There is a long history between dogs and humans. Archaeological evidence suggests that the first animals to be tamed were dogs. Dogs were domesticated 30,000 years ago, which is more than 10,000 years before the domestication of horses and ruminants. Domestication started when gray wolves were scavenging for food scraps from humans and began to cooperate in return for food and shelter. The wolves then helped the hunter-gatherers hunt for food. Over thousands of years of breeding, wolves evolved into the dogs we have today.
At the burial site in Predmosti (Czech Republic), a dog thought to be around 32,000 years old was found buried with bone. In Oberkassel in Germany, a skeleton of a disabled dog believed to be about 14,300 years old, was discovered with the bodies of a man and woman. This indicates that the connection between humans and dogs dates back to ancient times. Many dog burial sites have been discovered. The mummified black dog of Tumut in Russia is supposed to be around 12,450 years old.
About 12,000 years ago in Israel, at the Ain Mallaha Natufian settlement, 12 individuals are buried with one of their hands resting on the body of a small puppy. Dogs have also played leading roles in civilizations, such as Anubis in Egypt, Xolotl in Maya, and Cerberus in Greece, where their function was to accompany the deceased to the other world.
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