Ancient dog DNA pushes back domestication to 16,000 years ago
Two Nature studies of ancient dog and wolf DNA reveal the oldest dog remains come from a 15,800–16,000-year-old skull in Pınarbaşı, Turkey, pushing dog domestication back by about 5,000 years. The research shows dogs spread across Europe by around 14,300 years ago, were kept by hunter‑gatherers before the Neolithic farmers’ arrival, and include evidence of puppies buried near human graves, indicating a close human–dog relationship. While dogs clearly split from wolves long before farming, the exact domestication path remains unresolved due to a persistent genetic gap between dogs and wolves.