision or? I would say dogs came to us like they, not that they domesticated themselves in that sense. I hate when people say that, but like,
00:06:57
Speaker
we didn't actively go out and be like, let's rope some wolves and call them dogs. You know, like that just was a natural process over time. But after that, when we get goats and cows and sheep and stuff, that was more of like a, okay, we're sitting in one spot now. We don't want to go hunt anymore. Let's bring them to us. And they start corralling them, um, which would be my guess. So, so that's, and that's fascinating cause I never thought about it that way, but dogs are the earliest thing we've domesticated and we've seen them,
00:07:25
Speaker
Globally correct. You see them globally by 13,000 years ago or 15,000 when they're brought to the Americas. I personally think they're brought with the first wave. I think so too. I'd subscribe to that.
00:07:39
Speaker
Shane will text me after the readiness music, but I think paper dr. Perry brilliant woman I mean brilliant researcher all around just like 20,000 years ago is the DNA evidence I think it's Perry at all is the paper is there like
00:07:56
Speaker
a mitochondrial Eve for dogs, like there is humans. And for those that are listening, what I mean by mitochondrial Eve is that through DNA analysis, all humans are related to one specific female Australopithecine through mitochondrial DNA in Africa. When you're talking about the DNA research into like, when's the first dog? Is there like the first mitochondrial, I don't know, is there? Yeah, the first mitochondrial dog, mama dog. Yeah, mama dog.
00:08:25
Speaker
Specifically, I don't know. I assume whatever dog samples they got in those papers, Perry et al. It's like, or I forget what the name of the paper is, but new evidence for the origin of the domestic dog, something like that. 2019 is Perry. It's that sample of dogs. I would say it's the closest thing to that. I don't think they have like one specific dog that's like.
00:08:42
Speaker
And then there's a debate, like, is it a multi-regional domestication event or is it just the one in Siberia 20,000 years ago that spread? Because much like the bow and arrow, it's a technology that then diffuses. So like if it's a great technology, it's just going to diffuse fast. Right. That's fascinating. So what is that site that you're talking about when you're talking about Siberia?
00:09:05
Speaker
Well, it's just in that last paper they talk about how like all the DNA of like modern domestic dogs and like ancient dogs they find in ancient wolves clusters up in Northeast Asia. So in Siberia.
00:09:17
Speaker
If for whatever reason the people there got kind of stuck or like it was just cold and they'd be like, you know, just liked it up there, it became their culture. And then the wolves there too, kind of isolated, had to quickly co-adapt because you're in the Ice Age tundra of northern Siberia or the forests of Siberia and like you're going to be hunting a lot of reindeer together. So eventually you're going to run into each other and that would be the
00:09:39
Speaker
Like my thing is talking about the domestication processes and the different theories as to how that would have happened and all of that would have been taking place up there in Siberia, whereas Angela does like the genetics.
00:09:48
Speaker
So you've been talking about genetic evidence, but there's also, it's important to acknowledge the bone, the final evidence that shows up. Cause that's the way you, you ultimately measure or try to say when the first dog is, is through like more morphology of bones and whatnot. And that's kind of gets back to the point of, or what does domestication do to dogs and how does that appear in the skeleton?
00:10:16
Speaker
Yeah. That's a great question that segues into the last one too, where like also ties in with that earth evolution. It's not Pokemon. You don't give something to firestone and evolve it, or it doesn't evolve at level 36 to blast the ways, right? Like overnight. That is such a good.
00:10:33
Speaker
That's great, dude. Well, I've been doing this for a few years now. But right. Yeah. So you can't just evolve something overnight at will. So in that sense, at 20,000 years ago, we have dogs 21,000 years ago. What do they look like?
00:10:49
Speaker
So that's where we find all of those. When I say we, I was talking about this someone else did it like, I hate when people say they, like when they found or they, that leads to like academic like fear. Like we don't want to, we as in like a collective like Western canon have found this. That's why I say we, I should establish that, but I wasn't on these papers is what I'm getting at.
00:11:11
Speaker
Yeah, it doesn't evolve overnight. So we find like different, we as academics find dog skulls in different caves around Eurasia, in Belgium, Germany, France. I think the Netherlands is another one and then way up in Siberia and also in the Altai Mountains and like
00:11:31
Speaker
They look like dogs. So you compare them to dog specimens you have at your Zoarch labs and they look similar, but they also look like wolves at the same time. It doesn't happen overnight. So at what point, I think that one's like 36,000 years old. They think one is a dog. And I think Angela has found her and her team that like those aren't dogs based on DNA. But like, again, it's a species name that we apply to something. So like the dog DNA that we have that all allocates to Northern Siberia over there.
00:12:01
Speaker
What is that kind of dog? You know, like it's just hard to determine. So I personally think like what we know of as a dog now is a fully in appearance by 20,000 years ago, certainly by the Neolithic, right?
00:12:14
Speaker
Like a pet dog, a domestic dog. But before that, upwards of 50,000 years or so, wolves are going to be learning what to do around people and like how to interact with them. And like, that's going to start changing their niche, but evolution doesn't happen fast. So let's say 20,000 years is the solid date. And I think I went completely far from your question.
00:12:33
Speaker
No, no, no. That was fascinating, dude. But you're mentioning that it comes in stages. So you're not just like, like you said, it's not just overnight. You get canids in different stages of domestication and they appear like that. And then you as a discipline
00:12:48
Speaker
have defined what a dog is and that's kind of where you take. There's some morphology that has decided that this is a dog now and there's some DNA that's saying that, but there's also lots of cool research you can do about pre-cainted dogs, right, as well.
00:13:06
Speaker
And in the sense that we would separate regionally distinct humans like Denisovans, Neanderthals, and Homo sapiens at 20,000 years, we can distinguish between a dog and a wolf. That population of wolves though is no longer around because they are dogs.
00:13:21
Speaker
So did, did any of the Denisovans Neanderthals or even the Java hobbits is, is there a current thought in terms that some of these other either subspecies of humans or different species of humans have domesticated dogs? There's a book called the invaders by Pat shipment and the invaders, the invaders.
00:13:47
Speaker
Dr. Pat Shipman, and it talks about like, whether or not Neanderthals had humans or if humans and their dogs helped eradicate Neanderthals, or not eradicate, but you know, the whole thing, like subsume them. But there's no way to tell, man, if they're like, if the hobbits or if Denisovans or Neanderthals had wolves, there's just no evidence for it, other than like wolf skulls at caves. But we could argue that like, those wolves were chill and just hanging and not eating the people and they were like talking to it, you know?
00:14:17
Speaker
And what would cause wolves to interact with humans? Because as you said before, if this was an Eevee, there's no firestone, waterstone, or thunderstone to evolve them into a Vaporeon, Jolteon, or Flareon, I think it is. What causes this process? Because you said earlier in this episode,
00:14:42
Speaker
After dogs, you see sheep, cattle, some of these other humans are like, I'm not moving anywhere. I want those things to be close to me so I don't have to hunt them and I want them to be chill as hell. What was the catalyst for this domestication process to occur based on what we currently understand?
00:15:05
Speaker
for dogs to have occurred. You just blew my mind because I just realized Evie, Kanto Pokemon, Kanto Pokedex number 133, I think. I think so, yeah. It's my verify that. 132, 133. If you don't watch the YouTube version of this podcast, Dick Connor is shaking his head because he does. We're just freaking nerds right now. I believe it's 153. Anyway, he's a dog. That's a really good point. I mean, he's either a rabbit or a dog. He's not a cat. Evie's a dog.
00:15:34
Speaker
Yeah, and Eevee is the first Pokémon in the original Kanto decks that he's known for evolving into different things as regionally specialized. Dude, that's cool. They knew what they were doing, man. Awesome, but yes.
00:16:09
Speaker
Humans and wolves are extremely similar animals in behavior and prey breadth. And, you know, in a sense, primates are very social. Wolves have an extremely complex social structure. They communicate and they hunt with social cues and visual things. And there's always like, if I say there's dominance hierarchies, I'll get canceled by like 50,000 people. If I say there's not dominance hierarchies, I'll get canceled by the other 50,000 people. So I don't talk about it.
00:16:11
Speaker
I got so sidetracked.
00:16:35
Speaker
But we have similar social structures that humans would have tried to replicate and that wolves easily could have adapted to with people. They're just like when I yell at Strider for trying to eat my food and I yell no.
00:16:48
Speaker
which will cancel me because some people are like, you can't correct your dog. You can tell your dog no. Sorry, I stand on that ground. You can tell your dog no, dude. Paleoindians and ancient people in Siberia, they were telling their dogs no left and right because they're going to bite children. They're going to bite you. You tell them no.
00:17:06
Speaker
But yes, you can tell them those things and they understand cues. And even if they don't understand modern English or whatever the language was back then, they would understand the aggressive like, no, from somebody and would cower because a wolf does that when they nip at each other and they bark at each other. And it's...
00:17:22
Speaker
really cool to think about how like ancient people were done and the quick way before we wrap this session up is like I think Bernie Taylor had mentioned it when he was on here and like how people you know talked with animals if there's and you said it's not really how they talked to animals it's like they knew how to read nature and things like that uh with dogs oh jeez that fuck that that comment by Bernie
00:17:46
Speaker
Yeah. Where he's like, yeah, all Indians were freaking animal wizards. It's like, nah, dude. Right. And not to say that he's he's right. But in this case, like if you think of Pavlovian science, ancient humans would have communicated with dogs like via a language of food. And like they both want food. They both eat reindeer a lot. They both eat elk. They both eat bison. And they're like, OK, I will throw you some bison if you do not bite me. And it was like a mutual exchange.
00:18:14
Speaker
Gotcha. Food motivated information. All right. So, uh, we'll go ahead and take our first break here through second one. We'll be right back with episode 63 of life from his podcast. We'll be right back. If you didn't see Stefan's story on June 21st, 2021,
00:18:42
Speaker
That is him shirtless in his garage wearing a Roman helmet with a broomstick on the top of it. Just what a guy. Honestly, he's a lad and that made me cackle more than most things I ever have. So anyway, honestly, you're bringing us in. I saw his video. I saw his video on Sheffield archeology news talking about like the fall of Sheffield. Awesome video though. I know, I know. Stefan listens. That was an excellent video on Sheffield archeology. God, I hope they make it.
00:19:07
Speaker
Yeah. So that was at Stefan Milo bringing us in, and this is episode 63 of a life in ruins podcast, where we sometimes talk archeology and sometimes talk about true facts, history, whatever it is. We kind of do the backdoor pilot for the ethnocynology podcast. Um, how's that doing by the way? You got Donnie dust is episode one, right?
00:19:28
Speaker
Yeah. Uh, you know, how's any other project I have doing how, like, just, that's, that's your thing. You're, you are absolutely a brilliant individual. You're just so busy. I literally haven't sat down until right now today. You're Jim Carrey from yes, man.
00:19:46
Speaker
I know it's bad and it leads to just repugnant mental health issues and it's awful. And I'm like, Oh yeah. I need to write a book. Oh yeah. Tori and I are doing a book. Oh right. Yeah. I got to do this video. Oh yeah. I got to do like shit. I got to exercise today. I got to do this. I have to eat this many fats today. I have to eat this many. It just like becomes a whole thing and I got to work 40 hours a week. So let's talk dogs. Oh yeah. I was on a podcast earlier today before this totally forgot about it. So what are the four characteristics of domestication? Right? Cause we've talked about it. We did the definition, but
00:20:16
Speaker
Physiologically, domestication changes an animal, correct? Like Strider, God, he's such a beautiful looking dog, but he doesn't look like a wolf as well as, you know, a Corgi and other animals go through those same traits. So what, what are those four physical characteristics? He doesn't look like a wolf as much as a Corgi does. Is that what you're saying?
00:20:40
Speaker
A core you looks far less like a wolf than Strider. Strider is a gorgeous looking dog. Some of your post day when he was a puppy, I don't think I ever saw Strider as a puppy. I think the first time I ever saw Strider was I was coming to your backyard. It was like a, it was a graduate student meeting.
00:20:55
Speaker
Yeah. I remember, I remember you and Craig, but this post is like, yeah, we'll do this like digging competition. Cause you guys wanted a fire pit, but in the Facebook invite, we'll do it. We'll do a one by one digging competition. You could actually get the fastest one by one. That's frigging lame. And then talk to you guys later. You guys are like, yeah, we just wanted to fire pit. Wanted to con people into digging it for us. That was just me.
00:21:19
Speaker
You know what? That makes sense. Just tell him, sorry, people are doing shit for me. Also at work, if there's something I don't want to do or I'm like, oh, this is confusing. I will pretend to be confused and Chris will come over and be like, oh no, it's pretty easy, man. And he'll just do the whole thing for me. And I'm like, all right.
00:21:36
Speaker
It works. Anyway, so if that happens to you guys, I'm sorry, or if I've done that to you in the past, we were talking about traits of domestication. There's like four. How did we end up with corgis? Okay. First of all, I need, I want to see a wolf head on a corgi body.
00:21:51
Speaker
More than anything. That's called a Swedish Lapund. Look it up. Oh my God, okay. That's gonna happen. Or a Swedish Wolfund, I think. So you're talking about, there's four characteristics, morphological characteristics, right? There's six. A key to behavior for domestication is you need to have a diet easily supplied by humans. So wolves and us have the same prey of breath back in the day. Yes, we hunted.
00:22:18
Speaker
And then two, it's a fast growth rate and short birth spacing. An elephant takes 22 months to have like a baby. It gestates. It's pretty quick. I forget what it is for wolves. I think it's a few months. Swedish Valhunds or wolfhounds are ugly as fuck. I'll take the Corgi any day of the week. Wait, look up the Swedish Lapund. That's what I'm looking up. What?
00:22:41
Speaker
It looks like a corgi with a curly tail, like a pug, but furrier. Oh, oh, that's the wrong one. Swedish. Lapooned. L-A-P-P-H-U-N-D. Okay, it's Swedish wolfooned. Yeah, that's the one I looked up. It's ugly. It's a corgi wolf, bro. I'll take a corgi. This is, I like the colors of a corgi. Oh my God. This is weird. This is a wolf with stumpy legs, dude. Oh, get out of here. And no tail.
00:23:11
Speaker
We're not looking at the same dog, dude. I'm looking at it right now. Swedish Wolfhound. I'm looking at a tail right here. Yeah, it has a really fuzzy tail, but there's some pictures where they're cropped. I'm not a fan. Don't crop dog tails. No cap, no crop. I saw a gold retriever with a crop tail the other day. It mentally broke my mind. Yeah, that's ridiculous. It's like declawing a cat. Like, come on, I don't do that.
00:23:39
Speaker
One, diet easily supplied by humans. Two, fast growth rate and short birth spacing. Three, docile temperaments. Wolves can have docile temperaments, and when you feed them enough food, they will listen to you. We see that with wolf trainers today. If you think about this as goats and cows and guinea pigs and llamas, this is the case.
00:23:58
Speaker
willingness to breed in captivity. Pandas will not do it in front of people, so they cannot be devastated. Dogs clearly don't have a problem. Goats don't have a problem. Five is a dominance hierarchy. This one's debated, but wolves, obviously we can see up some kind of dominance hierarchy. There usually is like a head bull in like a cow situation kind of thing. And then do not panic when enclosed is the last one. You can have a few of these, not all of them.
00:24:25
Speaker
And that's how it works. So any of the domestic animals, like goats, I guess if you trap ibex in like a, you know, like corral, they'll just be like, all right, this is my fate. I don't know. I haven't trapped a wild ibex to see.
00:24:38
Speaker
But as you mentioned those characteristics, like only some animals can be domesticated. Like they tried with zebras, but zebras is such a prey mentality that they're always skittish, that you just can't domesticate them. And I think an extraordinarily interesting case study was the fox domestication project, which took place in Russia. Yeah. Uh, do you want to get into that?
00:25:05
Speaker
I absolutely want to get into that. Like, you know, you know, Yama's awesome. However, like I watched, I think like years ago when we first started this podcast, I watched, we had one of the English participants of the wolf domestication project give a
00:25:26
Speaker
talk at Boulder and I talked to you guys about it immensely. I was so fascinated by it and how they talked about those traits. And because like the domestication of dogs happened so long ago, which is always interesting. Like Connor mentioned, all dogs go to heaven. However, with that argument, dogs are not one of God's creations. If you subscribe to that,
00:25:53
Speaker
Dogs by some definitions are technically human because they are a human invention and originally were a tool. And it's only within the past like 200 years have dogs become more of a, what's the word, accessory?
00:26:10
Speaker
rather than like a tool. There's tons of different indigenous like mythologies on like how dogs were and or like how they were created and things and most of them say that like like in more or less like the stories kind of talk about how they are some kind of intermediary between animal and human.
00:26:29
Speaker
Like, they don't see them as animal, they don't see them as human. They're like in the middle. So the Inu and the Mi'kmaq saw them as like traitors to the animal kingdom and they couldn't chew on other animal bones, they could only eat fish. Can I intersect in that? Yeah. Because like in Pawnee mythology, we have earth lot, we have animal.
00:26:49
Speaker
We have animal lodges in which, and like specific animals have a place of being where they produce. And I know Matt Reed, the punny nation tip, I was listening to this and let Carl, and that's fine. There's animal lodges in which there are animal powers, but there isn't a dog.
00:27:11
Speaker
animal lodge. However, dogs are intrinsic to Pawnee mythology, but there's this divorce between dogs and North American specifically Great Plains animals. And like something I've always been fascinated about, especially being friends with you, David, and knowing through you, I've learned more about dogs, just period things that I've never thought about before.
00:27:39
Speaker
and thinking about the domestication process and how I believe, as you do, that dogs came to North America with humans rather than dogs being domesticated in North America, isolated from dogs being domesticated elsewhere, that even in our mythology, my mythology, that there are kind of like these little, I wouldn't say like splitting hairs, but like knowing what I know through you, there's other animals that have these lodges in this medicine,
00:28:09
Speaker
that is taught from these animals to the Pawnee people. But dogs don't have that, but they are still have a, I don't know, necessarily say sacred. Dogs have a place, but it's different from the natural North American animals, which makes me really think about like, well, did dogs come here with Pawnee, ancestral Pawnees or ancestral Great Plains people or ancestral North Americans in general.
00:28:36
Speaker
And like that's my anthropologist thinking, if you know what I mean. Yeah. Like to pick that up, like, okay, well, where's the dog lodge? Where's the dog medicine? And it's not there, but dogs are still in integral to our being as ponies. Are they just lumped into the human lodge? I would think so. That's the case in most societies. They're just there. They're just there. Did you have a question? I was just going to say, so where there, there were wolves in North America.
00:29:06
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. Around that time. So, okay. Dire wolves and wolves when they got here. Okay. Just wanted to make sure. I couldn't, I couldn't remember if there was like, they were isolated. Can I go ahead and stand on the record? Cause I loved, and this is one of the reasons I really fastened by what David talks about. It's like, there's only a couple.
00:29:24
Speaker
North American, like if you look at native North American indigenous nations, there's kind of like this one animal they subscribe to. Like Lakotas are like, we're the Buffalo Pawnees. What up? Hence the freaking wolf. That's not the side. If you're looking at the YouTube version, where is it? It's on the really worse side. It's here anyways. He's pointing to his arm. Touchies pointing to my specifically the wolf one.
00:29:48
Speaker
It's like Pawnees were known as the wolves of the plains and like our in Native American sign language, which does exist, like our symbol for ourselves is wolf ears. And that's how we would identify ourselves is like,
00:30:04
Speaker
that's our animal that we really subscribe to. Like that's us. Like we consider ourselves as wolves and other tribes looked at us as such. Cause like, there's also some cultural stuff where like when we'd spy on other tribes or do other things, we would don wolf pelts. So if you were looking at us from the Prairie from miles away, you just be like, okay, there's a wolf being an asshole watching us. When really it was like,
00:30:31
Speaker
bunch of Pawnees like. Those are some good looking horses. Women, not so hot, but those horses though, they're looking good.
00:30:39
Speaker
Shade throne. Anyways, sorry. I apologize. David, please drop wisdom. Oh, you're good. Yeah. So like the Mongol reindeer herders believe they're descended from wolves and that dogs and them have a shared kinship and ancestry. And like when you die, you can be reincarnated as a dog or a dog can be reincarnated as a wolf or as a human. I mean, pretty cool. The Seneca up in New York thought like, you know, during creation,
00:31:05
Speaker
like everything had the chance or not everything but just dogs had the chance to be like human I guess like their essence or their spirit and because like dogs are promiscuous and gross like the spirits were like no you can't be human so like it's humans job to like care for them so they like again they're seen as some non-human
00:31:26
Speaker
But non-animal creature and it's like they've always been that way Which is very cool to me and then like, you know the mythology all around the world dogs have something to do with death Like Fenrir his sons eat the you know, the moon or the Sun or whatever the Anubis He's the god of the dead not not a god of death. He's the only god that like
00:31:47
Speaker
likes you, and he's not, he's always benevolent. Cerberus guards the River Styx, or like he's the, like Hades's pet. And then the, there's like dogs. I think the Huron thought there was a big dog that guards the river to the afterlife that, you know, if it liked you, you could pass. If you didn't like you, you couldn't pass.
00:32:07
Speaker
And then obviously the Aztecs believe like a dog could like carry you across. Your dogs wait for you to carry you across the river and then they take you through the Nine Lands of the Dead. Like it's a huge thing because you don't know how to get there. Your dog already knows how to get through the Nine Lands of the Dead for some reason. Anyway, dogs have always been a thing in most of these indigenous cultures that I have researched and they also play like a significant role with death in the afterlife.
00:32:31
Speaker
Which is absolutely fascinating. I mean, one, your TikToks, you have one specific TikTok series where Strider plays Anubis. That's the video I made for Raiden. Yeah, it is. Like I have an image in my head of how Strider, like what his voice sounds like. And when I watched your TikTok, where it's just Strider just like kind of panting at the camera and he has this like really deep voice.
00:32:59
Speaker
No more. He just giggles so much. And it's such a good video. I need to do more of that. Yeah. Strider's the best boy in the world. He's a good dog. He's a good dog. He's such a handsome dog. I can't stress that enough. Like out of all the Wyoming mountain dogs, like I wish all of them looked like Strider, but he's the
00:33:19
Speaker
Yeah, Gil was pissed. I neutered him. And I was like, I don't want a 90 pound hellhound running around or my house if I moved to New York again. We got very sidetracked from the Siberian Foss experiment. So I forgot that was the point of this 18 minutes ago. That was a great segue, though. And like I'm always like I literally can answer anything. We could make this like three podcasts if we want or I can just make my own. So we started this with like Connor saying, let's go through like all like two dozen
00:33:46
Speaker
domesticated animals and we're still stuck on numero uno. I mean, that's, I think I suggested that to Connor's dismay. I can't remember, but like when I hit them all, I was, I was, I was, I was pro dog. Come on. All of the animals. Yeah. Do you have a cat? I don't know. She's annoying Winston. What your female cat's name is Winston and Connor. No, no, no. That's in the past. I have a cat named Calypso. Calypso. Winston was broken. Human bonds.
00:34:17
Speaker
I mean, no, that was, uh, that was Brooks cat Winston. No, it wasn't. It was Sherlock. Yeah. Yeah. That cat was large. Uh, anyway, let's start the next one. You can pick my brain about anything, but you, because we tease the Siberian fox spirit, we should probably talk about that. And then the rest of it can kind of be answered with Stefan's video, but
00:34:35
Speaker
Yeah. If you want to learn what fricking Soviet union Russians did with Foxes, this is in terms of like understanding the investigation, this is nuts. So we'll be right back with segment three of episode 63 of life rooms podcast. We'll continue on with the Fox experiment.
00:34:54
Speaker
And I am here with Joseph Stalin and Premier George Malenkov and comrades. I have great idea. Great idea. We domesticate Fox.
00:35:10
Speaker
We demysticate Fox and we released Fox to Capitalist West, where they eat all capitalist cats and dogs, and then the capitalists will crumble in society without their favorite pretz. This is a great idea, yes? My God. I don't even know what to do with that. Yeah. Who's Stalin?
00:35:35
Speaker
I think you're stalling, stalling for time. So, Dimitri Balayev. Balayev? He's the brainchild behind the domesticated Fox project. He passed away, though, back in the 80s, I believe. I mean, the guy's a fossil. He's gone, probably. I think he died in the 80s because now that whole project has been taken over by Ludmilla.
00:36:05
Speaker
I don't know how to say it to you. She's in control now. Wait, there's still, this is an ongoing. Okay. Well, first of all, what is the Siberian Fox experiment and when did it start? First off, it might be true. I don't know, but I just meant like, yes, that's the author and whatever the word was.
00:36:26
Speaker
Yeah, so the Siberian phos experiment. So the Yayev was a Soviet geneticist and he went to Siberia. One story I said, said he was like exiled there and he was supposed to do that. Like, I don't know like who came up with that. I don't know if that's true. But anyway, the guy is up there breeding tame silver foxes. So Vulpes, Vulpes. And I believe Vulpes can't remember.
00:36:48
Speaker
and taming them so that they can better use their furs or like, like, you know, get the furs easier. So being a geneticist, he was like, all right, well, let's get two birds stowed at once. And he bred a bunch of foxes that were like docile and then ones that were aggressive as a control. So when what he would do and his like researchers would stick a gloved hand in the
00:37:16
Speaker
the cages and if the fox is coward or like hissed at him, or if they cowered and like didn't really like a hissed at him, he'd called him docile. And if they like hissed at him and tried to bite the glove, he called him aggressive or he called him dragons. And that eventually, you know, after several generations of doing that, I think about 13, the docile group had essentially, this is debated, but domestication syndrome.
00:37:44
Speaker
And, but I mean, outwardly they just showed, you know, floppy ears, spotted coats, increased eye contact with humans and like tails that wagged and they were like more cute. So, and the aggressive foxes were just like, nope.
00:37:59
Speaker
So what that does is show us that, like, yeah, and the arguments with this are like twofold. One, it's just a terrible way to like treat animals like within the cages and stuff. But, you know, it was the 60s or whatever. So we didn't have, I guess, compassion for animals or something like that. But it's still going on today. The cages are better, I think now. But then they were like little chicken coops. But the cages are better now under Obama. The cages were too small for the children. I've made it better. Make America great again.
00:38:29
Speaker
Who's president? Who is that? Oh, okay. Um, yeah. So.
00:38:40
Speaker
Moving on. So this whole project, as you mentioned, the foxes they're using are these like gray silver foxes, which were specifically bred back in the day. They're like a subspecies of red fox, like you said, for their fur. And yeah, he started doing some Mendelian stuff with foxes to figure out domestication, but rather with like flowers or peas or whatever Mandel did.
00:39:04
Speaker
Yeah, and he was into Mendelian genetics, but the Soviet government wasn't for some reason. I forget like what that deal was. And like the fox cages being bad is like one argument that it's like a bad thing that contributes to their behavioral changes. And also he did it like extremely controlled selecting for those traits and like knowing what a domestic animal should be already.
00:39:26
Speaker
So he gives it a bias and he in 13 generations made a domestic fox. But like, you know, 20,000 years ago, it probably took way longer than that. Probably took like 50,000 years before that to get to the stage. And that's pretty nuts, right? Because the more domesticated species gets, the more breeding cycles it has, right? Yeah.
00:39:44
Speaker
And I think according to Angela's latest work, 20,000 years is like the genetic signature for like a modern dog that we have or like what we would call a dog. So I don't know what they would have looked like, but that would be like a domestic ash or domestic ish thing.
00:40:01
Speaker
But didn't Bernie Taylor tell us that there are Burmese mountain dogs in Upper Paleolithic rock art from 35,000 years ago? He did tell us that. Yeah, those were words that came out of his mouth. Yeah, we also were told that there'd be a border wall, but I don't see one of those. Now that I wanted one, I'm happy there's not one. But you see, I'm just saying empty words. I don't want there to be dogs in those caves. Well, I mean, I do want there to be dogs in those caves, I should say, but I don't... How should I say this?
00:40:30
Speaker
There aren't the dogs that he's seeing in those caves at all. He also says it's a crocodile and a giraffe. Hey, remember, red means stop, but we're going to go ahead. Another aspect of this fox farm is it's still an ongoing fur producing place, right? Because they can only afford, I think it's like 500 foxes and the foxes that don't make that 500 cut.
00:40:55
Speaker
do become gloves, I imagine, which is another ethical aspect of that whole thing is like, but it also supports the business. Yeah. It gets, you know, Russia and like, yeah, that was like a huge wave of people wanting domestic foxes, but like you still have a wild ass animal in your house and like you can't, it's like, you know, would I get one? Absolutely. But would I recommend people get one? No.
00:41:21
Speaker
But yeah, so I mean, the implications of this, we don't have to go into like the whole fox thing, because we've gone for hours, but would be that like, yes, you can domesticate an animal relatively quickly if you wanted to. So my thought process is like, once people realized, okay, these wolves are not going to hurt us, or these like, you know, we share kinship with these animals, which I believe would personally be, if we want to get post-percessional about it would be the case.
00:41:49
Speaker
That they would start selecting for it like they would know Like kill the bad ones and like the good ones and stuff or like the bad ones just they just kept away with like fire and stuff So yeah, I mean that's the implications of that and then Ironically the the earliest date for dogs we have now is also in Siberia. So cool is that is that that 20,000 year old date you're talking about? Mm-hmm
00:42:13
Speaker
Yeah. And that's like that glaciation kept all those groups of people, your ancestors really up, up there. And like, those are the, also the people that went eventually over to, you know, the Americas and brought dogs with them. I know some people don't think that, you know, paleo indians had dogs, but I, I think they did. They would have had them at that point. So I don't know.
00:42:35
Speaker
But if we want to say that the cross and boats, then it's really hard to have dogs. But the Polynesians did that, did it well. There's dogs in Hawaii when Captain Cook got there. So it's possible. I saw a dude eat at the reservoir the other weekend because he tried to get his dog on the paddle board and the dog was not about it, flipped it. And the dude just wham, smacked his head on the rocks on the side. He used to hang out and wrap a new one, I guess. I guess so. Connor, what were you going to say? I was going to say the same thing, something about dogs on paddle boards.
00:43:06
Speaker
That's exactly where my mind went. I guess I have a philosophical question for you, and I think we kind of hinted at this. Is this experiment worth figuring out as a proof of concept for domestication? Is it worth
00:43:23
Speaker
going through and maybe treating animals a little cruelly to ultimately see if domestication is possible.
00:43:39
Speaker
I don't know, man. You got to break a few eggs to make some cake, or whatever the thing is. To make it omelette, but also cakes, do count. Yeah, so it's what it is. There was just so much, like DaVinci and all of them were just cutting animals open, doing whatever they wanted. We found some stuff out like that. We have the basis of it now.
00:44:02
Speaker
Yeah. Do I recommend like we treat animals poorly now to do research? Definitely not chimps. Definitely not apes. I don't want that to happen. I really don't want any animal to get hurt if it doesn't have to or like be put under unnecessary stress. Spiders. Take all the spiders and snakes you need. Yeah. I'm not a huge fan of those. Uh, O'Connor has a spider bite. Spider bite that I'm going to, I'm going to die from. So that's cool. Yeah, but I don't know. So.
00:44:28
Speaker
Um, everything I just said was a character piece. So just, you know, take it with a grain of salt. Uh, yeah, it's, it's a tough question. What do you guys think? I don't know. I think it's like, I kind of go back to like, uh, they have statues of, I can't remember where the statue is, but they have statue of like lab mice somewhere. Yeah. Yeah. Because they, they've basically tested everything on.
00:44:53
Speaker
Most things that are similar to humans, they tried to test on lab mice or anything like that. These animals have been used for long periods of time, but have done a lot of good for humankind in general. So I go both ways. I don't think we need it anymore.
00:45:14
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I can't say that people in the past were significantly bad or significantly good unless they did really awful things. I mean, fundamentally, we have the same brains as we did like 10,000 years ago. Sure. People are still people. But we just didn't have like collective knowledge of like the animal kingdom and the fact that they can like ration and, you know, all that. They also only had the same fauna that were in their area unless they were like, you know, at the Colosseum in Rome. Saw some exotic stuff, you know, but
00:45:43
Speaker
The first animal in space, I think, was a dog before as a person, and then they sent a chimp. Luka? Luka? What's the dog's name? I have it on my post-it notes here to do a post about it. First dog in space. But they might have sent mice before that. Lika. Lika? Lika. Lika. There we go. Sorry, my son was coming out. Latka. No, they did not send fried potatoes in space.
00:46:10
Speaker
But sadly, the dog did not come back alive. Yeah. And that's that's the thing. Dogs will over. They'll eat until they pass out and die. So that's like some I remember my like old World War two that uncle in law. I remember telling him that he was like, you see, he's Irish. He's like your cousin there. She'll she'll eat all the food and she'll get full. She'll get full. I mean, he doesn't have an Irish accent at all. But he was like your dog there.
00:46:37
Speaker
he'll just keep eating and keep eating until he upchucks it. And I didn't know what upchucked meant so I had to ask him because the guy's from the 40s. Anyway, yeah, I think that's how the dog died like over eight because the food dispensers like didn't work right.
00:46:52
Speaker
It overheated, so the true cause of Laika's death wasn't made public until 2002. She died like hours after getting into space. Overheating, caused by a failure of the central R7 sustainer to separate from the payload. I don't know what that means. I'm not a science guy, but... Damn. I guess I only knew the old explanation. I mean, I could be dead wrong. Yeah, fucking shoot me if I'm wrong. I'm just trying to be quick about this with the Google. You could be totally right. Yeah, no, you're good.
00:47:18
Speaker
What other questions did you guys have for me? I remember, like, we're doing this segment two days later, but... A week later. Oh. I have no perception of time. See, after watching the YouTube version, I'm back at my house. That's why the sudden drastic change of scenery. We wanted to move into, unless Connor has a different idea, I'm with the remaining minutes we have left, like, what happened to Ameri-Indian dogs? I know we did a video on it a while ago.
00:47:46
Speaker
Yeah, this is like my most requested video too. And I'm like, guys, we did one already, but like, I don't have one on YouTube, I guess. But yeah, it's, all the dogs came in with people in the Americas, like paleo Indians, or at least like the archaic indigenous peoples came over in later waves, brought dogs. Anyway, those dogs were here and they're like a dingo looking type thing. And a small little dog, just brown,
00:48:15
Speaker
I look at Carolina Swamp Dog or Carolina Dingo. And those turns into all the other breeds and stuff that are here. But they all got completely replaced by the, and they interbred with coyotes, they interbred with wolves, they're back and forth and stuff. And actually black wolves, that's from breeding with a dog. Like there's no black wolves in the wild. Well, I mean, there are now, but it's from intermixing with dogs. Yeah. And they all got replaced when the Europeans came because there's just so many more European dogs.
00:48:43
Speaker
that came here and like like in the case of the chihuahua yeah it's a um
00:48:50
Speaker
It's a, you know, it's a Mesoamerican dog in origin, but like it has bred with so many European dogs and then been bred back to a Chihuahua at this point that it's just a European dog. There's no more pre-contact dogs, which is arguably sad. And like, we don't have any, but I mean, like, it's just dogs are dogs. Like they just, they just slam each other all the time. So like, they're just gonna, the dogs do what dogs do. It's not really like.
00:49:16
Speaker
I don't think that's like a genocide in itself. It's like, you know, the culture is gone from those dogs and we don't get to see them anymore, but it's just, you know, nature. People could have chose not to do it, but... Yeah. Well, they could have chose not to have sex with the dogs too, but they could have chose not to, you know, rape and pillage an entire continent, but anyway.
00:49:33
Speaker
On this episode of bestiality with life and ruins, this might be a stupid question. So all evidence points to people bringing them over and not domesticating them again in North America? Yes, currently the evidence suggests that they were not domesticated here. That's just genetic. It all matches across the continents and whatnot.
00:49:59
Speaker
I still think it's a valid theory, there's no way to test it, but like the man's best friend, man's worst enemy, like you bring dogs into an ecosystem that have never seen a dog and people, those dogs can bring rabies, they can bring all kinds of different worms from the old world, all kinds of stuff like that.
00:50:16
Speaker
And, uh, when the paleoindians got here and all this megaphone is here, they could be, you know, devocating in rivers, putting those like jardia in that, like all, or, you know, whatever kind of worms. And then if that has rabies and it bites a rabbit with rabies or something like that, and then a saber tooth bites that animal, then that gets rabies and then bites mammoths. You know, it's just, it could cause a hyper disease and things like that, which would cause like a really quick wipeout of animals, just like smallpox did to the people here.
00:50:45
Speaker
There's no way to test that because you can't really see it, but it's an interesting thing to think about because you have this like, like, I mean, well, on the podcast, on this note, like if you're in the entire history, if you think about like this, Bob talks about it, entire history of the world. You have nothing going on until the first homo habilis like cracks a rock together in half. And then like you have this like boom of tools and like humans just populate there like millions of years later.
00:51:10
Speaker
In that time, no animal, except a remora fish, attaching itself to an eel, or a manorae, wow, that's different, really cooperates with each other like that in the way that humans and dogs do. We literally speak to each other, and the North American megafauna and fauna here just not only see what looks like a wolf, which is usually bad news coming, but they just see this giant hairless primate with sharp rocks
00:51:38
Speaker
coming at them and like they're teamed up and they're like oh god and then they all get wiped out either from climate or that but I don't know just all around the world it's just a cool relationship that exists and I think maybe I said it in the first segment but like dogs are a cool artifact of our like ice age past because they're like they're a link between us and the animal world I think is like why we love dogs so much
00:52:05
Speaker
They're a human technology. Yeah. I think Angela calls them a biotechnology, which is cool. And those like the videos of them hunting the cats and stuff or the the mountain lions. It's just like you're sending robots to like hunt something like really. It's all it is. Like you do. You program them to do something and they did. I don't know. Dogs just fascinating. So the paleo Indians released biological warfare on North America. A letter with Dean accusing them of early genocide.
00:52:34
Speaker
You know, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna point fingers here, but I think it's, I don't know if that's like my main theory, but I do like to ponder that theory just cause I like dogs, so I'm biased. But like, it's interesting to think about cause dogs can cause a lot of harm to an environment. Just like the one under my feet drooling on my feet right now. It's gross. Get out of here.
00:52:54
Speaker
He just moaned. Um, I think that's it, right? Yeah. That's, that's it for us for this episode. We'll be back, I guess, like what next time we'll do, we'll continue this domestication talk, talk about different animals. Oh, right. Yeah. We're going to do all the other animals and stuff. We can do more dogs and stuff too. Yeah. That looks like we're doing a series now. We'll do that. And then we'll get really boring and go into domesticated plants. Actually though, we can talk about corn. Amazing. Yeah. So amazing.
00:53:22
Speaker
David, thank you so much for letting us bombard you with questions for this episode. It's absolutely fascinating to hear you talk about dogs. You're such a fountain of knowledge. You're a bark box of dog knowledge in the archaeological record. It just keeps coming and coming. You also, the other day when we were talking on the phone, you told me I was the cryptocurrency of archaeology. I forget what the context was. I did. I did. I'll have to explain that later. Please remember to rate and review our podcast on iTunes.
00:53:51
Speaker
Tell us we suck, tell us we're good, whatever it is, all that stuff helps us. And remember, no cats. Yeah, and also reach out to us. No cats. If you have questions. Also, I got awesome stickers in the mail the other day from Amelia. Oh, yeah. She's having some too, a couple of weeks ago. I just got back from the field, so I just got them. She's awesome. Definitely look up, look up her. We got to get her on the show. We can get like an ASL interpreter. Absolutely. I was thinking about that today. We definitely need to do that. I need to throw those on a water bottle. So yeah, that's been episode 63 of Life from its podcast.
00:54:22
Speaker
you
00:54:30
Speaker
Thanks for listening to a life in ruins podcast. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook at a life in ruins podcast. And you can also email us at a life in ruins podcast at gmail.com. And remember, make sure to bring your archaeologists in from the cold and feed them beer. Why is corn the most successful aggregate in the world? It's not wheat. It's amazing.
00:55:05
Speaker
This episode was produced by Chris Webster from his RV Traveling America, Tristan Boyle in Scotland, and the Archaeology Podcast Network, and was edited by Chris Webster. This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archpodnet.com. Contact us at chrisatarchaeologypodcastnetwork.com.